Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Law and Development: Explaining Legal Change in Emerging Economies

这项研究旨在建立和测试一个理论框架，以了解非洲新兴经济体的法律的变化和法律与发展之间的关系。 本研究提出了以下问题：发展中国家的企业家在何种条件下实际利用国家提供的法律的框架？综合社会法律的研究和新制度经济学的理论见解，该研究认为，企业家对法律的需求是一个功能的社会距离的水平，在商业社区和国家提供的法律的系统的信誉和能力。因此，法律在促进新兴经济体经济发展方面的有效性取决于非正式社会制度和正式的国家提供的政治制度之间的相互作用。这一理论将通过对坦桑尼亚商法改革举措进行为期9个月的实地研究收集的数据进行分析来检验。数据包括对三个城市（达累斯萨拉姆、姆万扎和姆贝亚）坦桑尼亚公司的所有者/经理进行的封闭式调查和开放式人种学访谈，以及关于坦萨尼亚法律的机构、法律改革举措和机构能力的独立数据。 该研究旨在为三个不同的社会科学学科做出重要贡献：比较政治学（特别是发展中国家政治制度的比较研究），法律与发展（通过确定法律改革可能有助于市场经济的建立和发展的条件），以及比较法（通过分析发展中国家商法和法律的制度的运作）。

This study seeks to establish and test a theoretical framework for understanding legal change and the relationship between law and development in the emerging economies of Africa. This study asks the following question: Under what conditions will entrepreneurs in developing countries actually avail themselves of the legal framework supplied by the state? Synthesizing theoretical insights from socio-legal studies and the new institutional economics, the study argues that entrepreneurial demand for law is a function of both the level of social distance within business communities and the credibility and capacity of the state-provided legal system. The effectiveness of law in promoting economic development in emerging economies thus depends upon the interaction of informal social institutions and formal state-supplied political institutions.This theory will be tested by analyzing data collected over the course of nine months of field research on commercial law reform initiatives in Tanzania. Data includes a combination of close-ended surveys and open-ended ethnographic interviews of the owners/managers of Tanzanian firms in three cities (Dar es Salaam, Mwanza and Mbeya) and independent data on legal institutions, law reform initiatives and institutional capacity in Tansania. The study seeks to make important contributions to three distinct social science disciplines: comparative politics (particularly the comparative study of political institutions in the developing world), law and development (by identifying the conditions under which law reform may contribute to the creation and development of market economies), and comparative law (by analyzing the operation of commercial law and legal systems in developing countries).