Natural resource rents and elite bargains in Africa: Exploring avenues for future research

This article explores the recent debate over the quality of Africa's growth episode of the past decade, specifically insofar as it pertains to the pitfalls of commodity-dependent growth and the hypothesised ‘resource curse’. In addition, the article focuses on why political and economic institutions are important, and why they are indicators for the likely development impacts of Africa's evident mineral and hydrocarbon wealth. Third, it suggests a useful theoretical framework for understanding these indicators, especially with regard to the differing constraints under which foreign investors operate and interact with host countries. Developing on the latter points, the article looks at the nature of Chinese foreign investment in Africa's extractive industries. Finally, the article suggests an agenda for future research that could better inform development policy for the purpose of promoting high-quality growth in Africa.     

Soft or Hard Power? Discourse Patterns in Brazil's Foreign Policy Toward South America

This article analyzes the discourse of Brazil's foreign policy toward South America from 1995 to 2010 by means of quantifying, codifying, and weighting all speeches registered in the homogeneous and periodic official documentation of Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs using a discourse analysis approach. The aim is to investigate discourse patterns in order to qualify Brazil's foreign policy as either hard power or soft power and to identify the orientation and differences in its discourse of foreign policy regarding each country of South America during the presidential terms of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995–2002) and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003–2010).     

The BRICS and the South Atlantic: Emerging arena for South–South cooperation

Over the past decade, power dynamics within the South Atlantic region have undergone significant changes. While the area has historically been dominated by North–South ties, both in terms of material flows and with respect to political influence, more recently there has been a surge in cooperation between developing countries within this space. As trade, investment and other forms of exchange and dialogue increase among actors from within the region (notably between South America and Africa) and with states located outside the region, the BRICS countries become more relevant to the South Atlantic. Individually, they have become relevant players in the South Atlantic's economic, political and security dimensions. Collectively, as inter-BRICS flows and political coordination intensify, new configurations of cooperation emerge within the South Atlantic. These initiatives suggest that rising powers are contributing towards making the South Atlantic – long dominated by North–South ties – a space where South–South cooperation and norms predominate.     

Equality and Regional Finance in the Americas

This article explores competing definitions of equality embedded in contending visions for regional finance in the Americas. The U.S. free market–oriented project envisions extension of a NAFTA‐like regulatory framework hemispherewide, promising Latin Americans better financial services, credit, and investment in exchange for strong financial property protections and (implicitly) dramatically reduced financial policy autonomy for their governments. Venezuela's vision of “Bolivarian” finance, exported to the Caribbean and the upper Andes, promotes assertive state management of both foreign and domestic investors, populist redistribution, and increasing reliance on nonmarket financial transactions. Brazil's regional financial project would unite South America through continentwide physical infrastructure and capitalist financial markets while retaining a role for public sector banks responsive to central government priorities. Brazil's approach shares with Venezuela's an emphasis on governments' need for financial policy authority and with the U.S. approach a concern for regulatory predictability and financial deepening.     

Short term interests,long term perspectives: Balancing South Africa's peace and security approach in the EU–SA Strategic Partnership

ABSTRACT

South Africa’s peace and security outlook in the EU–South Africa Strategic Partnership has been guided by the content and substance of the founding document, which incorporates an interdependent approach to development. For South Africa, engagement in the EU–South Africa Strategic Partnership is framed by its historical background, its identity and the content of its foreign policy. South Africa's foreign policy in particular adopts an integrated approach to securing the state within its surrounding regional and continental geography. This article reviews South Africa's approach to peace and security, in the context of the strategic partnership. The article argues that, overall, South Africa's definition of peace and security is compatible with that of the EU; however, Pretoria's vision of how it provides peace and security has naturally changed in line with the varying international circumstances in which it has found itself. While this has proved difficult at times to reconcile, peace and security collaboration in the strategic partnership has managed to remain intact.     

Chinese and Japanese development co-operation: South–South,North–South,or what?

This article compares the evolution and characteristics of Chinese and Japanese aid, assessing the impact of their aid policies in sub-Saharan Africa from the 1950s to the present. It argues that China and Japan's aid programmes share more similarities than dissimilarities. Both pursue aid strategies that spread allocations across a region rather than concentrating upon specific countries. The article seeks to clarify the following questions. In what way are Chinese and Japanese aid strategies different from each other and Western donors? Should their aid be seen as a form of South–South co-operation that provides an alternative to the West's hegemony in Africa? Or is aid from these donors simply another strategy to control African resources and state elites in the guise of a partnership of equals?     

SADC and the GCC: Shared regional challenges and potential links

This article assesses the prospects for a clearly articulated economic diplomacy approach in South Africa's foreign policy. It argues that while South Africa's foreign policy has been to a considerable extent normatively grounded, it has failed to develop a coherent economic diplomacy that is based on focused and distinctly expressed priorities. This is a crucial gap that limits the country's ability to respond to regional and global changes, in particular those posed by emerging powers. The article identifies a number of gaps in South Africa's foreign policy approach and highlights its oblivion to global developments and geopolitical dynamics in the African continent. It sets out possible policy outlines for developing a clearer and stronger economic diplomacy. The building blocks for such an approach include the identification of strategic foreign policy priorities; greater institutional co-operation among agencies dealing with economic and foreign policy development; synergies between corporate strategies and government's foreign policy objectives; and the need for South Africa to develop a stronger leadership ambition in the African continent, both to contribute to Africa's development and to pursue its own economic interests. This ambition will require awareness of South Africa's own limitations, thus focusing the better part of its foreign policy on a limited set of countries that match strategic priorities.     

Globalization's impact on the Malaysian workforce

This article provides a partial analysis of the socio-political impact of the so-called IMF reforms that were implemented by the South Korean government in response to the financial crisis of 1997–98. We find that at least in one key area — namely policies related to foreign investment — the IMF reforms fundamentally altered and reshaped Korea's development path. In fact, the policy changes affecting foreign investment produced what amounts to a paradigm shift in Korea's well-known model of developmental state. Alternatively put, these reforms led to the demise of the “Korea, Inc.,” the symbiotic relationship between government and businesses that was at the core of Korea's developmental state. As such, our analysis suggesting a paradigm shift in Korea's developmental state stands in contrast with previous (pre-crisis) arguments that proclaimed the demise of the developmental state.     

The East Asian financial meltdown

In view of China's economic growth and rising international status, Latin American and Caribbean countries will accord increasing priority to their relations with the Asian giant. China's permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council is also a factor to reckon with. Today, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico have established strategic partnerships with China. While the vast distance between China and Latin America generates difficulties in transportation and mutual understanding, it also means that both parties have no serious conflicts of strategic and political interests. Their Third World orientations in diplomacy contribute to a 95% concurrence in their votes in the United Nations. While the Chinese leadership seeks to promote multipolarity to curb US unilateralism, it appreciates its limitations in Latin America. In addition, China and the Latin American and Caribbean countries value good relations with the US. In the foreseeable future, China will increase its investment in Latin America and more Sino-Latin American business joint ventures will be formed. These trends may well reduce trade frictions associated with China's economic expansion.     

The Impact of Domestic Politics and International Changes on the Brazilian Perception of Regional Integration

This article aims to analyze the impact of domestic politics and international changes that influence Brazilian positions regarding regional integration processes in South America, particularly the Southern Common Market, Mercosur. The dynamics of the international system and their impact on the evolution of the elite's perception of the role the country should play in the world are important variables for understanding these positions. The state's postures in relation to integration were and are based on a real interest, but this interest is also linked with the objective of ensuring better conditions for participation in other international arenas. Starting with the hypothesis that transformations in the international setting have strongly influenced Brazil's positioning, the elements of continuity and change in the country's behavior toward Mercosur are identified, with domestic politics as the main explanation.     

“China in South America: Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela”

The growing presence of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in South America highlights its domestic priorities. On the economic side, high levels of development, source of political stability and international recognition, exacerbate the need of importing natural resources and exporting manufactured products. Politically, the policy of national reunification, which is also an important provider of stability drawn from nationalism, demand strengthening relations with countries in areas attracted by Taiwan, isolating the island in the international arena. Beijing is actively working to increase its political leverage and shape the agenda of international politics giving South-South cooperation a strategic dimension well beyond mutual development. This fits South American objectives, namely the ones of Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, that aim at diversifying international partnerships and perceive China as an alternative to the traditional orientation towards Latin America, the US and Europe. Positioning itself as a stakeholder, China creates the basis for an alternative international order using persuasion. The Chinese soft power in South America may be a drop of water in a much broader strategy.     

THE MODERN CREATION OF CHINA’S ‘HISTORIC RIGHTS’ CLAIM IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

The overlapping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea threaten to spark conflict in East Asia. On several occasions in recent years, disputes over the right to extract oil and gas have caused clashes between Chinese and Southeast Asian vessels. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was agreed by almost all countries in 1982 to try to resolve such disagreements. However, the People's Republic of China is currently trying to claim rights that go beyond UNCLOS and infringe on the UNCLOS-based rights of the other claimants. It deploys two arguments in particular: that the archipelagos in the South China Sea collectively generate rights to maritime resources and that China enjoys ‘historic rights’ in the sea. Neither of these arguments is found within UNCLOS, however. This article explores the origin of these Chinese arguments and finds that the ‘historic rights’ claim can be traced to a single Taiwanese academic writing in the 1990s during a period of intense debate in Taiwan over its relationship with the PRC.     

Diplomatic Objectives in Trade Politics: The Development of the China-Japan-Korea FTA

This article seeks to analyze the development of free trade agreement (FTA) policies adopted by China, Japan, and South Korea with particular interests in the trilateral FTA. It seeks to address what the determinant factors that have conditioned the development of the trilateral FTA are. While the three governments began the informal joint study of the trilateral FTA in 2003, they pursued diverse trade strategies that disturbed a shift to formal negotiations. However, China's strategy to hedge against the US influence in East Asia became a catalyst in shifting from the long-lasting study stage to the launching of negotiations. Moreover, Japan's strategy to participate in TPP negotiations as a soft balancing against China through closer political linkages with the United States weakened China's and South Korea's willingness to engage in the trilateral FTA positively. Thus, the three countries’ commitments to the trilateral FTA were primarily confined by their specific diplomatic objectives responding to the political-economic evolutions in the Asia-Pacific region.     

Chinese Economic Statecraft and U.S. Hegemony in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis, 2003–2014

If one interprets China's sizable rise in Latin America as an unprecedented phenomenon, it follows that the concurrent story of declining U.S. influence in the region is an event hastily acknowledged at best and ignored at worst. In this article, we ask whether Chinese economic statecraft in Latin America is related to the declining U.S. hegemonic influence in the region and explore how. To do so we analyze foreign direct investments, bank loans, and international trade from 2003 to 2014, when China became a major player in the region. We use data from 21 Latin American countries, and find that an inversely proportional relationship exists between the investments made by Chinese state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), bank loans, manufacturing exports, and the U.S. hegemonic influence exerted in the region. In other words, Beijing has filled the void left by a diminished U.S. presence in the latter's own backyard.     

Stumbling among Giants: Europe's Frustrated Solidarity with Guatemala, 1979–1996

In the 1980s, Central America became the Cold War's centre stage as Western solidarity committees rushed to shine a global spotlight on the region's revolutionary movements. Drawing on archival research and activist testimony, this article explores the uncharted European solidarity movement with Guatemala (1979–1996) and its transnational structural weaknesses. Additionally, this contribution aims to revisit recent transnational approaches to solidarity movements that highlight the purposive role of actors of the Global South in generating and shaping solidarity. Instead, it argues that restricted political spaces severely constrained Guatemalan agency domestically, affecting the strategies and tactics deployed on the international front.     

Indigenous Autonomy and the Contradictions of Plurinationalism in Bolivia

The government of Bolivia led by President Evo Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party claims to be constructing a new postliberal or plurinational state. However, this alleged experiment in plurinationalism conflicts with two central elements of government and MAS party strategy: the expansion of the economic development model based on the extraction of non‐renewable natural resources, and the MAS's efforts to control political space, including indigenous territories. This article analyzes these contradictions by examining how Bolivia's constitution and legal framework appear to support indigenous autonomy while simultaneously constraining it. Specifically, it explores how political and bureaucratic processes have seriously limited opportunities to exercise indigenous rights to autonomy. The article makes a comparative analysis of the implications of Bolivia's experience for indigenous autonomy and plurinationalism for other resource extraction–dependent states.     

Turkish racial theories

Mainstream media have reported on ‘China in Uncle Sam's Backyard’ - Latin America - with considerable alarm in recent years. But is such alarm justified? This article aspires to lift the fog on China's engagement with Latin America. The article finds that mutual concerns over economic development, not military advantage, are the driving force behind closer Sino-Latin American relations. Nonetheless, it is indisputable that China's presence in the Southern Hemisphere impacts the region's geopolitical dynamics, with possible consequences for the US security position. That said, China's arrival in Latin America also harbours a positive strategic opportunity for Washington to re-engage, on a more equal footing, with a continent whose relations with the US have been historically troubled, and more recently, have suffered from a certain neglect.     

The United States and South Pacific regionalism: Participation or subversion?

Abstract

Increasing political awareness in the Pacific island nations during the 1970s led them to adopt foreign and domestic policies that the metropolitan nations considered detrimental to their interests in the Pacific. The South Pacific Forum (SPF) stood at the center of much of the decision making. For the United States in particular it became imperative that it check the SPF's decision-making process. This led the United States to seek avenues through which it could effectively influence the decisions of the South Pacific's regional organizations. Such attempts were intended primarily to undermine the sovereignty and independence of the South Pacific Forum and affiliated regional organizations. This article discusses the rationale for and processes through which the United States has been trying to manipulate South Pacific regional institutions into serving its interests in the region.     

Afghanistan reconstruction in regional perspective

The reconstruction of Afghanistan is in part dependent upon the reintegration of Afghanistan into the international community. Reintegration, in turn, is dependent upon Afghanistan's trans-border infrastructure of communication, trade, transport, water, power and investment. Accordingly, increased regional economic cooperation is a key element of Afghanistan's reconstruction. This article analyses regional economic cooperation in the South and Central Asian region in terms of logic, institutions, actors, and expectations. The article argues in favour of inclusiveness to enlarge the number of beneficiaries of economic benefits of regional economic cooperation while avoiding the pitfalls of risky strategies of faulty collective action.     

China's ‘win-win’ cooperation: Unpacking the impact of infrastructure-for-resources deals in Africa

This paper discusses China's use of infrastructure-for-resources loans in Africa as a win–win economic cooperation tool. This formula, offering generous loans for infrastructure in exchange for resource access, came into being largely as a default cooperation tool, inspired by China's own domestic experience, its competitive advantages and Africa's receptivity to this kind of barter deal. Embodying the principle of mutual benefit, China has consistently combined the extension of financial assistance for infrastructure construction in Africa with the expansion of Chinese business interests and the pursuit of resource security goals. The analysis focuses on whether this instrument is actually promoting African development or fuelling instead China's economic growth at the expense of African economies. The author argues that the impact has been mixed. Although there are some meaningful positive signs, many challenges persist, and as such the long-term developmental impact of this particular tool remains uncertain. The responsibility to ensure a positive outcome rests, however, on the African side as much as on China.