In the Service of African Socialism

How should development be done? In the Service of African Socialism: Tanzania and the Global Development Work of the Two German States, 1961-1990 examines how development policy and practices as a field of cooperation and conflict became a significant component of international relations. In the 1960s, development became a universal goal and a contested policy field in the tensions between the Cold War, decolonisation and competing visions of socialism. In this context, the Tanzanian government also relied on expertise, loans and scholarships from capitalist and communist countries in East and West in building an independent African socialism. This support was seen as a necessity, but also as a threat, since development workers from capitalist and communist countries could always turn out to be Trojan horses that undermined the goals of African socialism. In the Service of African Socialism analyses, with a focus on concrete actors and arenas, how political rivalries and competing ideas actually translated into development policy practice. It examines which mechanisms and personal motives led West German development experts, East German government advisors or Tanzanian students in the GDR to participate in these exchange processes. The comprehensive source base, the innovative combination of archival research and oral history, and the look at long-term dynamics over a period of three decades reveal the diversity of perspectives on development as a goal, policy and practice. Several fields of action are examined historically for the first time, including the activities of government advisors, the presence of East and West Germans at the University of Dar es Salaam and a development programme in Tanga region, one of the most comprehensive West-German supported projects in Africa. On the basis of extensive, newly opened records in German and Tanzanian archives and more than 100 interviews, the book discusses agency in global development work from multiple vantage points and shows how far-reaching political visions increasingly gave way to the pragmatism of economic crisis management.