Negotiating Land Policies to Territorialise State Power

Abstract

Land policies have been shaping the (trans)formation of the Tanzanian state since independence. Nevertheless, Tanzania has been referred to as a target country of the international “land rush,” which is often associated with a declining role of state actors in the land sector. This article argues, on the contrary, that the negotiations of land deals since the end of the 2000s have reconfirmed an interdependent relationship between land policy processes and state-building. While the formulation of investment-promoting land policies since the 1990s suggests that the privatisation of the sector has increased the leeway for foreign investors, their implementation has reaffirmed the omnipresence of state power. More broadly, the theoretical aim of this article is to consider large-scale land deals as a heuristic object for studies in political science investigating state (trans)formation in Africa.