Representation and Human Capital in the Tanzanian Civil Service

• In Event: Elites and State Capacity in Autocracies

Abstract

The often-rapid process of decolonization posed serious challenges to post-independence African state-builders. We study the role of the state bureaucracy as a source of continuity and change around Tanzania’s independence in 1961. Drawing on an original digitization of the universe of civil servants between 1956 and 1976, we document large aggregate shifts in the size of the bureaucracy and in the ethnic and national composition of its agents. Both the speed of these changes, as well as intended expansions in the state’s territorial coverage and policy ambitions, however, were constrained by the limited human capital stock it inherited. Linking our data to the universe of political candidates, we document how highly educated Tanzanians who served in the colonial civil service tended to exit the bureaucracy in favor of single-party politics. At the same time, colonial-era education restrictions limited the supply of Tanzanians sufficiently qualified to enter the civil service. Leveraging spatial and temporal variation in the gradual replacement of non-native civil servants under Tanzania’s “Africanization” policy, we examine the net consequences of these shifts for policy implementation relating to the local expansion of health and education facilities. Our results highlight why even sudden shocks to the state’s political leadership might imply only incremental changes in its bureaucratic capacity.

Authors

• Juan Felipe Riaño, Georgetown University

• Jeremy Bowles, University College London