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Caught in the Web of Bureaucracy? How ‘Failed’ Land Deals Shape the State in Tanzania

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After more than ten years of hectic debates on international ‘land grabs’, academic interest in collapsed land deals or projects with unexpected results is growing.

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Matipwili village, Bagamoyo district, Tanzania
Matipwili village, Bagamoyo district, Tanzania
Sina Schlimmer
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According to the Land Matrix, Tanzania is one of the target countries for such deals, with a number ‘abandoned’ or delayed and projects whose status is unknown. Labelling land deals as ‘failed’ poses conceptual and methodological challenges as long as the criteria for ‘failure’ are undefined. Based on the critical literature on policy failure, this article starts from the premise that the focus on ‘failure’ masks dynamics that actually work, such as administrative resistance and daily state making. Land deals are defined as the implementation of pro-investment land policies. The article then analyzes the trajectories of two interrupted biofuel projects with international investors in the districts of Bagamoyo and Kisarawe.

The results of this analysis show how the uncertainty surrounding the future of both land deals creates room for maneuver for bureaucratic and political agents on different government levels to renegotiate their power, and for transnational civil society stakeholders to consolidate their positions in the land arena. The omnipresence of administrative procedures opens the debate over whether the Tanzanian regime has completed its transition towards liberalism or if it reflects its socialist legacy.

Schlimmer, Sina (2020), "Caught in the Web of Bureaucracy International Development Policy. How 'Failed' Land Deals Shape the State in Tanzania", Revue internationale de politique de développement, vol. 12, n°2.

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Subsaharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa Center
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Founded in 2007, Ifri's Sub-Saharan Africa center produces an in-depth analysis of the African continent and its security, geopolitical, political and socio-economic dynamics (in particular the phenomenon of urbanization). The Center aims to be both, through various publications and conferences, a space for disseminating analyzes intended for the media and the public but also a decision-making tool for political and economic actors with regard to the continent.

The center produces analyses for various organizations such as the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the French Development Agency (AFD) and even for various private supports. Its researchers are regularly interviewed by parliamentary committees.

The organization of events of various formats complements the production of analyzes by bringing the different spheres of the public space (academic, political, media, economic and civil society) to meet and exchange analytical tools and visions of the continent. The Sub-Saharan Africa Center regularly welcomes political leaders from different sub-Saharan African countries.

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Matipwili village, Bagamoyo district, Tanzania
Sina Schlimmer

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