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- Convenors:
-
Rory Horner
(University of Manchester)
Lidia Cabral (Institute of Development Studies)
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- Formats:
- Papers Roundtables
- Stream:
- Rethinking development
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 29 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
These paper sessions and open roundtable focus on South-South relations, including but not limited to trade, policy cooperation, migration, finance, and technology transfer. How have South-South relations been impacted by, and shaped responses to, the multiple pressures unsettling development?
Long Abstract:
South-South relations are a major axis of contemporary development processes and outcomes. The prominence of such relations has surged across a number of domains, including food and agriculture, migration, trade, technology transfer, policy cooperation. Many hope that South-South relations can unsettle in positive ways the status quo, while others worry that the more negative aspects of South-North relations may be reproduced. Covid-19 has augmented the relevance of considering South-South relations as a key aspect of development. Flows of finance, food and people have been significantly impacted, while South-South supplies of medical goods are a key aspect of the immediate response. Longer-term, Covid-19 accentuates the need to consider the role of South-South relations in contributing to ‘building back better’ towards global sustainable development.
This panel welcomes abstract submissions for papers on any or multiple domains of South-South relations. Papers could engage with, but are not limited to, the following questions:
• How have South-South relations been impacted by, and shaped responses to, the multiple pressures unsettling development, including multipolarity, Covid-19, climate change, populism and racial violence?
• What is the potential for South-South relations to contribute to ‘build back better’?
Format: Paper sessions will primarily be synchronous, but would also be open to some asynchronous contributions e.g. where the presentation is played as a video, but the presenter participates in live Q&A. We will also convene an open format and synchronous roundtable discussion on this theme, which anyone registered for the conference can participate in without any prior submission or notification necessary.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 29 June, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
INGOs in China draw on their global expertise to facilitate Chinese outbound development. At the same time, they seek to constructively shape Chinese global engagement by helping China play an increasingly equitable, sustainable and responsible global role.
Paper long abstract:
China’s proliferating outbound activity has been framed within the South-South cooperation narrative. China, in turn, shapes this narrative and is remaking our understanding of South-South cooperation and international development more broadly. But far from being a coherent global strategy advanced by a monolithic Party-state, globalizing China is constituted by diverse actors, each with their own approaches, agendas and interests, including state actors, enterprises, NGOs, individuals entrepreneurs and even non-‘Chinese’ global actors. In this paper, we uncover the role of one global actor in China’s ‘going out’—international NGOs (INGOs) operating in China. Based on over 30 interviews with INGOs between 2019-2021, we find that in response to shifting domestic conditions, INGOs have increasingly been participating in China’s globalizing project.
As Chinese infrastructure and development projects multiply, particularly with the Belt and Road Initiative, they face a decidedly mixed reception in host countries. Lacking know-how and legitimacy, Chinese actors turn to INGOs for training in international norms and for their assistance engaging with local communities in host countries. INGOs also connect Chinese projects with local partners through their NGO networks and country offices. In these ways, INGOs tell China’s development story abroad support China as an alternative development model.
But INGOs also shape China’s overseas development agenda by influencing Chinese policymakers and outbound actors, and by strengthening capacity in host countries to engage with China. They facilitate knowledge exchange around south-south cooperation and model innovations that elevate China’s governance and environmental standards abroad.
Paper short abstract:
At the example of Angola, Ethiopia and Nigeria, this paper investigates the extent to which Chinese Overseas Construction projects can be a springboard for industrialisation by spurring demand for building materials like cement.
Paper long abstract:
This paper looks at Chinese construction projects in Angola, Nigeria and Ethiopia – the three countries registering the highest average annual value of construction projects completed by Chinese firms in sub-Saharan Africa between 2010 and 2018. Chinese overseas construction projects received disproportionately little research attention compared to Chinese outward FDI, even though they are much more important in terms of magnitude. This paper firstly shows that Chinese overseas construction projects have been an important catalyst for structural transformation. Beyond providing critical infrastructure for productive sector activities, the China-induced construction boom has spurred demand for and induced domestic manufacturing of building materials, including but not limited to cement. Building materials manufacturing has been promoted by different types of industrial policy, which are briefly compared. With a focus on cement manufacturing, the paper secondly shows that emerging capitalist interests in building materials manufacturing are shaped by and have (re)shaped domestic political economy dynamics. These (reconfigured) domestic power relationships determine the nature of the ensuing accumulation processes and their dysfunctionalities. In Angola new business opportunities linked to the construction boom served to consolidate wealth and power of the ruling elite. Nigeria has seen the emergence of large-scale monopoly capitalists – Dangote and BUA – whose roots go back to the colonial merchant capitalist class and whose contemporary political influence is significant and growing. Ethiopia’s cement sector is dominated by a state-owned firm, a firm linked to the TPLF, the dominant party within the former ruling EPRDF coalition and several joint ventures between Ethiopian and Chinese firms.
Paper short abstract:
The proposed paper will examine the policy framework organising the strategic coupling of Chinese lead firms with domestic suppliers in the Suez cooperation zone in Egypt. It asks whether an emerging framework for collaboration between China and its strategic partners converges or departs from d
Paper long abstract:
Chinese economic cooperation zones in Africa are initiating new patterns of global production, investment and trade cooperation, linking Chinese manufacturers to additional markets abroad while promising to develop the export industries of host economies and increase African exports to China. Previous studies have explored the diverse ways in which Chinese manufacturing investments impact recipient economies, yet the broader development orientation of Chinese investment and trade practices remains unexplored. Taking the Chinese-built Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone in Egypt as an empirical reference point, the proposed paper will explore China's evolving role in global production, focusing on the question of whether an emerging framework for collaboration between China and its strategic partners converges or departs from dominant modes of regulating and governing global economic integration. The main argument this paper hopes to makes is that the Chinese economic cooperation zone in Suez largely follows pro-market recipes of trade and investment liberalisation, a strategy that bears little resemblance to China's own definition of special economic zones. The Suez zone fosters a model of production integration based on the notion that the beneficial dynamics of firm coordination are sufficient as a mechanism for developing supplier linkages. It nonetheless employs a kind of demand driven industrial policy which makes governments responsible for enhancing lead-firm governance. This entails facilitating market access for lead firms by making available to capital economic rents in the form of incentives, public goods and services, and fixed capital assets. The new notions of state and market that the zone