Industrial policy and the political settlement in Tanzania: aspects of continuity and change since independence

This article explores Tanzania's experience of industrial policy since independence through the concept of the political settlement. Higher growth in manufacturing since 1996 has been seen as a vindication of neoliberal policies of market liberalisation. Yet, the neoliberal approach fails to take account of the important legacy of state-led industrialisation under socialism and aspects of the political economy of the state in Tanzania that explain some of the longer-term constraints on industrialisation. Critical aspects of Tanzania's political settlement relate to state–capital relations and the distribution of power between contenting factions of intermediate classes within the state.