Short Abstract:

The panel focuses attention on how African countries negotiate their development options within a development policy context in which two conflicting approaches to aid and cooperation prevail.

Long Abstract:

Africa is experiencing a resource led economic boom within an international context marked by two conflicting trends that are likely to have a major impact on Africa's development in the coming years. On the one hand, the new aid architecture pursued by Development Cooperation Directorate (DCD-DAC) countries emphasizes policy reform over aid transfers within the general framework of market liberalism and new institutionalism. On the other hand, new players such as the so-called BRICS economies have placed commercial interest over (good) governance considerations. The aim of this panel is to discuss how these conflicting interests play out and are experienced on the ground. More specifically, the panel invites papers that discuss (a) the local political and social processes unleashed by these conflicting interests, (b) the manner in which donors and foreign companies negotiate their presence in those settings and, generally, (c) the options which the new situation makes available to African countries to chart a new course in their quest for political and economic progress while at the same time yielding new frameworks for a redefinition of development policy and practice. Papers should bear in particular on cases relating to contexts within which mineral and natural resources are at stake. Both theoretical as well as empirical papers are welcome.

Accepted papers:

Session 1

South Africa as an ordinary country: towards the Afro neo-liberal state?  

Thomas Blaser (Wits University)

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Paper short abstract:

This paper then tracks the internationalisation of South African capital, with particular relevance to mining resources, and its expansion across Africa and relates it to a growing democracy deficit within the country as a consequence of neoliberal policy choices.

Paper long abstract:

In terms of neo-liberal expansion, conceptualisations that focus on the influence of Africa on the world emphasize that the continent makes novel contributions to global neo-liberal regimes of governance (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2012). In this process of the global consolidation of resource extractions technologies and processes, South Africa with its advanced infrastructure and as a member of the BRICS countries, appears to occupy an important position and serves as an entry point into the African continent - South African capital, linked to global capital flows, has been expanding into emerging African markets over the past years. Simultaneously, a home grown vision for society and development appears exhausted, and a mixed economy and guided development (and democracy) à la China seems to have caught the attention of the ruling alliance. This paper then tracks the internationalisation of South African capital, with particular relevance to mining resources, and its expansion across Africa and relates it to a growing democracy deficit within the country as a consequence of neoliberal policy choices.

The Canadian advantage: gold mining in West Africa and debates on sovereignty, development and public-private partnerships  

Sabine Luning (Leiden University)

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Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses Canadian public-private partnerships for development involving mining companies and scrutinizes commercial interests, governance considerations, issues of sovereignty, and tasks of state and companies in a case-study situated in Burkina Faso.

Paper long abstract:

Canadian mining companies appear to have a bad track record compared to other western mining companies. Scandals involving both junior exploration companies (Bre-X) and majors (e.g. Talisman and Barrick) have triggered public debates in Canada. Discussions have focused on Canadian companies operating in developing countries marked by weak governance. Should companies that seem to operate beyond the law, or fuel conflicts be held accountable at home, in Canada? Mining companies have been able to prevent this and are now collaborating in an initiative that is linking Corporate Social Responsibility to development programmes of the Canadian government and NGO's, such as World Vision. This public-private partnership initiative is aimed at stimulating development in the host countries, but the policy is called: The Canadian Advantage. This initiative and the debates are most useful to think through the key issue of this panel: how can the aid architecture of neoliberal public-private partnerships be analysed in terms of balancing commercial interest and governance considerations? Moreover, the case of a Canadian Advantage initiative in Burkina Faso will show how this policy initiative works out on the ground. It shows how the context of partnering with NGO's appears to create room for companies to broaden off-set schemes and move away from on-site responsibilities. In addition, the case allows us to problematize issues of responsibility where tasks of states and companies seem to blur as well as issues of sovereignty where control over companies is - if realized at all - exercised in home rather than in host countries.

Connecting spaces of investment and dispossession in the southern African political economy of energy  

Bram Büscher (Wageningen University)

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Paper short abstract:

By examining riots in a rural Mozambican mining town and an elite coal-investment conference in Cape Town, the paper brings together disparate material and discursive spaces and contexts in which ‘investment’ and ‘dispossession’ are articulated in the Southern African political economy of energy

Paper long abstract:

The political economy of energy in Southern Africa is undergoing profound and rapid change. In response to international and regional demand, major energy extraction, production and transportation projects have started during the last decade, leading to a multitude of uneven impacts and developments across the subcontinent. Two different yet highly interconnected dynamics are central hereby: 'investment' and 'dispossession'. While rooted in seemingly familiar logics of uneven capitalist development, the paper argues that the disparate material and discursive spaces and contexts in which 'investment' and 'dispossession' are articulated are crucial to understand their meaning and effects. Two such spaces, both related to coal extraction in Mozambique, are brought together in the paper: riots in resettled rural villages in Tete province and a sanitized, five-star hotel investor's conference in Cape Town. The paper concludes that actors' ability to circulate across networks is crucial in understanding and connecting spaces of investment and dispossession

Powerplay in Guinea's mining sector  

Mayke Kaag (African Studies Centre Leiden)

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Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on Guinea and investigates the strategies by which state actors, trade unions and local and foreign enterprises try to enhance their power in, and through Guinea's booming mining sector

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on Guinea and investigates the strategies by which state actors, trade unions and local and foreign enterprises try to enhance their power in, and through Guinea's booming mining sector.

Death and taxes? Mineral tax regimes in resource-rich countries with special reference to Zambia  

Dominik Kopiński (University of Wroclaw)

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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores current challenges of tax regimes in resource abundant African countries, using Zambia as an example, in light of a new scramble for continent's hydrocarbons and minerals and concomitant resource nationalism that it has provoked.

Paper long abstract:

Nothing is certain but death and taxes - says an old proverb. Yet in many resource abundant African economies this common wisdom fails to explain the reality. Foreign companies pay little or no taxes, capture a large portion of the mineral rent and leave the government with relatively small pay-off from the underground riches. In Zambia, one of the world's leading copper producers, for example, in 2011 only two mining companies have declared profit. The tax revenues are generally low, so is the mining industry's contribution to the national budget. Transfer pricing and tax evasion is a commonplace. The new administration of Micheal Sata has pledged an overhaul of the current tax regime, which would enable Zambians to (re-) acquire a larger stake in the country's huge mineral wealth. But the strategy proved politically more difficult than expected and only minor changes have been introduced so far, including doubling royalties and reducing capital allowances. In the global setting, low taxes and stable political environment remain important incentives for foreign investors; in Zambia rising mining costs make foreign companies more uneasy about the future. This presents Zambia with a political dilemma of how to structure its mineral tax regime towards two ends: keeping foreign investors interested in digging copper by offering friendly and stable fiscal environment but also let Zambian more fully benefit from the copper deposits. This paper's objective is to shed more light on this conundrum and sketch possible scenarios that would be feasible for Zambia.

Extractivism during crises of chain governance: The regulation of the global aluminum chain in Guinea from the 1960s until today  

Johannes Knierzinger (Universität Wien)

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Paper short abstract:

The paper compares conflicting raw material policies and development strategies of the 1970s and today. It focuses on the control relations between Guinean actors and the global aluminum production network.

Paper long abstract:

The aluminum business is one of the most capital intensive and concentrated sectors and has strongly affected the development of non-industrialized countries involved in its global production network. The arrival of this industry in Africa in the 1960s and 70s can be compared in many ways to the situation today. Once a country opted for an extractivist development path, its policy options became dictated to a large extent by a highly entangled network of actors from the few globally dominant corporations, international financial institutions and the consumer countries. Guinea is a typical example for these control relations that have been seriously challenged again with the new mining boom since the turn of the millennium. It remains to be seen if the current government is capable to use this new crisis of chain governance to increase its policy space and thereby the decision space of the Guinean population.

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Governance of foreign investment in developing countries: the case of Mozambique  

Marta Zorzal e Silva (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo - UFES)

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Paper short abstract:

Governance processes in developing countries in Africa with the help of external cooperation via donations from foreign countries and foreign direct investments, particularly in natural resource exploitation and infrastructure construction: the case of Mozambique

Paper long abstract:

The article focuses on the governance processes that are established between countries with large reserves of natural resources and multinational companies' investors in extraction and processing of these resources. It asks about the mechanisms through which to effect the translation of conceptions, concepts, practices and rationalities that are transported to recipient countries of investments by foreign companies. Conversely on how managers of foreign companies perceive the cultural logics and the rationales underpinning established relationships with government and other national and local actors. For this purpose have been defined the phenomenon of investment as a particular moment of the constitution of the relationship between Governments and institutional actors in that the result reflects the consolidated action patterns over time. Theoretically rests on the debate around the notion of governance whose preponderance currently suggests a fundamental shift in management policy. This is no longer grounded in legitimacy based on the relationship between Governments and national electorates, but rather an ever-greater influence of actors like international organizations, multinational corporations and non-governmental organizations in the determination of policy decisions. Mozambique is taken as empirical referents in order to evidence how intertwine and conflict conceptions and views on developmental processes in the context of global dominance over the local place.

Investimentos da Vale do Rio Doce em Moçambique: entre expectativas e protestos  

Remo Mutzenberg (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco) Eliane Veras Soares (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco )

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Paper short abstract:

Análise dos protestos sociais, atores, demandas, articulações que emergem a partir da presença da Vale do Rio Doce em Tete-Mz. Busca-se trazer para o debate os protestos que os impactos da presença da Vale vêm provocando e suas bases discursivas.

Paper long abstract:

A África na última década está sendo o lócus de investimentos de empresas internacionais, particularmente no campo da exploração de recursos naturais. A empresa brasileira Vale do Rio Doce é uma destas empresas que vem investindo na exploração do minério de ferro em Moçambique. Por um lado, a presença da Vale em Tete-Mz gerou expectativas de desenvolvimento e é considerada como investimento importante para o desenvolvimento econômico do país. Por outro lado, essa presença e seus desdobramentos no campo social, ambiental e frustrações de expectativas da população social tem gerado protestos de diferentes ordens. O que se busca analisar, na comunicação aqui proposta, são esses protestos, suas demandas, dimensões, atores e suas articulações para além do espaço local. Apenas como ilustração, podemos mencionar os protestos ocorridos em frente à sede da Vale no Rio de Janeiro, em junho de 2012, organizado pela ONGs "Atingidos pela Vale!", quando foi entregue o "Relatório de Insustentabilidade". Neste relatório, além de denúncias relacionadas as atividades da Vale no Brasil, consta também a questão da remoção da população local pela Vale em Moçambique. E ainda, a ação da organização moçambicana "Justiça Ambiental", filiada a organização "Amigos da Terra Internacional". A partir desta análise busca-se trazer para o debate os protestos que os impactos da presença da Vale vêm provocando e suas bases discursivas.

A contribuição possível do pensamento social brasileiro às análises acerca da cooperação/competição entre economias nacionais: desafios teóricos  

Adelia Miglievich-Ribeiro (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo)

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Paper short abstract:

As redefinições do desenvolvimento num mundo em que a cooperação é alvo de disputas remonta a debates acerca da modernização e dos neo-colonialismos. Com destaque a Darcy Ribeiro, revisitamos dilemas que se mantêm atuais na constituição hoje do Sul Global.

Paper long abstract:

O contexto de redefinição da política e prática de desenvolvimento num mundo de competição em que a cooperação mesma é alvo de disputas remonta a debates célebres nas ciências sociais acerca da modernização e dos neo-colonialismos. Faz sentido, pois, discutir as proposições acerca do chamado Sul Global numa perspectiva que enfrenta a crítica pós-colonial aos novos silenciamentos que se impõem nas tentativas de homogeneização das diferenças e das especificidades de Estados, economias e continentes tão díspares sob a macro rubrica "Sul Global". Em nossa análise, trazemos autores brasileiros para, a partir da experiência latino-americana, buscarmos relacionar, nas similitudes e nos contrastes, aos desafios dos investimentos em África, supondo ser útil o alargamento das fontes bibliográficas mais comumente utilizadas. Destacamos os conceitos, de um lado, de "modernização reflexa" e de "atualização histórica", de outro, de "aceleração evolutiva", de Darcy Ribeiro (1922-1997), em sua capacidade de elucidar a ideia de autonomia nacional. Apresentamos a delicada construção da ideia de "povo" no pensamento social brasileiro em que se inspira Darcy Ribeiro, com ênfase a seu diálogo com Manoel Bonfim (1868-1932). Perguntamos, portanto, se o debate contemporâneo acerca da cooperação no "Sul Global" prescinde ou não de tal categoria analítica e quais seus limites. Buscamos, por fim, problematizar a noção de "pátria grande" que Darcy Ribeiro herda de Simon Bolívar e as subalternizações não ditas, porém contidas, em tal ideia, de modo a estabelecermos diálogos possíveis, ainda que preliminares, com os desafios que se impõem na cooperação entre Estados-Nação.