Normative leadership and constrained idealism: strategic humanitarian diplomacy in Tanzania’s foreign policy

This study investigates how Tanzania, a non-donor state in the Global South, strategically deploys humanitarian diplomacy (HD) to advance foreign policy objectives while navigating structural constraints and normative commitments. Drawing on 31 semi-structured interviews, policy document analysis, and thematic coding across Dodoma, Kigoma, and Dar es Salaam (July 2023–July 2024), the research reveals that Tanzania blends Pan-African solidarity, liberation heritage, and security cooperation into a hybrid HD model. The findings, categorized as Value-Embedded Humanitarian Engagement, Governance Architecture for Humanitarian Influence, and Resilience Dilemmas in a Constrained Idealism Context, demonstrate that Tanzania’s HD functions as both a moral commitment and a tool for accruing soft power. Yet fiscal dependency, centralized decision-making, and host-community legitimacy pressures constrain agility and long-term sustainability. By integrating constructivism, soft power theory, political economy, and constrained idealism, the paper offers a novel analytical framework for understanding non-donor HD in the Global South and proposes policy reforms for enhancing its effectiveness.