The EU and China in African Authoritarian Regimes

This open access book analyses the domestic politics of African dominant party regimes, most notably African governments' survival strategies, to explain their variance of opinions and responses towards the reforming policies of the EU. The author discredits the widespread assumption that the growing presence of China in Africa has made the EU's task of supporting governance reforms difficult, positing that the EU's good governance strategies resonate better with the survival strategies of governments in some dominant party regimes more so than others, regardless of Chinese involvement. Hackenesch studies three African nations Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda which all began engaging with the EU on governance reforms in the early 2000s. She argues that other factors generally identified in the literature, such as the EU good governance strategies or economic dependence of the target country on the EU, have set additional incentives for African governments to not engage on governance reforms.

Provides a theoretically guided in-depth country case analysis of the EU and China's interaction with three African Authoritarian regimes Draws on more than 200 interviews conducted with government officials, business representatives, civil society actors and researchers in three African countries and China as well as with policy-makers in Brussels and selected EU member states Provides the first comprehensive and comparative analysis of the EU and China's engagement with three African countries during the past decade

Auteur
Christine Hackenesch is Senior Researcher at the German Development Institute (DIE). Her research focuses on EU external relations, SinoAfrican relations and the domestic politics of African authoritarian regimes.

Contenu
Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Initial Puzzle: Why governments in dominant party systems engage with the EU on good governance reform, or not.- Chapter 3. Rwanda.- Chapter 4. Ethiopia.- Chapter 5.- Angola.- Chapter 6. Conclusions.