| | In 1985, Julius K. Nyerere, one of the South's most articulate and influential critics of Northern policies resigned as president of Tanzania. Soon after, his successor - Ali Hassan Mwinyi - would reach agreement with the IMF and World Bank. Tanzania, for many, the experiment in African socialism and the high-profile heretic of the 1980s had fallen and recanted, implementing a structural adjustment programme. Tanzania was in many ways exceptional. A former World Bank favourite, it became one of the few cases in sub-Sahara Africa where the IMF and World Bank brought their full coercive power to bear in a protracted struggle. In understanding this apparent contradiction, this paper discusses the role played by economic discourses in shaping the positions taken by two key actors in the policy process: the Government of Tanzania and the World Bank. |
