Creating Discursive Conditions for Constitution Reforms in Tanzania

Abstract

There has been low public participation in discursive constitutional reforms in Tanzania. However, the discursive conditions shaping such low public participation were still unknown. The current study examined discursive conditions for constitutional practices. The study employed Mactayres' legitimation theory (1998) of the common public good to extract discursive conditions of reconstitution debates in Tanzania. A documentary review was used to extract data, and transcription and translation were later done. Four data sets were involved in the analysis: two public discursive forums, telephone public deliberation opinions and television interviews of politicians. Attride-Stirling (2001) thematic qualitative analysis guided the systematic methodological analysis of the study. The findings show four main discursive conditions for constitution debates in Tanzania: lack of inclusive public discursive participation, lack of normative values for discursive critiques and inquiries, lack of public discursive constitution consciousness and inappropriate public discursive setting and structures. It is recommended that public constitution awareness requires total involvement of civil societies, government organs, politicians, professionals, media and individuals; secondly, public constitution awareness-raising should be held before engaging the public in public deliberation of constitution reform; thirdly, the nature of public awareness should reflect appropriate platforms that suit public discursive settings and involve a wide public agenda (economics, health, education, agriculture, human rights) to allow a wide public deliberation; fourthly, during constitution debates public should be informed on the values of public discourse that involve rational arguments, tolerance respects and public consensus to achieve a common understanding. Fifthly, where there are no discursive structures (discursive layout), public consensus must be on the road map toward the new constitution. Finally, those responsible for collecting public opinions should arrange and conduct constitutional debates in an informal setting with no time constriction to make it easy for majority participation and to achieve data saturation of public opinions. While the study contributed to democratic discursive conditions as the party of Critical Discourse Analysis, future studies can focus on power relationships and reconstitution practices in Tanzania.