Graduated Sovereignty and Tanzania's Mineral Sector
[Article]
Christine Noe
Leiden
Brill
The process through which state sovereignty over natural resources is gained and lost serves as a precondition for other external actors to acquire rights and to appropriate wealth. These external institutions are multinational firms and non-governmental organizations that do not rely on sovereign entities. By building on the concept of graduated sovereignty, the example of Tanzania's mineral resource demonstrates how ownership rights shift, creating different impacts on the ground. Analysis of historical and contemporary changes in Tanzania's mineral laws serves as a basis for revealing the ways in which sovereignty is differentiated or graduated within a national territory, given current global relations. Since neither global resource governance nor market conditions are static or predictable, the government of Tanzania responds differently to external forces over time. Tanzania's most recent national decisions follow the model of neoliberal flexibility and maximisation of profit from natural resources. Consequently, more complex issues of local resource rights have remained unattended over the years of policy and legal reform, resulting in discriminatory treatment and marginalization of different groups in Tanzanian society. The process through which state sovereignty over natural resources is gained and lost serves as a precondition for other external actors to acquire rights and to appropriate wealth. These external institutions are multinational firms and non-governmental organizations that do not rely on sovereign entities. By building on the concept of graduated sovereignty, the example of Tanzania's mineral resource demonstrates how ownership rights shift, creating different impacts on the ground. Analysis of historical and contemporary changes in Tanzania's mineral laws serves as a basis for revealing the ways in which sovereignty is differentiated or graduated within a national territory, given current global relations. Since neither global resource governance nor market conditions are static or predictable, the government of Tanzania responds differently to external forces over time. Tanzania's most recent national decisions follow the model of neoliberal flexibility and maximisation of profit from natural resources. Consequently, more complex issues of local resource rights have remained unattended over the years of policy and legal reform, resulting in discriminatory treatment and marginalization of different groups in Tanzanian society.