Projects per year
Abstract
States have become active participants in markets in the past decade, precipitating renewed scholarly interest in state capitalism. We contribute to the conceptualization of contemporary state capitalism by bridging it with scholarship on infrastructure-led development and analysing its political rationality. We begin by introducing mid-20th century high modernism, which coupled spatial planning and social engineering for the purpose of transforming territory and ‘improving’ populations. Through a comparative historical analysis of development regimes in Tanzania, we demonstrate that contemporary state capitalism tends to decouple these objectives; while there is an emphasis on the transformation of territory, social engineering is virtually absent. Instead, individuals are meant to recognize economic opportunity afforded by infrastructure projects and self-actualize accordingly. Our analysis shows that the political rationality of contemporary state capitalism in Tanzania combines high-modernist spatial planning with orthodox neoliberal assumptions surrounding the inherent entrepreneurialism of individuals.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 30 |
Journal | Area Development and Policy |
Early online date | 22 Sept 2021 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 22 Sept 2021 |
Keywords
- Tanzania
- infrastructure
- social engineering
- spatial planning
- state capitalism
Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms
- Global Development Institute
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- 2 Finished
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A World of Rust Belts?: Deindustrialisation and its Impacts in Cities in the Global South
1/09/18 → 28/02/22
Project: Research
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GCRF: DAMS 2.0: Design and assessment of resilient and sustainable interventions in water-energy-food-environment Mega-Systems
Hulme, D., Anderson, K., Bottacin Busolin, A., Dimova, R., Foster, T., Harou, J., Imai, K., Larkin, A., Lavers, T., Mancarella, P., Mutale, J., Panteli, M., Sen, K. & Whittington, D.
1/10/17 → 31/12/21
Project: Research