Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial Authoritarianism in Tanzania: Connects and Disconnects

Abstract

Abstract:Through an examination of the Tanzanian experience, this article takes up a challenge forcefully posed by Mahmood Mamdani'sCitizen and Subjectto examine connections between late colonial and postindependence state power on the African continent. The discussion is critical of Mamdani's argument that postindependence authoritarianism in Africa can be understood as an institutional legacy of late colonialism. However, connections to colonial times did exist in the frames of legitimation that underpinned the frequently authoritarian actions of the postindependence Tanzanian state. One such connection was the persistent paternalism vis-à-vis their “subjects” that characterized the political imagination of state elites; another was the fact that “the colonial past” served as an important reference point in the construction of a deeply Manichean discourse and practice of politics after independence.