week 13 Flashcards
Africa’s agency in International Relations provides
a useful departure point to talk about a set of trends shaping current global politics.
* These include uneven globalization, identity politics, and dangerous power transitions.
* In this volatile context, African decision-making is frequently described as a response to a radically unequal global power hierarchy.
* This sometimes leads to a tendency to celebrate any African decision—even decisions that break key norms—as a strike by excluded, marginalized populations against Western dominance
A strong undercurrent of the contemporary agency debate is emancipatory
there is a belief that any act of agency by weaker actors within a system dominated by global powers is a normative good, because that act necessarily challenges this lopsided power hierarchy.
* This outlook complicates the analysis of African agency because it ascribes moral purpose to the conduct of African actors because they occupy a weaker position compared to major powers, rather than sufficiently engaging with the specific impacts of the act itself.
* African agency is not necessarily (moral according
to others)
Some acts of agency may be hypocritical
For example, such an analysis might praise an African elite’s being against international norms as striking a blow against the structural marginalization of African states in the international system, while not critiquing how these acts monopolize power and exclude groups domestically.
* Evidence suggests, however, that agency can and often does express itself through tactics used by incumbent governments to shore up their own power, or to exclude other groups
African Agency
The first surrounds the notion of “Africa” in African agency.
The second area of investigation revolves around the actual process of agency
The third area emerges around the issue of how African actors have managed to increase their agency in the face of global power imbalances
BRI through a bilateral lens
By looking at agency through the multilateral lens, it is bound by moral underpinning, geopolitical interest, and the continental political environment (i.e. context) has an impact on the nature of ties.
* One example is the proposed reforms led by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, articulated in a report entitled “The Imperative to Strengthen Our Union” circulated in January 2017 at the 28th AU Summit
Proposed Negotiations between the AU and China
Kagame proposed increased organizational efficiency and hence streamlining partnership summits like the FOCAC, by having a selected group of representatives negotiate with China on behalf of Africa, replacing the current unwieldy process dominated by bilateral
negotiations.
* Debt trap conversations – AU watching!
* China Learning and careful approach
* Linkages of the BRI with Africa’s Agenda 2063!
* FOCAC as a location of agency
* African Geographic regions e.g. SADC, ECOWAS, MAGHREB, East African Community.
Djibouti agency
plays a similar balancing act with other external powers, including the United States, knowing that their need to maintain military bases on its soil is unlikely to diminish, giving Djibouti unique leverage
Djibouti’s strategic location
has a location for great power rivalry and the future superpower status quo.
* in Djibouti all powers are already stationed as the US has established its only military base in Djibouti with 4000 troops on the ground.
* France and Japan are also there while China is busy with infrastructure projects
Djibouti’s maritime location
also one of the connecting triangles that provide an alternate shortest maritime route to connect Asia with Europe, Africa, South East Asia, and the Pacific.
* Djibouti occupies a very strategic maritime location at the mouth of the Red Sea and serves as an important transshipment location for goods entering and leaving the east African highlands.
* It is strategically positioned near the world’s busiest shipping lanes and acts as a refueling and transshipment center. The Port of Djibouti is the principal maritime port for imports to and exports from neighboring Ethiopia
Ethiopia Relations
Ethiopia has also engaged in aggressive outreach to the European Union and United States but kept parallel relations with China.
* In recent years, it forged a strategic relationship with the European Commission and negotiated major investments from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
* In December 2020, Ethiopia received a $9-billion injection from Western donors, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank
Ethiopia Agency
used its strategic position in the Horn to Africa to exploit the Gulf rivalry for regional influence by bolstering ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as their principal rivals in the region, Turkey and Qatar.
* These countries, along with Israel, have invested heavily in Ethiopia to counterbalance one another, allowing Ethiopia to reap benefits as the largest recipient of Gulf financing in the region
Asserting agency through negotiations
Other countries assert agency by improving how they negotiate:
* In Benin, Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone, technical departments manage negotiations with Chinese entities, while the presidency takes a back seat.
* This fosters a disciplined approach, holding both the donor and recipient accountable, and discourages the personalized deal- making common in such negotiations. This is also good for future governments.
Cote d’Ivoire Agency
won surprising concessions in 2018 while negotiating a $580-million hydropower project with Chinese energy giant Sinohydro.
* Only 20 percent of the workforce could be Chinese, all building materials would be sourced locally, and the working language would be French.
* Such benefits might not have been realized if a few well-connected individuals had been left to dominate the negotiations
Liberian Agency
since the administration of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, all contracts are outsourced to independent international accounting firms to discourage undue high-level interference from start to finish—a model that has also been used in Senegal, Togo, and Tunisia.
* External partners are required to respect this rule, regardless of their influence with the president. Notably, Chinese firms played by the rules in all four cases, suggesting that Africans can exert agency in the national interest via their external relationships
Tanzanian Agency
the $11-billion Bagamoyo Megaport Project shows how China’s sensitivities about its public image can also be leveraged to assert agency. CMHI pushed a hard bargain:
* a 99-year lease, zero duty on imported material, a commitment by Tanzania not to develop other ports, and tax breaks for
investors in a proposed special economic zone.
* Tanzania angrily publicized the details to build pressure and outmaneuver the Chinese position. “Only a madman can accept such terms,” said President John Magufuli, adding, “We will not be treated like schoolchildren.
With the public on board, the government countered: a 33-year lease, no tax holiday, no duty-free imports, full regulatory oversight, and no restriction of Tanzania’s right to develop other ports.
* The Chinese firm read the mood and accepted all the new terms, partly to save face and partly to defuse a brewing diplomatic crisis with one of China’s most important partners in Africa!
African agency is growing
The picture that is often painted of uniform African acquiescence to Chinese interests is misleading.
* African agency is evident in the growth of independent platforms on China-Africa relations and within civil society, particularly groups working on economic justice, debt, and
extractive industries.
* It is also apparent in the innovative tactics some governments employ to increase their leverage despite their relatively smaller economies
Agency Definition
faculty or state of acting or “exerting power”
* Corkin (2013) has in mind when she uses the term agency synonymously with “control”, “leverage”, “maneuvering”
* The idea of agency coming with the principle of accountable reason, that one acts with responsibility, that one has to assume possibility of intention, one has to assume even the freedom of subjectivity in order to be responsible.
African Agency
African agency can be viewed as the active involvement at the policy setting and implementation of development programs supported by Chinese development finance.
Why focus on Ethiopian agency?
- First, the country is the second largest recipient of Chinese finance and yet it has no substantive natural resources to explain Chinese interests.
- Ethiopia also happens to be the first African country where Chinese enterprises have developed wind energy infrastructure, a sector not normally associated with Chinese engagements in Africa.
- A focus on these wind farms—clean energy helps us to make sense of what the Chinese are doing in Africa’s renewable energy sector which has so far received less academic attention.
- Ethiopia presents a particular and exceptional case study because it is presented as one of the few African countries able to meaningfully and strategically exercise agency when engaging with not only Chinese but any external actors.
- Ethiopia is not a “passive recipient” or a “pawn” in the wider power games and yet is a highly aid-dependent country.
6.The headquarters of the African Union
Framing of agency - Chiyemura
the framing of African agency as an analytical framework suggests that we need to consider African agency as strategic and relational.
* As such, engagements between Africa and China involve various African actors from various institutions whether formal or informal that play essential roles in structuring and influencing the engagement patterns and dynamics
Ethiopian Vision to provide 100% Electrification by 2025
The planning and goal setting for the development of wind farms as part of the solution to address the shortage of electricity infrastructure in Ethiopia reflect demonstration of agency by the Ethiopian government.
* The Ethiopia-China Development Cooperation Directorate in Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation (MOFEC) then approached the Chinese Export and Import Bank (C-EXIM Bank) for potential financing which agreed after a series of negotiations. This demonstrate agency by various parts of the government of Ethiopia
