Bureaucratic ambition, accountability, and effort in Tanzania

• In Event: The politics of education in developing countries

Proposal

Do political careerist concerns condition bureaucratic effort? We answer this question in the context of education reforms in Tanzania to improve learning outcomes. Being a hegemonic party-state, there is very little distinction between the party and state in Tanzania. As such, bureaucrats typically face multiple principals – the state and the party. Some even consider their positions as stepping stones to political office. Through a list experiment and survey of District Education Officers (DEOs) in Tanzania, we examine whether careerist ambitions of bureaucrats condition their willingness to invest effort in improving learning outcomes in their respective domains. We measure bureaucrats’ political careerism by their proximity to local ruling party officials, and their effort by knowledge of the performance of schools in their district, monitoring of quality assurance officers, and contacts with school headmasters. This study promises to increase our knowledge of how bureaucratic accountability relationships and careerist ambition condition the effectiveness of service delivery in developing countries.

Author

• Ken Opalo, Georgetown University