A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Accountability and Clientelism in Dominant Party Politics: The Case of a Constituency Development Fund in Tanzania Machiko Tsubura Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies University of Sussex January 2014 - ii - I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: ……………………………………… - iii - UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX MACHIKO TSUBURA DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN DEVELOPMENT STUDIES ACCOUNTABILITY AND CLIENTELISM IN DOMINANT PARTY POLITICS: THE CASE OF A CONSTITUENCY DEVELOPMENT FUND IN TANZANIA SUMMARY This thesis examines the shifting nature of accountability and clientelism in dominant party politics in Tanzania through the analysis of the introduction of a Constituency Development Fund (CDF) in 2009. A CDF is a distinctive mechanism that channels a specific portion of the government budget to the constituencies of Members of Parliament (MPs) to finance local small-scale development projects which are primarily selected by MPs. While existing studies argue that the control of resources is essential for dominant parties to maintain their power in politics, the adoption of a type of CDF in Tanzania poses a puzzle; why did the dominant ruling party of Tanzania accept a CDF that would give the legislature financial autonomy and might weaken the party’s power over MPs? Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analyses, the thesis demonstrates that a CDF proposal was moved forward as part of the reform to strengthen the legislature, and the ruling party accepted it to re-establish party coherence and gain public support in preparation for the general elections in 2010, after it was plagued by the revelation of corruption scandals involving party leaders and intraparty competition. The thesis has also found that a CDF was adopted when clientelistic voters were increasingly dissatisfied with the performance of MPs and some MPs had begun providing financial assistance to voters systematically. With a formal project-selection and monitoring mechanism in place, the Tanzanian CDF has more potential to restrict the prevalence of clientelistic accountability than the provision of private or club goods by MPs based on private resources. The Tanzanian case demonstrates that CDFs can potentially mitigate the influence of clientelism in the accountability relationship between MPs and voters in developing countries. - iv - Acknowledgements Over the last four years of my doctoral research, I have received tremendous support from a number of people and institutions in the United Kingdom, Tanzania, Kenya and Japan. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Andrés Mejía Acosta and David K. Leonard, for their unwavering support and incisive guidance at every stage of my doctoral study. I was fortunate to have a third supervisor, Shandana Khan Mohmand. I appreciate her helpful advice in the last stage of writing this thesis. I am also grateful for the support and advice from the research fellows in the Governance Team at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), in particular, Diana Conyers, Mick Moore, Richard Crook, Anuradha Joshi, Fiona Wilson, Robin Luckham and Peter Houtzager for their insightful comments at my Research Outline Seminar and Work-in-Progress Seminar, and on various other occasions. I wish to thank Linda Waldman and Jeremy Allouche, former and current PhD Convenors, Angela Dowman, PhD Administrator, Caroline Martin, Administrative Coordinator of Governance Team and librarians at the British Library for Development Studies for their kind support. I also received valuable comments and encouragement from scholars outside the IDS. My deep gratitude extends to Kazuaki Inoue for introducing me to the studies of African politics fifteen years ago and having guiding me since then, Goran Hyden for being the source of my inspiration and motivation for research, Yuichi Sasaoka and Yuko Kasuya for their helpful input, and Nic Cheeseman, Tim Kelsall and Gabrielle Lynch for their insightful comments on my research outline and conference paper. My doctoral study was financially supported by the Japan Student Services Organization through its Student Exchange Support Program, and my fieldwork in Tanzania and Kenya was funded by the Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation. I sincerely thank the two organisations for their assistance. I am grateful to the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh, the UK Tanzania Research Network and the American Political Science Association for giving me opportunities to present my research findings and to the participants who gave me valuable feedback. I would like to thank all the PhD friends I have met at the IDS and the University of Sussex, especially Ariadna Ripoll Servent, Florence Dafe and Ricardo Santos who gave me useful comments on my research outline, work-in-progress paper and the draft of this thesis. I also thank Suchi Pande, Marika Djolai, Rose Oronje, Mai Fujita, Javier Yanguas Arellano, Julian Salazar, Ronald Adamtey, Rehab Osman, Helen Dancer, Motomichi Igarashi, Juan Loera-Gonzalez, Arnunchanog Sakondhavat, Erik Manga, Muhammad Mujtaba Piracha, Shilpi Srivastava, Tamahi Kato and Jennifer Pollex for their helpful comments on the research design, various tips on fieldwork and encouragement in writing this thesis. I deeply thank my Tanzanian friends who taught me Swahili in Brighton: Imelda Kissava, Hezon Makundi, Rogasian Massue, Rose Kiishweko and Sylvia Audax. I would also like to thank Jane Pennington for her proofreading and advice on academic writing. This thesis could not have been produced without the generous support of people and institutions in Tanzania. I thank the Tanzania Commission for Science and - v - Technology for allowing me to conduct research in Tanzania. I am truly grateful for the support extended from the officials at the Embassy of Japan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency in Tanzania. I am indebted to Tanzanian political scientists. I thank Benson Bana and Bernadeta Killian for giving me an institutional support and an opportunity to present my preliminary findings at the University of Dar es Salaam, and John Jingu, Richard Mbunda and Bashiru Ally, my best local advisors, for always being supportive of my research. I am grateful to the National Assembly of Tanzania for allowing me to interview Honourable Members of Parliament (MPs) and collect information at their library. I sincerely thank all the MPs listed at the end of this thesis for spending their precious time on sharing their stories and insights with me. Here, I would like to acknowledge MPs who helped me not only by answering questions but in various other ways. I am truly grateful to the Hon. Said Mtanda for introducing me to the world of Tanzanian politicians, the Hon. Mohammed Dewji for allowing me to visit his constituency. I am also thankful to the Hon. Samuel Sitta for sharing with me the meeting minutes of his Constituencies Development Catalyst Committee, the Hon. Zitto Kabwe for valuing my research and helping me understand how politics works in the country, the Hon. January Makamba for showing me the office of the Bumbuli Development Corporation and the Hon. Mendrad Kigola and Hon. Gosbert Blandes for their kind support and friendship. I would like to thank the staff of the National Assembly who welcomed my visit and in particular, Brown Mwangoka for his overall support to my research in Parliament, and John Joel, Abdallah Hancha, Aggrey Nzowa and librarians for their assistance. I am sincerely grateful to the Research for Poverty Alleviation and Jamal Msami for accepting some of my proposed questions for the Afrobarometer survey in 2012 and Brian Cooksey for sharing the latest Views of the People survey report. I would also like to thank Brendan McSherry for his helpful guidance during my fieldwork, Hebron Mwakagenda for his support to my research, Waziri Salum who helped me deepen the understanding of Tanzanian politics, Hassan Mazala for arranging my short but fruitful visits to Singida, Aloyce Mwangeni for his assistance with my archival research at the High Court Library and Sonia Languille for sharing time in Dodoma. For my fieldwork in Kenya, I wish to thank Munene Charles Kiura for his excellent research assistance and Anna Schmidt for accommodating me in Nairobi. I am truly grateful to Mohamed and Jibu Matitu (Baba and Mama Saada) and their family who not only offered me a safe place to stay in Dar es Salaam but welcomed me as part of their family. As Mama Saada said to me on the day I visited them for the first time, ‘Jisikie nyumbani (feel at home)’, I always felt at home with them. I would like to thank Glory Saavedra Rigueros who greatly enriched my time in Brighton and shared lots of joyful moments. I also thank Koichi Akimoto for his warm and stable support during