ABSTRACT
This chapter examines, reconstructs, and reinterprets the trends in Tanzania's foreign relations and diplomacy since independence. Foreign policy has been located within a global political economy that has, for the most part, influenced choices and constrained the attainment of desired goals. Before the end of the Cold War, Tanzania had developed an inflated international status built around its commitment to nonalignment and its leadership of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM), the Group of 77, and the North-South lobby. Although specific issues have changed over time, it is argued that the basic structural conditions and factors that have shaped foreign policy since independence in 1961 have not fundamentally altered. These resilient factors are primarily: the colonial legacy, idiosyncratic variables, and the phenomena of economic underdevelopment and external dependence. Tanzania exploited nonalignment to attract economic resources from both Cold War blocs, but the resources procured were increasingly inadequate—hence the search for additional resources from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
