“Public” Interests and the Development of Tanzanian Environmental Policy

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“Public” Interests and the Development ofTanzanian Environmental Policy

GINGER ELLIOTT-TEAGUEUniversity of Oklahoma

“Public interest” narratives are practical tools for policy makers tojustify policy choices and methods of implementation. Few studies havebeen conducted on the narratives of the public interest in semidemocratic,less-developed countries, however. In Western scholarship, the publicinterest has been conceptualized in three ways: as the common good, asthe aggregation of public preferences, or as a deliberative process. Thisarticle examines how narratives of the public interest were used in thedevelopment of environmental policy in Tanzania over more than adecade. Looking at three stages of administrative policy making, thefindings suggest that narratives differ according to the audience perceivedto be most important to policy makers.

Keywords: Public Interest, Africa, Tanzania, Environment, PolicyMaking, Participation, Administration, Environmental Policy.

Las narrativas sobre el “interés público” son herramientas prácticasque los legisladores usan para justificar la elección de cierta políticay su método de implementación. Sin embargo, se han realizado pocosestudios acerca de las narrativas de interés público en paísessemidemocráticos y menos desarrollados. En la literatura occidental,el interés público ha sido conceptualizado de tres formas: como el biencomún, la agregación de las preferencias públicas, o como un procesodeliberativo. Este artículo examina cómo las narrativas del interéspúblico fueron usadas para el desarrollo de la política ambiental enTanzania durante más de una década. Observando tres etapas delproceso administrativo, los hallazgos sugieren que las narrativasdifieren de acuerdo a la audiencia que los legisladores consideran comomás importante.

The “public interest” has often been used to both design and justify policychoices and implementation across the globe. Policy makers claim that policyoutcomes will achieve the interests of the public, whether they are creatingconstitutions or regulations. Less clear, however, is what policy makers mean

Politics & Policy, Volume 39, No. 5 (2011): 835-861. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.© The Policy Studies Organization. All rights reserved.

when they allude to the “public interest” in support of policy goals andoutcomes. For example, are they referencing an expert opinion as to whatis best for the people or the people’s own stated preferences? The chosen publicinterest narrative likely depends on several factors, but I argue here that themost important is the intended audience. Since “governmental actors mustappear to act for the public interest” in democracies (Mitnick 1976, 23),narratives can be considered part of the act intended to persuade a particularaudience that the public interest is being pursued. Different policy justificationsmay be required depending on who is most invested in the outcome. Thisargument is developed through a review of three stages of environmental policymaking in Tanzania.

To examine the content and purpose of the allusion to the public interest,three narrative aspects should be considered. First, what is the language used topresent policy as being in the public interest? Second, how is that languagedefended? And finally, who is “the public” in the story? In designating thepublic, one should consider the audience of the allusion. Different publics mayhave diverse interests. This is important, particularly in places such asdeveloping nations, where policy statements are often issued for the benefit ofstakeholders who are not citizens of the state. Thus it is important not to assumethat a policy’s intended public is the citizenry.

In Western scholarship, “public interest” narratives can generally be dividedamong three categories: elite common good, preference aggregation, anddemocratic deliberation. I refer to these as the elite, majority, and processnarratives. Each has its own patterns of speech and its own justificationsfor policy outcomes and implications for policy design. None has a specificaudience, however. In the cases presented here, two audiences are possible:the citizens of Tanzania and their governmental and nongovernmentalrepresentatives, referred to herein as the “public,” and the set of internationaldonor organizations that sponsored much of the policy-making work. As will bedemonstrated in each policy stage, the dominant narrative on the public interestdiffered according to whether the intended audience was the public or the donorgroups.

The next section presents the three dominant Western public interestnarratives, concentrating on assumptions, understandings, and key words ofeach. I also discuss how each narrative proposes the public interest should begenerated as well as how policy should be justified. I then review the use ofpublic interest narratives in policy making across Africa and the implicationsfor the Western narratives. Next, I analyze the written and spoken discoursesof environmental policy making in Tanzania. Three stages are presented; eachhas a singular policy outcome. I determine the dominant narrative used in eachpolicy stage by assessing representations of the public interest in the policydocuments, related papers, and speeches and interview transcripts. The intendedaudience is also identified for each policy stage through the same informationsources.

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I determine that in Tanzania, “public interest” narratives used to justifypolicy outcomes are not always intended for a “public” audience even thoughthe particular policy covers the country as a whole. The intended audience intwo of the three cases here was international, not local. When the public was theintended audience, a narrative of the common good was employed to justifypolicy proposals. When the audience consisted of international donors, thenarrative was of democratic process.

The “Public Interest” Narrative

Policy makers refer to the public interest for specific reasons. I will assumethat all language has meaning and that public language in particular—writtenor spoken—is purposeful (Scollon 2008). Further, I will assume that policiescontain language meant to convey meaning to a particular audience about thegoals, purpose, and legitimacy of the policy itself; Schneider and Ingram (1997,99-100) call these “rationales,” and “the public interest” is “frequently resortedto as” a rationale. They also argue that in a democracy, one perhaps ought toassume that the intended audience is the citizen “public,” although any publicmay have many subpopulations that benefit or suffer from policy componentsin various ways (Schneider and Ingram 1997). Nevertheless, in countries that donot have exclusive control of their domestic policy, nonpublic (international)audiences may also be imagined. Policy makers may use both written andspoken communication to establish their narratives of justification.

Such references to the public interest are made to justify the componentsof a policy and to persuade or convince an audience that the policy is “right”for them. The policy should, in a sense, fulfill the public’s interests or the“expectations of the society” (Schneider and Ingram 1997, 4). This is based onthe root assumption that in a democracy, policy actions should be perceived tobe legitimate. Certainly the actual policy provisions matter, but policies can alsobe legitimated through a discussion of the public interest that will be achieved.I focus on three conceptualizations or narratives of the public interest in thisanalysis. The first is an elite view of the common good; the second is theaggregation of individual preferences; the third is deliberative process. Whilemore nuanced, thicker descriptions of the types of public interest exist (see e.g.,Mitnick 1976), a threefold typology corresponds well to the contemporaryusage of the term (Box 2007; Klosterman 1980; Minteer 2005).

The Elite, or Common Good, NarrativeThe “common good” approach is the historical or philosophical view of

the public interest. Minteer (2005, 42) describes this view “as the shared,common good of citizens comprising a recognizable political community. Thisnotion, typically associated with thinkers such as Rousseau and EdmundBurke . . . focuses more on the moral and even metaphysical notion of commongood (often in an objective sense).” It relies on an understanding of what is good

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for the public writ large—including anything that promotes general well-being—and is not based on a direct assessment of what the people want(Douglass 1980). This usage dates back hundreds of years, forming earlynotions of the role and purpose of government (Diggs 1973; Douglass 1980).The strength of these ideas is such that the “common good” is frequently usedto justify policy decisions today.

“Common good” justifications are linked to “Platonic guardian” policydesign narratives (Fox and Cochran 1990; Rhodes and Wanna 2007; Schubert1957). Lewis (2006, 697) describes the “Platonic guardian” role of the state as“stewardship” while Mitnick (1976, 24) describes it as having “fiduciary”authority. O’Toole (2006, 3) clarifies these ideas, elaborating

that those in official positions of public authority regard the interests of thewhole society as being the guiding influence over all public decision-making, that their personal or class or group interests are to be set asidewhen making decisions, and that they are public servants purely out of aperceived duty to service the public.

This elite “Platonic guardian” perspective suggests that the government’s job isto define, pursue, and protect the public interest. Officials can take on this rolebecause they are perceived to have “greater wisdom than ordinary citizens” inthe area of policy decision making (Douglass 1980, 106). Many proponentsof this view have argued that ordinary citizens are not even qualified for orinterested in governing themselves, and therefore the government’s duty is toprotect them and make policy decisions for them (King and Stivers 1998, 50).When policies are designed without public input (direct or indirect), but in the“public interest,” policy makers are referencing this conceptualization. This setsit apart from the other narratives of the public interest which emphasize thepublic source or design of the statement of “interest.” Thus, if the intereststatement does not have an explicit source “of the people,” then it is an elitenarrative.

Those using an elite narrative of the public good (consciously or not) willuse characteristic rhetoric that reveals a conviction that a common good existsoutside or above the dictates of the people. Policy makers may speak ofabsolutes and certainties. They will not speak of the people’s will or choices,for the stated desires of the people do not matter. They may dictate whatthe people need, what the land or the environment needs, what the nationneeds. Such statements may be based in logic, the common good, “expertise”or “experience,” but not, public perceptions. They may be hegemonic andpaternalistic or not, but will emphasize the responsibility of the government toensure that the goals are met (even if the people are also involved). Notably, thegoals that are presented may not differ from goals defined by the public itselfwere it to have the opportunity to define them. However, in this narrative, thepublic will not have that opportunity, nor will it be suggested that it should.


There are two major weaknesses of the elite “common good” narrative ofthe public interest. First, it assumes that public officials will pursue the public’sinterest without thinking of their own private interests in the process (Flathman1966; Schubert 1960). This assumption of the pure benevolence of publicofficials is problematic for many (Hyden 2006; O’Toole 2006). Second, when itbecomes necessary to identify exactly what constitutes the public interest, manyscholars and practitioners find only ambiguity—especially since the publicinterest is simply supposed to be known and then implemented. That publicofficials can know what the “people” need, possibly defining it in contrast towhat the people say that they want, is a troubling assumption (Klosterman1980; Rhodes and Wanna 2007). A bigger dilemma is determining and justifyingthe “greater public purpose” when multiple interests and needs existsimultaneously (Box 2007, 586; Schubert 1957). This has led many who seek topursue the public interest to try alternative formulations and justifications, suchas the two that follow.

The Aggregation of Preferences or Majority NarrativeThe second way in which the public interest is conceptualized is the

aggregative narrative, also referred to as the “liberal utilitarian” or even the“pluralist” model. “Here, the public interest is thought to be derived directlyfrom the mechanical or mathematical aggregation of individual interests”(Minteer 2005, 42). Quite simply, “it consists of whatever the majority ofthe people want at a given time, a utilitarian calculation of measurable andadditive individual ‘positions’” (Box 2007, 587). Interests may be expressed byindividuals themselves or through groups (the pluralist perspective; O’Toole2006, 4). The aggregative perspective can be seen in policy justifications thatrefer to “what the public wants”; it can be used in policy design when policymakers rely on gathering public opinion to specify policy provisions. In thepurest usage, officials do not express or incorporate their own views if they donot align with the public’s.

In the United States, this narrative has long dominated political and policydiscussions of interest identification, and is in many ways the most commonview of the public interest (Cochran 1974; Douglass 1980). Box (2007, 588)writes that “the aggregative perspective can be attractive. It has about it thefeeling of democracy because it valorizes the majority view and seems consistentwith the American penchant for individualism.” This perceived democraticspirit, along with the problems of identifying the “common good” of a diversesociety, may explain why it has dominated U.S. policy making.

Whether individual preferences are aggregated through voting, polling, andsurveys or through requests for comment, this conceptualization relies on adesign that privileges the majority response. This is true also for the aggregationof group preferences through formal or informal means. The side that wins isthe one with the greatest numerical support. Certainly, questions arise as to themeaning and representativeness of the majority view, the ability of minorities


to access the process and express their views, and others. Some argue thatthe question of representativeness makes justifications and design based onthis narrative highly problematic (King and Stivers 1998). Further, as withthe elite conceptualization, it is susceptible to misinformation about and themisrepresentation of the reality of personal and social interests. Relying on thestatement of individual preferences can be problematic when persons may ormay not understand the issue in its entirety and therefore may not know whatactually is in their best interest or those of society as a whole (Box 2007; Diggs1973; Klosterman 1980; Minteer 2005).

The Narrative of Process or Democratic DeliberationThe two previous conceptualizations—elite and majority—captured the

discussion about the public interest for decades (Benditt 1973; Diggs 1973;Douglass 1980). Because of their inherent problems, however, some nowprefer a third model for defining and justifying the public interest. Thethird conceptualization is the “public interest as process,” which “regardsindividuals as participants in dialogue about what is in the public interest andwhat the public sector should do about it” (Box 2007, 588). Process-basedconceptualizations are not new themselves. Schubert (1957, 366) describes thatprocess theorists “define the public interest, not as an essence, but as theresultant of the interaction of complex forces” that are fairly well equallyrepresented in the decision-making process. Cochran (1974, 331) also referencestwo similar types: a “process” set of theories of the public interest as well as a“consensualist” set.

Newer “process” conceptualizations are related to those earlier, althoughthe notion of process as used here is both broader and narrower than Schubert’sand Cochran’s. The newer form—prominent in discussions of deliberativedemocracy (Box 2007)—advances a process of intensive and intentionaldeliberation on policy. The process of deliberation produces (and sometimes is)the public interest. Minteer (2005) outlines this view concisely, relying heavilyon Dewey to give it substance. He argues that given the problems of both thecommon good and the aggregative approaches (especially in highly diversesocieties), the only way the public interest can be determined is throughmeaningful discussion and deliberation on the issues by citizens themselves.

Deliberation can be used to justify policy ex post; as a policy justification,however, it depends heavily on being representative and participatory,otherwise it is highly similar to the aggregative approach. If policy makers usea narrative that emphasizes participation, public engagement, and publicdecision making, then arguably the process conceptualization of the publicinterest is being used to justify policy outcomes. This differs from the languageof aggregation, which accentuates the preferences of the majority of the people.The latter does not imply deliberation or debate. Deliberation may be even moreuseful as a design tool, using these same precepts. If policy makers seek out thepublic interest by allowing the public to participate in policy decision making,


they are using process to establish that interest. Usually adherents of thisnarrative do not seek out an “objectively identifiable endpoint” (Lewis 2006,696) in policy making, instead relying on the process to determine outcomes inits own time.

As with the other conceptualizations, “process” has its own weaknesses.Because the process itself defines the public interest, it should be deliberatelydemocratic or risk becoming a venue for strong interests to prevail over others(Box 2007; King and Stivers 1998; Klosterman 1980; Minteer 2005).Deliberation can be formal or informal, rule bound, or unstructured. Eitherway, Minteer (2005) acknowledges that justifications and design based in thisnarrative assume that citizens can become educated about even highly complexissues and thus able to make technical policy decisions. It may also require directparticipation in the implementation and governance of policy—“collaborativegovernance”—and not just in decision making (Sirianni 2009). King and Stivers(1998) also point out that the process is messy and costly, which may produceresults that do not fully appeal to anyone in the end. It can therefore be difficultto use it to design specific policies unless only a small group is involved and thepolicy is narrow.

As presented, all three narratives can be used to design and/or justify policy.Invoking the “common good” is a widespread practice of policy makers inboth design and justification, although it is rarely defined clearly. References to“what the public wants” are also made frequently no matter how thatknowledge of public preferences may be gathered. Less common is the practiceof public deliberation in design or justification, although it is often valued at thelocal level in Western democracies (King and Stivers 1998) and by donors in lessdeveloped countries. “Public participation” in decision making has, over thepast two decades, become a mantra of bilateral and multilateral donors.Although it may or may not be “deliberation,” the public interest narrative of“participation” is similar (and, I argue, is merely a subtype of the former) in thatit focuses neither on an imposition of the common good nor on the aggregationof preferences. Rather, it emphasizes a deliberate role for the citizen in decisionmaking. I elaborate on this in the following section.

The “Public Interest” in Africa

The concept of the public interest has received attention in Western politicalanalysis for many decades now. Unfortunately, the documentation and studyof the public interest is much less developed across African countries. This isnot for a lack of data; officials regularly use and reference the variousconceptualizations to design and justify policy decisions. One of the clearest,most well-documented early uses of the “common good” narrative to justifypolicy making in Africa was Tanzania’s ujamaa vijijini. This was a policy ofsocialism in the villages, based on the local kinship rural communalismtraditions (Boesen, Madsen, and Moody 1977, 11). President Julius Nyerere


and the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), through the ArushaDeclaration of 1967, promoted the government’s role in pursuing the well-beingof the people. The declaration stated that

TANU believes . . . that it is the responsibility of the state to interveneactively in the economic life of the nation so as to ensure the well-being ofall citizens, and so as to prevent the exploitation of one person by anotheror one group by another, and so as to prevent the accumulation of wealthto an extent which is inconsistent with the existence of a classless society.(quoted in Taiwo 2004, 256-7)

The rest of the declaration details how and why this is to be accomplished.Although not explicitly framed in the language of the common good as thepublic interest, the link made between the actions of the state and the pursuit ofcitizens’ well-being has its roots in that ideal. The state was presented as thedefiner and guarantor of the public interest regardless of the people’s actualdesires. Eventually the state lived out this narrative: the final effort of the ujamaapolicy was the forced relocation of citizens to villages around the country for thepurposes of economic efficiency and social equity (Kaiser 1996, 229).

Indeed, one may argue that many of the early postindependence states, withtheir continued focus on remaking their nations along “African” models,maintained verbal reference to the ideal that the state’s purpose is to define andensure the common good (Hyden 2006). This kind of rhetoric was used to justifythe strong-state control that dominated most nations for decades. Such controlwas usually not used for public benefit, though; private and personal interestsoften prevailed (Francis 1984). In many places, little real attention was given todevelopment and the advancement of the people, despite the heady rhetoric ofthe independence movements.

Few observers of the early postcolonial years question the idea that rulerscreated state institutions designed to entrench their power and enhance thestate’s extractive capacities. Power-consolidation strategies—originallyconceived as means to higher ends—quickly became ends in themselves.(Boone 2003, 5)

This lack of attention continued for decades in many countries, as in Zimbabwetoday. One of the methods used to entrench state power was the refusal to allowpublic participation in policy making and decisions of governance (Hyden 2006,33). The use of this tactic easily coincides with the “common good” narrative ofthe role of the state in both policy design and justification. The “public interest”was defined by government leaders to serve their own ends, not those of theactual public. Rarely was the actual “public” allowed to define its own interests.

After this early postindependence period, which involved the heavy use ofstate apparatus to pursue “public” interests of economic growth and human


development, governments’ overspending caught up with them. Unfortunately,little documentation exists of the justifications made by governments forchanges in economic and political policy from the late 1970s through the 1990s,when those governments struggled with financing and maintaining theirweakened states. However, it is possible to infer from various constitutionalreform processes that the “Platonic guardian” narrative still prevailed. Whilethis was overtly true in most of West Africa (with its strong-state Francophoneheritage), some former British colonies displayed a similar tendency to place lessregard on the public’s actual views (Hyden 2006, 108-11).

In more recent decades, all three narratives of the public interest have beenused by African governments to justify and design policy, although a trend awayfrom the elite narrative is visible in many countries. There are many possiblereasons for this (including a true adherence to democratic values), althougharguably the change began with a push from the international community.When countries around the globe suffered economic crises in the mid- to late1980s, many had to turn to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank,and bilateral donors for financial assistance. In response, many donorsdeveloped policy conditions—both economic and political—in return for aid(Nolting 2001). In some countries, such as Kenya, substantial pressure wasapplied to develop democratic institutions such as multiparty elections (Mmuyaand Chaligha 1992, 22). Less overt pressure was applied in Tanzania, but thelink between assistance and democratization has been recognized by many(Kelsall 2003).

In the early 1990s, Tanzanian president Mwinyi authorized a nationalpresidential commission to assess public opinion on changing to a multipartysystem. The commission toured the country gathering comments and foundthat nearly 77 percent of the public wanted to maintain its single-party system,albeit with significant reform (Mmuya and Chaligha 1992, 107). Despite thispreference, the commission recommended that a multiparty system be adopted,ostensibly to protect national unity and peace among all Tanzanians (Kelsall2003, 56). Accordingly, the state pursued the public interest as defined by thegovernment’s perception of the common good. The argument was made thatthe government perceived a need to move to greater structural democracy whenthe people did not. Thus, although a hybrid process/aggregation narrative wasused initially to begin designing the policy, the final justification was not basedon public opinion but on the moral authority of the state.

This highlights the possibility that a state may begin the policy-makingprocess with one narrative and conclude it with another. Why the change?Kibwana, Peter, and Bazaara (2001, 21) describe the narrative conflict inTanzania this way: “to be democratic or to be seen to be democratic you haveto be seen consulting the people. That is what has been happening in Tanzania.The party and its government pretended that they were consulting the people—while in fact they were not consulting anybody at all.” The authors argue thatthis is related to the policy influence of international donors who have, in recent


decades, demanded greater “participation” of the people in policy decisionmaking. Surprisingly, some scholars in Tanzania (Nshala 2001) actuallyrecommended to the World Bank that it should wield greater authority on thisissue because of its policy influence in the country.

Over time, as governments became more overtly democratic, theinternational community developed a normative argument for greaterparticipation of the people, suggesting that it would enhance democracy byimproving social engagement, government accountability, and policysustainability (Cornwall and Gaventa 2001. This argument has now becomea dominating narrative for the international community. Commonly now, theWorld Bank, various UN organizations, bilateral entities, and internationalnongovernmental organizations (NGOs) all require that local individualsand/or organizations participate in policy design and implementation (McGeeand Norton 2000). As a result, in policy areas that receive substantial supportfrom donor organizations, public consultation in various forms has occurred inmost African countries at all levels of government, from village projects tonational poverty reduction campaigns (United Republic of Tanzania 2000).Unfortunately, the meaning of participation and its purpose varies among themany actors, often causing tension between government officials, local groups,and international interests (World Bank 2002). As many local NGOs haveargued, participation in discussions does not always equate to influence overdecisions (McGee and Norton 2000; World Bank 2002).

Importantly, the ubiquitous presence of outside interests and authoritiesdramatically changes the context of policy making in less developed countries ascompared with Western democracies. The discussion of and debate over the“public interest” began in states that had nearly full control over their ownpolicies. To transfer these concepts to the African context, one should considerthe role of international policy-making authority. The citizen public may not bethe only policy audience for a developing state; international donors constitutea critical audience also. As will become apparent, donors have had a central rolein the definition and development of environmental policy in Tanzania fordecades.

Environmental Policy in Tanzania

The primary environmental law in Tanzania is the EnvironmentalManagement Act (EMA) of 2004. Its origins date back to the mid-1980s withinitiatives of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and NaturalResources, as it was then called, and the World Bank. Because these initiativesproduced documents that are currently unavailable despite widespreadsearching, an analysis of their discourse and rhetoric is not possible. A fewthings can be said about this early policy-making stage, however. First, it waswholly donor driven; without pressure from the international community,the documents called the National Conservation Strategy for Sustainable


Development (NCSSD) and the National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP)would not have been created. Second, despite calls for the participation of localgovernmental and community representatives, such participation was minimal(Bakobi, Lweno, and Tandari 1997; Mwalyosi and Sosovele 1999). Thus, thereis evidence that donors recommended and sought greater participation althoughlittle of it actually occurred, principally “because of the timescale and theapproach followed” (Bakobi, Lweno, and Tandari 1997, 128). Of the two policydocuments, only the NEAP has had sustained influence over the development ofmore recent policies. To these I now turn.

The subsequent development of environmental policy in Tanzaniaproceeded in three stages from the mid-1990s to 2004. The first policy producedwas the National Environmental Policy in 1997, the second was a set oftechnical policy recommendations for future legislation, and the third was theEMA of 2004. Before presenting each stage, a note on Tanzania’s politicalsystem is warranted. It is a weak parliamentary system with both a primeminister and a president. Policy making, as in most parliamentary systems, is theduty of the ministries and various agencies. In this sense, policy is the productof the administration. The Tanzanian Parliament (Bunge) largely plays therole of a rubber stamp; rarely do members challenge the ministers’ proposedlegislation, although they may recommend changes. This is almost entirely aresult of the party that dominates the government: Chama cha Mapinduzi(CCM; The Revolutionary Party). CCM has been the government sinceindependence (earlier as TANU). Tanzania became a multiparty system in theearly 1990s, but it has yet to witness a change of party power.

Stage One: The National Environmental PolicyThe first policy discussed here is the National Environmental Policy

adopted by the President’s Cabinet in 1997. To add context to the discussion, a“policy” is a very specific document in Tanzania; it is not a piece of legislationthat has been enacted by Parliament and can be enforced, but is a set ofguidelines and principles that is intended to direct future legislation. In thisinstance, “the policy document seeks to provide the framework for makingfundamental changes that are needed to bring environmental considerationsinto the mainstream of decision making in Tanzania” (Vice President’s Office1997, 12). Unlike earlier initiatives, the “Policy” was not directly initiated bydonors. From my study of the document and the process, its primary audiencewas the Tanzanian public. This certainly included the general citizenry, but itsfocus was the various environmental sectors and their representatives ingovernment and business. I return to this differentiation at the end of thesection.

The Policy itself includes language that stresses the regulation andimprovement of the environment for the sake of “present and futuregenerations” (Vice President’s Office 1997, 1). The text prominently suggeststhat the government perceives itself as the determiner of the environmental


“common good.” It dictates what needs to be done and who needs to do it, withno references to the desires or demands of the people. It recommendsthat citizens should participate in programs designed for them, that localNGOs should partner with government, and that women in particular need“empowerment” to slow environmental degradation (14-18). In some ways,however, the Policy also presents another narrative focused on participation inimplementation (but little about decision making). In the same section as theprevious statements, it also speaks of “cooperative effort” and a “bottom-upapproach,” arguing that

[e]nvironmental issues are best handled with the participation of all citizensat the relevant level. It is widely recognised that interventions which arelikely to have positive impacts are those which enjoy the greatest supportfrom grassroots. It is also recognised that ideal interventions are those thatare based on the people’s own initiatives, and for which solutions aregeared towards felt needs. (15)

The following selection highlights the dichotomy of control and participation. Itmakes apparent the conflict between the need to control the public and givingvoice to democratic norms of self-determination.

The major responsibilities of government institutions and non-governmental organisations at this level [are] to assist local communitiesbecome aware of their own situation and support them to becomeresponsible for their own destiny. Local communities will participate ifthey are persuaded that it is right and necessary to do so; when they havesufficient incentive, and the required knowledge and skills. Environmentaleducation and awareness raising programmes shall be undertaken in orderto promote informed opinion. (15)

Arguably, the text of the Policy reflects the dual concerns of the Tanzanianstate in the mid-1990s. While maintaining its allegiance with the dominant statemodel it had followed the previous three decades, the government also soughtto demonstrate that it was modernizing its practices and its agenda to includegreater citizen participation. Yet the patina of participation is only at thebeginning of the Policy. The substance of the document employed the elitenarrative of the public interest to justify its proposals. To whom was it makingthis argument? Both potential audiences—the “public” and the internationalcommunity—are a possibility here. I argue that at this policy stage, theinternational community was only a secondary (or tertiary) audience eventhough that community was closely watching the development of the Policy.Donors had no control over the Policy and its guidelines, however (likely this isone of the motivations for their efforts in the second policy stage, as I willdemonstrate in the next section).


The Policy was designed internally with little outside consultation. A betterargument can be made for the “public” as the primary audience. The limitationsof the conceptualization of the public audience are nevertheless made clear here.As defined previously, the public audience includes the citizens of Tanzania andtheir governmental and nongovernmental representatives. This works well ifone can assume that the government represents well the needs and demands ofthe citizenry. Given Tanzania’s history, this may be a dubious assumption butis one that I will maintain precisely because of the historic claims by thegovernment (and CCM) that it does fully represent the people. The unitary statehas been difficult to dismantle, and officials today still argue that thegovernment and the people are one even when they disagree. This is wellillustrated in the later EMA, where the “public” is defined as “individuals, civilsociety organizations and institutions, community based organizations, [and]public and private institutions” (EMA of 2004, 18). In any case, the “public”audience of the Policy is not directly the citizens. Rather, the intended audienceis the set of public representatives in the national and local governments incharge of designing and implementing future legislation. This can be brokendown into two segments. The first consists of the various environmental sectorsand their governmental allies. As I have suggested, many of the sectors havestrong business constituents (e.g., agriculture and fisheries) with particularinterests in the plans the government was making to affect environmentalactivities. More than half of the Policy dictates legislative recommendations forvarious sectors, suggesting that these were an important part of the officialPolicy audience.

A secondary, indirect, “public” audience is the set of local governments. Inthe first half of the document, local communities are recommended to play animportant role in implementation, necessitating their agreement with andapproval of the Policy’s proposals, although their official approval was notrequired for the Policy to be adopted. There is an element of persuasion in thedocument, suggesting that future environmental legislation will benefit and notharm the public. Perhaps officials felt a need to reassure local representatives inthis area despite the low level of political power they held.

Several events helped shape the language of the Policy. The Division ofEnvironment (DOE) started the Policy discussion in 1994 with a nationalforum (Damas 1994). Most of those who participated were governmentofficials and donor spokespersons, although a handful of NGO representativeswere also present. Two of these NGOs later organized additional nationalworkshops on environmental policy (“Law on Environment in Offing” 2004;Mwandosya, Luhanga, and Mugurusi 1996; Ubwani 1996). Throughout 1995,“various consultations were held” before the policy draft was passed to severalministries for comments (Ubwani 1996). A final workshop was held inJuly 1996, sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society of Tanzania,the Institute of Resource Assessment (of the University of Dar es Salaam),and the Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development—all NGOs


with varying links to the government. This workshop discussed “Putting theEnvironment on the National Agenda” and how to move forward with thenational policy and the NEAP document (Wildlife Conservation Society ofTanzania 1996). Most of the nearly 200 attendees were government officialsand donor representatives, although a number of NGOs were again present,representing both women’s and environmental concerns.

The discussions and presentations at all of these workshops were clearlydominated by an elite narrative (Mwandosya, Luhanga, and Mugurusi 1996;Njau and Mugurusi 1995). The proceedings and papers of the workshopsare available in published format. The papers presented at the two 1994workshops were quite technical, focusing on institutional change and theeconomic effects of management improvement. At the first November 1994workshop, a link between environmental sustainability and economic growthwas made explicitly by many. To promote the latter, a top-down, directedapproach was recommended multiple times. Some suggested that businessneeded to be involved (Njau and Mugurusi 1995, chapter 6), althoughmost presented the general public (including business) as ignorant of thebest avenues for conservation and efficiency (see e.g., Njau and Mugurusi1995, chapter 11). Several suggested a need to educate the public (particularlythe poor rural residents) to improve their efforts at conservationand sustainability. For instance, people needed to know their role inconservation, or government “efforts [will be] futile” (Njau and Mugurusi1995, 105).

At the first workshop, only two papers recognized that people haveknowledge of the environment that is valuable for sustainability andconservation. The first of these (Njau and Mugurusi 1995 chapters 4 and 10)was a paper presented by the Director of the Environment Eric Mugurusi.While the second recommended “learning” from the people (106),neither presented ways in which the people could be incorporated into thedecision-making process. A third paper was the most radical of all; it gave “AGender Perspective on Environmental Policy” (chapter 5). Presented byMarjorie Mbilinyi, a representative of the Tanzania Gender NetworkingProgramme (a prominent NGO), the piece argued for deliberate and deepincorporation of women into the decision-making and implementationinstitutions of environmental management for sustainability. It was the onlychallenge to the workshop’s dominant top-down discourse of “governmentknows best.”

The second November workshop papers were very similar; three were infact near copies of some presented at the first conference—the paper byMbilinyi, a second on biological diversity, and the third on the role of business(Mwandosya, Luhanga, and Mugurusi 1996). The second workshop’spresentations focused more attention on sectoral issues, however: industrialdevelopment, technology, the mineral sector, water, public health, energy,forestry, agriculture, and fisheries. The tone of the presentations was entirely the


same as that of the first workshop, although even less attention was given to therole of the people in the process. The focus was on a top-down approach toenvironmental sustainability.

The opening statements reflect this. While the first workshop wasintroduced by foreign dignitaries, this one was opened by the Minister forTourism, Natural Resources and Environment, the Honorable J.H. Omar, andthe Chief Minister, the Honorable Dr. Omar A. Juma. Minister Omar describesthat

[n]ational initiatives as horizontal and as cross-cutting as this, need toinvolve a wide cross-section of society. This workshop has broughttogether participants from various government departments and otherpublic institutions, business and industry, nongovernmental organisations,members of the donor community, the media, and others. (Mwandosya,Luhanga, and Mugurusi 1996, xxv)

No mention is made of citizens. Chief Minister Juma’s statement likewise makesonly references to the forces that link to environmental degradation or toconservation, such as poverty and urbanization for the former and sustainabledevelopment for the latter. He states that

[w]e need to manage wisely our rural and urban environment to ensure thatpeople do not degrade marginal lands, build on unplanned sites, useunconventional fishing methods or fish in waters polluted by residential orindustrial waste, drink contaminated water or reside in insanitaryconditions. (Mwandosya, Luhanga, and Mugurusi 1996, xxviii)

In these papers and statements leading up to the final version of theNational Environmental Policy, there is a clear bias toward an eliteunderstanding of the problems of the environment and their solutions. Policymakers and related issue elites generally do not see a role for the people insolving environmental degradation. Very rarely are references made toconsultations with the people, although discussion of their involvement inimplementation is more common. The dominant discourse is that the peopleneed to be educated about wise practices and otherwise be ordered towardconservation. These themes are carried over into the final Policy.

There was little public or private controversy over the guidelines and plansof the National Environmental Policy when it was finally adopted by theCabinet in 1997. Several explanations could be offered for this, none of whichcan be confirmed. It may have been a function of the lack of legislative review,a result of real agreement on the provisions, or the inability of opponents tovoice their views. In any case, the next two phases were not as conciliatory. Bothentailed developing the official implementation procedures of the NationalEnvironmental Policy and the NEAP, which required dividing duties andresponsibilities among interested governmental agencies.


Stage Two: The Institutional and Legal Framework for EnvironmentalManagement Project (ILFEMP) Technical Report

The second stage was a technical review of the viability of theimplementation provisions in the National Environmental Policy. By July 1998,donors were concerned with the institutional framework of environmentalmanagement as described in the Policy. They decided to establish and fund aseparate team to review its implementation and hired four consultants underthe direction and supervision of the DOE. The major sponsor of this endeavorwas the World Bank, although it quickly brought in others including theUnited States Agency for International Development (USAID), the SwedishInternational Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the WorldWildlife Fund (Kajuna 2005). The project was called ILFEMP. The goal of theProject was to produce a report evaluating the proposals in the earlier Policyand detailing the management options for future legislation.

ILFEMP published its Phase I report in April 2000 (ILFEMP 2000). Itsrecommendations mostly endorsed the proposals in the Policy, although itadded a level of detail that was missing in the earlier document. It supported thecalls for greater decentralization to local authorities while also advocating ahigh level of centralized coordination. However, the different roles and duties ofthe various levels of government were not entirely clear. Unlike the NationalPolicy, which set out clear guidelines for ministry responsibilities, the ILFEMPreport proffered four alternative central institutional structures and describedtheir strengths and weaknesses. These recommendations were intended to advisepolicy makers as they began drafting the legislation to implement the Policy.Additionally, the report ultimately argued that the initial concerns over theinstitutional framework were unwarranted.

The primary audience for this stage’s environmental policy output wascertainly the set of international donors concerned with the institutionalstructure of management reform. As with the NCSSD and NEAP documents,donors were the initial protagonists for the policy, and they worked to ensurethat the final report was appropriate and responded to their concerns. They paidthe members of the ILFEMP team and provided funding for outsideconsultative activities. The project had no salience with the general public(as evidenced by almost no coverage in the daily newspapers), althoughseveral NGOs were interested in both the process and the outcomes. Alongsidethese few NGOs (Centre for Energy, Environment, Science & Technology[CEEST], Journalists’ Environmental Association of Tanzania, Agenda forEnvironment & Responsible Development [AGENDA], EnvironmentalAssociation of Tanzania, and the Lawyer’s Environmental Action Team[LEAT] were the most prominent), the various governmental ministries andagencies with vested environmental interests constituted the public. They werean important secondary audience particularly because the ILFEMP Report(2000) had to be approved by the Cabinet for the legislative drafting to proceed.This audience was especially interested in the report’s recommendations for the


future institutional framework and division of environmental managementauthority. The report’s presentation of a list of four possible structural plansindicates that the team recognized (implicitly or explicitly) that the debate overthe future framework was highly divisive (Juma 2005; Kabudi 2005; Lisu 2005;Magabe 2005).

The “public interest” was pursued and presented differently in thisstage than the earlier one. Rather than appealing to a common good narrative,policy makers referenced the process narrative in both written and spokencommunications. The ILFEMP team justified its institutional recommendationsby citing the process it claimed to have used to develop those ideas (ILFEMP2000, 3; Kabudi 2005). This is in stark contrast to the common good narrativeused in the Policy. This focus on process to justify the policy recommendationswas also apparent in interviews. Supporters and ILFEMP team members saidthat the institutional review was a participatory process and therefore theproposals were valid and beneficial (Chikomo 2005; Juma 2005; Kabudi 2005).Many times over, this participation narrative was employed.

Various sources indicate that these claims of a participatory process werenot merely rhetoric. The team deliberately sought out advice from individualsand entities representing various perspectives of specialized NGOs andgovernment ministries and agencies. They did this by holding workshops andseminars in multiple locations, commissioning “expert” papers from NGOsand scholars, and consulting with various agency and department staffmembers. Nothing was done to incorporate direct citizen participation,however, and some argued that few were actually able to provide any real,meaningful input (Lisu 2005; Magabe 2005). Here again, one can see thejuxtaposition of government and citizenry as one “public”; the process was“participatory” according to team members because a wide variety of eliteviews were sought.

The central dilemma of “deliberative” or “participatory” designs todetermine the public interest is the question of representation, as mentionedpreviously. Who gets to participate, and who gets heard? Despite theconsultation of a broad set of elites, many opponents to the ILFEMP reviewargued that opinions contrary to the DOE’s position were ignored. Forexample, the DOE and the National Environmental Management Council(NEMC)—both of which were involved in issues of environmentalmanagement—quarreled especially strongly over which organization wouldcoordinate and control environmental management in the country. Bothwanted control. NEMC supporters claimed that because the DOE coordinatedILFEMP, it essentially had the last say on what was done and how it was done.By the end of the first phase of ILFEMP, critics felt that the NEMC waseffectively shut out of the process (Lisu 2005; Magabe 2001, 2005). In fact, theproject’s report contains no statement about the role of the NEMC inenvironmental management in Tanzania (ILFEMP 2000), even though theNEMC had a legislated management role through the National Environment


Management Act no. 19 of 1983. Later, part of the legislative discussionconcerned incorporating the NEMC into the management framework (Juma2005).

In this case, the public interest narrative was of the deliberative,“participatory” process. It was employed to both design and justify ILFEMP’spolicy recommendations. Certainly, questions have been raised about therepresentativeness of the process, but this is irrelevant to the narrative itself. Icontend that the process narrative took precedence in this highly technicalpolicy effort because of the primary position of international donors. Theyarguably wanted to ensure that the report was not a product just of a singledepartment in the government, but that it incorporated a variety of views frommultiple interests. This concern was demonstrated in the formation of theILFEMP team. Although it was housed in the DOE, none of the team memberswere staff members of governmental units related to the environment; each onerepresented a different outside environmental interest. Dr. P.J. Kabudi was onthe faculty of the University of Dar es Salaam and the chair of the Board ofDirectors of a local NGO (the LEAT), Mr. Deo-Gratias Gamassa was anecologist at the College of Wildlife Management, and Dr. Suma Kaare wasassociated with the Economic and Social Research Foundation at the time. Thefinal member of the ILFEMP team was an international consultant from GreatBritain. The high level of international interest carried over into thedevelopment of the final legislation although it was attenuated by variousfactors.

Stage Three: The EMA, 2004The outcome of the final stage of environmental management policy making

was the EMA of 2004, passed eight years after the National EnvironmentalPolicy was adopted. Because of the 2000 elections and the subsequent change ingovernment personnel, the Cabinet did not issue its final Cabinet Paper on thefirst ILFEMP Report of April 2000 until December 2002. A drafting team forthe new legislation therefore did not start until March 2003, when it approacheddonors for more funding (Kabudi 2005). Dr. Kabudi was the team leader forthis second phase of ILFEMP. He and the other three lawyers on the draftingteam were all paid consultants of the World Bank, although Dr. Kabudimaintained in interviews that the team was wholly independent of its sponsors.

Two themes run through the legislation. The first and dominant themeconcerns the technical institutional framework for environmental management.Most of the document addresses the institutional structures and responsibilitiesfor conservation, impact assessments, planning and management in a variety ofenvironmental areas including biodiversity, waste disposal, and pollution. Itgives ultimate control over these issues to the central government, although italso describes elements of limited decentralized control to local authorities. Ofthe four recommended structural frameworks presented in the ILFEMP Report


(2000), none was adopted fully. The drafting team developed yet anotherinstitutional structure in consultation with stakeholders.

The second theme is an expansion of the brief recommendation for greaterpublic participation that was made in the National Policy. As presented earlier,the Policy suggested that environmental conservation and policy implementationwould be strongest with the people involved. The EMA promotes this ideal butalso offers concrete ways in which the people should be involved. The EMA firstadvocates for “the public participation principle, which requires the involvementof the people in the development of policies, plans and processes for themanagement of the environment” (EMA of 2004 section II.7-(3) (a), 24).Additionally, section II.6 states that “every person living in Tanzania shall havea stake and a duty to safeguard and enhance the environment and to inform therelevant authority of any activity and phenomenon that may affect theenvironment significantly” (23). Both of these sections mirror constitutionalclaims for citizen involvement in resource conservation (Nshala 2001, 8). Finally,a full section of the Act proposes methods by which citizens may participate inenvironmental decision making. This section offers a formal participatory rolefor citizens, based on the sharing of information from the central or localgovernment. I quote this section in its entirety:

PART XIV: PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN ENVIRONMENTALDECISION MAKING(1) The public shall have the right to be timely informed of the intention

of public authorities to make executive or legislative decisions affectingthe environment and of available opportunities to participate in suchdecisions.

(2) The public shall have the right to participate in decisions concerningthe design of environmental policies, strategies, plans and programmesand to participate in the preparation of laws and regulations relating tothe environment.

(3) Information relating to decisions affecting the environment may bemade available to the public before the date on which the decision is tobe made.

(4) Public involvement in environmental decision making shall be madethrough:(a) early and accessible notice of the intention to make the decision,

such as, formulation of policies, plans and programmes relating tothe environment;

(b) indication of opportunities for the public to present oral andwritten comments on proposed policies, plans and programmes;and

(c) access to environmental information subject to this Act or anyother written law.

(5) The Council and other relevant authorities shall establish mechanismsto collect and respond to public comments, concerns and questionsrelated to the environment including:


(a) public debates and hearings; and(b) environmental information, registries and complaints desks in all

public institutions. (EMA of 2004, 110-1)

Except to provide for citizen participation, the Act does not go into detailon the public interest need for the legislation. Only briefly in the “GeneralPrinciples” section of the Act are vague references made to the commonbenefits that would result from greater environmental responsibility andmanagement (EMA of 2004, 24). Given the guidance role of the NationalEnvironmental Policy, perhaps the justifications provided there were enoughto validate the Act. Further, there are no statements that guarantee that thegovernment ultimately will not decide policy based on its own description ofthe interests of the public. In other words, citizens are allowed (andencouraged) to provide input, but nothing suggests that their input will decidepolicy.

Although the written discourse in the Act waffles between publicparticipation and the institutionalization of government capacity (landingfirmly on the side of the latter), the spoken discourse about the Act againemphasized the participatory nature of the design process. In their interviews,drafting team members and other supporters justified the provisions in theEMA by arguing that they were developed and approved by the “public” (Juma2005; Kabudi 2005; Meela 2005). As during the ILFEMP technical process,the dominant public interest narrative for this stage was of public participationwith the process itself holding meaning. In support of this claim, the draftingteam and others pointed to the workshops and meetings to which variousstakeholders were invited, as well as individual consultations with NGOs andinterested persons. A number of these meetings were held in smallercommunities with local stakeholders (Sosovele 2005). Some of these meetingswere documented by the news media (“Environmental Bill Welcome” 2004;“Law on Environment in Offing” 2004; Luwondo 2004). “Very participatory”was again a phrase I was told many times over in interviews (Sosovele 2005).Thus the narrative used to justify the policy provisions was firmly in the“process” category.

Identifying the primary audience in this last stage is more complicated. Theevidence points to both the international community and the public. On the sideof the international community, the drafting of the legislation was funded bydonors who have had an obvious interest in environmental policy in Tanzaniafor decades. Further, several organizations with international ties were involveddirectly or indirectly in the development of the legislation, including USAID,the World Wildlife Fund, and the World Bank (Kajuna 2005; Sosovele 2005).However, Dr. Kabudi stressed that the team was independent, and even criticsof the process acknowledged he worked hard to ensure minimal internationalinfluence (Magabe 2005). Except for a paper to the World Bank that urged it toincrease its pressure on the government to improve public participation in policy


making (Nshala 2001), there is not much evidence to support a claim of stronginternational influence. Of course, this does not mean that the donorcommunity was not an important audience for the legislation but only that itwas not directly involved in its development.

Regarding the public as the audience, throughout the year that it took for thebill to go from an early draft to submission to Parliament, a number of meetings,workshops, and seminars were held to which a variety of public officials andrepresentatives were invited. All sectoral interests appear to have been involved,several NGOs were consulted, and many different regions of the country werevisited in the process. The bill was discussed in several different articles in localnewspapers, and a summary of the bill’s provisions was given to members ofParliament in the form of a brochure (Chikomo 2005; “Environmental BillWelcome” 2004; Illuminatha and Nileobitungwa 2004; “Law on Environment inOffing” 2004; Luwondo 2004; Mkinga 2004). A basic effort seems to have beenmade to make the general public aware of the content and development of thelegislation once it was fully drafted.

However, the Parliament’s public hearing before the final reading of the billwas the only one of eight previous to involve more than just environmentalstakeholders (Luwondo 2004). Additionally, the Act was not translated intoKiswahili until nearly a year later (Kihaule 2005). Mr. Chikomo, then director ofthe Journalists’ Environmental Association of Tanzania, noted that the publicwas still not very aware of the legislation and access to it needed to be improved(Kihaule 2005). Most importantly, the nature of the “participation” highlightedby supporters was questioned by those critical of the process.

Supporters uniformly stated that the drafting process was incredibly“participatory.” Detractors nevertheless claimed that this participation wasillusory. The most vocal critic of the process was Tundu Lisu (2005), a staffmember and lawyer at LEAT. He argued vociferously that the drafting teaminvited only those who would agree with them, that the participation rhetoric was“gibberish,” and that the whole process was closely “choreographed.” Thequestion to ask, of course, is whether he was speaking the truth or was merelybitter at being shut out of the process, as he claimed LEAT was. Reality is elusive;Dr. Kabudi was very reluctant to share with me any documents related to theprocess. I was not able to verify either’s claims through lists of participants,comparisons of drafts, minutes of meetings, and so forth. This suggests thatperhaps he was hiding something. Some agreed that the drafting team kept closecounsel in the DOE and one other NGO director thought it was “strange” that hisorganization was not included in policy discussions (Magabe 2005; Njau 2005).However, no one else was as critical as Mr. Lisu of the process and the narrativeused to justify the policy proposals.

Thus one returns to narrative. Whether the narrative reflected the actualprocess is immaterial. Narratives are used to convince an audience of truth,not the actual participants. If it was truly participatory, then those involvedknew they were given the policy outcomes they desired. If it was not, the


excluded would not be convinced otherwise. The narrative is only useful forconvincing someone outside of the process of the validity of the policydecisions. International donors were outside the process in this stage. Thenarrative was intended for them. The preferred narrative of internationaldonors—that of democratic process—was the chosen narrative of policymakers.

Patterns of Narrative

I have identified two audiences across the environmental policy stages: thebroader “public,” consisting of everyone who is or seeks to represent the public,and the set of international donors. In attempting to understand how the publicinterest narratives differ across the policy stages, I found that the narrativeemployed corresponds to the intended audience. In these cases, when theintended audience was the “public,” an elite, common good narrative was used.When the intended audience was the international community, the narrativeused was of democratic “process” or “participation.”

Both of these narratives were employed at the national level to justify thepolicy choices made by central government officials. Certainly, the use of publicinterest narratives is not restricted to national-level policy makers, althoughpolicy making is very limited at local levels in Tanzania (Nshala 2001). Evidencesuggests that representations of conservation activity at the local level havelargely been described through a common good narrative, especially to justifypolicies that are counter to traditional activity in the area (Brockington andScholfield 2010; Gillson, Sheridan, and Brockington 2003). As such, I wouldexpect local initiatives that seek to fulfill international demands or desires willlikewise be associated with a “process” narrative, at least until the internationalcommunity no longer has significant policy influence in Tanzania.

The role of international groups in policy making in Tanzania has createda reality where policies that address domestic issues do not always have adomestic audience. This is highly problematic in democracies that have an idealof pursuing public accountability. Unfortunately, in countries that are not justaccountable to the “public,” other audiences may receive more attention. In thepolicy case studied here, environmental issues were highly salient to members ofthe international community for decades. As policy initiatives were developedover time, government officials felt a need to tailor their narratives ofjustification to the demands and desires of that community.

Despite the deliberate use of specific narratives, there is no reason tobelieve—one way or the other—that the actual policy provisions would havebeen different had the primary audience been domestic rather thaninternational. In fact, given the strong attention paid to “public participation”by donors, it is possible that without their influence, the actual process wouldhave been less deliberative than it otherwise was. A common good narrativewould have dominated instead. Therefore, in this case, the primary audience


may have enabled greater attention to process through their own narrativepreferences. Tanzania’s history is of closed policy making; an audience withdifferent expectations might provide welcome opportunities for changingnarratives, and in the course of time, procedures.

About the Author

Ginger Elliott-Teague is an assistant professor in the Political ScienceDepartment at the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests includeinterest groups and NGOs in developing countries, democratization, anddonor–state relations. She is currently studying donor democratization projectsand human rights engagement in the South.

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Documents

“Public” Interests and the Development of Tanzanian Environmental Policy