Redefining ‘Aid’ in the China–Africa Context

Discussions on the politics of Chinese engagement with African development have been marked by increasing concern over Chinese use of aid in exchange for preferential energy deals. Normative liberal discourse criticizes the Chinese for disbursing ‘rogue aid’ and undermining good governance in the African continent. These criticisms not only ignore the longer‐term motivations and modalities of Chinese aid and the historical diversity of Chinese relations with Africa, but also uncritically assume ‘Western’ aid to be morally ‘superior’ and ‘more effective’ in terms of development outcomes. This paper consists of three parts. First, it will discuss the debates surrounding Chinese engagement in Africa, especially around aid and development issues. Second, the paper maps the historical development of China–Africa engagement and investigates the impacts of the changing modalities of Chinese aid with reference to case studies of two countries: Angola and Ghana. It then offers a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences between these two cases. The principal argument is that Chinese and Western donors employ different ideologies and practices of governance to conceal their own interests and political discourses in the African continent.     

What’s new in the ‘New Partnership for Africa’s Development’?

This article provides an overview of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) in the context of Africa's current economic and governance crises, the attempt to establish an Africa Union, and the interest in Africa displayed by the G8 leadership and in particular by the UK's prime minister Tony Blair.
NEPAD has to be seen simultaneously as a 'big idea', a new way of doing business, and a comprehensive development framework. The 'big idea' is to put Africa's concerns on the table of the G8 and seek a much better deal for Africa in terms of international aid, debt relief and access to markets. The new way of doing business is a new form of 'enhanced' development partnership that makes both donor and recipient mutually accountable for development outcomes. The development framework is a long—and expanding—list of programmes and projects, akin to those that have been tried before.
The heart of NEPAD is a commitment to good governance, operationalized through a radical plan for 'peer review' of governance performance. This promises a radical new approach to development partnership, but it also faces political hazards. The governance component is also analysed in the context of the pan–Africa institutions envisaged by the African Union. There is a need for coordinating and rationalizing peace and security initiatives. NEPAD may unlock additional financing for development, but it should not be seen as a cash cow.
The challenges for NEPAD include opening up the process to make it more participatory, including greater focus on HIV/AIDS. NEPAD faces the real danger of being over–sold and of raising unrealistic expectations among Africans. It is, nevertheless, an outstanding opportunity for Africa's development.     

Governance,the State and the Politics of Development

Current western aid and development policy aims to promote ‘good governance’ in the third world. Few would deny that competent, open and fair administration is both a worthy aim and a self-evident requirement of development. However, the current orthodoxy clearly illustrates the technicist fallacy, which is implicit in the following quotation from Pope, that the effective administration or ‘management’ of development is essentially a technical or practical matter. This article argues that development is fundamentally a political matter and that it is illusory to conceive of good governance as independent of the forms of politics and type of state which alone can generate, sustain and protect it. For Forms of Government, let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered, is best. (Pope, 1734: Bk 3, lines 303-4).     

Foreign Aid after the Cold War

This paper argues that foreign aid programmes originated as part of the ideological confrontation known as the Cold War and that the motives behind aid were always more political than economic. It is further argued that the economic justifications for foreign aid — filling ‘gaps’ in capital, technology and skills—are suspect and that the economic benefits in terms of long-term development are at best negligible. Turning to the future, foreign aid programmes are bound to change to reflect the new realities of global international relations. Nine specific predictions are made about the future size and composition of aid programmes. The outlook for those who favour aid is not bright, but recent changes in thinking about development suggest that more sell-reliant strategies could well be more beneficial to the poor than conventional aid-supported strategies.     

Social Reconstruction and the Radicalization of Development: Aid as a Relation of Global Liberal Governance

That democratic societies do not fall into conflict has become an axiom of contemporary international relations. Liberal societies, however, do not properly exist along the troubled margins of the global order. This absence has lent urgency to present efforts at social reconstruction. Whereas a couple of decades ago the principle of non–interference prevailed, this unfinished business has shaped a new will to intervene and transform societies as a whole. This article critically analyses the international will to govern through three interconnected themes. First, it examines accepted views on the nature of the new wars. These representations usually portray conflict as a form of social regression stemming from the failure of modernity. As such, they provide a moral justification for intervention. Second, an alternative view of the new wars — as a form of resistant and reflexive modernity — is developed. Made possible by the opportunities created by globalization, this resistance assumes the organizational form of network war. The essay concludes with an examination of the encounter between the international will to govern and the resistance of reflexive modernity. This encounter is the site of the post–Cold War reuniting of aid and politics. One important consequence has been the radicalization of development and its reinvention as a strategic tool of conflict resolution and social reconstruction. The use of aid as a tool of global liberal governance is fraught with difficulty; not least, the equivocal and contested nature of its influence. Rather than reconsideration, however, policy failure tends to result in a fresh round of reinvention and reform. The increasing normalization of violence is but one effect.     

差异分权与多元碎化:大都市边缘地区城镇化空间模式研究——基于武汉市蔡甸区的实证

大都市边缘地区是大都市经济增长与空间拓展的主要地域,也是分权化治理最为复杂的区域。大都市边缘地区往往针对不同主体采取不同模式的分权化来调整其空间治理结构以适应发展需求。本文构建从分权化治理到城镇化空间的逻辑框架,从大都市边缘地区"差异分权"的空间治理格局入手,落脚在"多元碎化"的城镇化空间模式上,进而对从空间治理的"差异分权"到城镇化空间模式的"多元碎化"间的制度逻辑进行了解析,认为差异分权格局是当前大都市区边缘地区城镇化空间模式多元碎化的直接诱因,因此新型城镇化迫切需要从治理结构上予以破解。     

城市生态管治:城市化压力的政策响应

缺乏制衡的城市化行为对城市生态系统造成的压力不断增大,成为城市可持续发展的瓶颈。城市生态管治是将"管治"和"生态城市"的理念引入到城市研究中,运用P-S-R概念模型研究城市生态系统,通过分析城市化的生态压力,以及由此引起的生态系统的非健康状态,进而采取城市生态管治的政策响应,以形成反馈机制,缓解压力,使得城市生态系统产生新的输出,即良好健康状态的城市生态系统。城市生态管治政策响应体系包括政策一体化(核心),支撑能力建设和协调发展机制。     

Governing Regional Development Through Culture and Creativity: The Case of the Veneto Region

This article has adopted a focus on culture and creativity in order to reflect on existing policies for the governance of large polycentric territories. Two trends, namely the increasing importance of regions in the urban planning field of study and culture as a strategic factor for territorial development, are combined to see how culture can be used as a strategic element within processes of regional development. Culture-led strategies are found to be instrumental to regional development, especially in territories undergoing a moment of inertia. The case of the Veneto Region shows that this momentum has now evidently also arrived in Italy. At a time in which the whole country is experiencing economic crisis, the Veneto region seems to be trapped in a transition stage between its successful past and the uncertainty of these days. While the Regione del Veneto is only somewhat trying to include culture and creativity in its official regional planning documents, some bottom-up initiatives have highlighted culture as a strategic factor for governing large territories and for their all-embracing development. In this context, culture and creativity can be seen as tools for governing territories that do not follow the policy orientation given by Regione del Veneto, but rather have a new understanding of regional governance taken forward by the private sector working together with the local administrations.     

城市群规划中的管治研究——以绍兴城市群规划为例

在经济快速发展和城市化快速推进时期,城市群成为经济发展格局中最具活力和潜力的核心地区。但是,我国城市群发展面临着由于市场经济改革不到位引起的市场和政府的制度性缺陷,以及市场和政府本身的功能性缺陷,导致城市群内条块经济突出、区域发展失衡、地方矛盾加剧等问题。管治作为一种在政府和市场之间进行权利平衡再分配的制度性理念,成为解决城市群发展过程中市场失灵以及政府失灵的必然选择。本文首先总结了城市群管治的理论与模式,在进行国内外区域管治模式借鉴的基础上,以绍兴城市群为例,构建适宜我国发展现状的城市群管治框架。     

Aleatory Sovereignty and the Rule of Sensitive Spaces

Addressing life in borders and refugee camps requires understanding the way these spaces are ruled, the kinds of problems rule poses for the people who live there, and the abilities of inhabitants to remake their own lives. Recent literature on such spaces has been influenced by Agamben's notion of sovereignty, which reduces these spaces and their residents to abstractions. We propose an alternate framework focused on what we call aleatory sovereignty, or rule by chance. This allows us to see camps and borders not only as the outcomes of humanitarian projects but also of anxieties about governance and rule; to see their inhabitants not only as abject recipients of aid, but also as individuals who make decisions and choices in complex conditions; and to show that while the outcome of projects within such spaces is often unpredictable, the assumptions that undergird such projects create regular cycles of implementation and failure.     

WRITING THE HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT AID

International aid has been a significant element both in economic development and international politics since 1945, but has been insufficiently integrated in the discipline of history. The present article discusses the main problems of method, sources and discourse in the field of aid history, based on the recently published three‐volume history of Norwegian development aid. The shifting conjunctures of aid are seen in relation to main paradigm changes in development theory. It is emphasized that history is not a macro‐evaluation, but that it provides a basis for reflection, in this as in other fields.     

Heritage and participatory governance: An analysis of political strategies and social fractures in Spain

In the heritage field, institutions tend to see social participation as a synonym for good governance practice. This extends to other areas such as the environment, humanitarian aid, and sustainable development. In this article, the authors analyze the use of participatory models in the management of heritage through the study of three heritage sites in Spain: the prehistoric paintings in Altamira, the Mosque‐Cathedral in Córdoba, and the Cabo de Gata‐Nijar Natural Park. Their study suggests that, despite the promises of more democratic heritage governance, participatory methods are commonly bounded by social fractures that are concomitant to certain ‘heritage regimes’. They conclude that the critical study of participation in heritage should go beyond the dichotomy between ‘good and bad’ participation. Rather, it should focus on understanding what participation does to the entire heritagization process.     

Work in crisis: managing fantasies about distant strangers,managing aid workers

This article provides an insight into the world of Polish development workers operating in South Sudan. It shows that the conceptualisations of aid work in terms of a ‘mission’, a unique job with a special, ethical goal, a difficult, risky operation requiring specific skills are not incidental. Instead, the point is made, that such ways of thinking about foreign aid and distant locations are strongly institutionalised sets of values and behavioural patterns, here defined as ‘work in crisis’. This specific notion is shaped by aid organisations who actively promote this rhetoric firstly through producing ‘truth’ about the aid work and project locations, and secondly through governing lived realities of the aid workers. The ‘work in crisis’ rhetoric helps to draw people into a development movement as devoted and allegiant followers. It also enables the management of these employees who are the most crucial for the industry – project coordinators – but who are separated from the organisational headquarters and NGO management by thousands of miles. Finally, it assists in the promotion of foreign aid among wider audiences in donor societies.     

中国历代宗教治理的得失镜鉴

治理与管理一字之差,体现的是系统把握、刚柔并济、综合施策、互利双赢。中国历代宗教治理不仅包括政府刚性的宗教管理,还包括整个社会柔性的礼乐教化;宗教治理不仅包括针对宗教的一套规则,而且包括社会的政治经济管理制度;宗教治理不仅指政府的管理,也包括宗教组织的自治;宗教治理的手段不仅是控制、引导、操纵,还包括对话、辩论、汇通;宗教治理的结果并非简单的支配与服从,更多的是理解与配合。具体内容包括:对宗教“敬而远之”的治理理念;多元宗教和谐并存又不一家独大;礼乐教化引导外来宗教中国化;保持政教关系的适度张力;经济上控制宗教发展的适度规模;政府管理与僧团自治结合运用;防范境外宗教引发的国家主权危机。     

Heritage diplomacy

This paper explores the concept of heritage diplomacy. To date much of the analysis regarding the politics of heritage has focused on contestation, dissonance and conflict. Heritage diplomacy seeks to address this imbalance by critically examining themes such as cooperation, cultural aid and hard power, and the ascendency of intergovernmental and non-governmental actors as mediators of the dance between nationalism and internationalism. The paper situates heritage diplomacy within broader histories of international governance and diplomacy itself. These are offered to interpret the interplay between the shifting forces and structures, which, together, have shaped the production, governance and international mobilisation of heritage in the modern era. A distinction between heritage as diplomacy and in diplomacy is outlined in order to reframe some of the ways in which heritage has acted as a constituent of cultural nationalisms, international relations and globalisation. In mapping out directions for further enquiry, I argue the complexities of the international ordering of heritage governance have yet to be teased out. A framework of heritage diplomacy is thus offered in the hope that it can do some important analytical work in the field of critical heritage theory, opening up some important but under theorised aspects of heritage analysis.     

Authoritarianism in the Age of Market Liberalism in Sri Lanka

The agenda for “good governance” postulates that it constitutes both a precondition for and an outcome of economic development. In direct opposition, neo-Marxist analyses assert a causal link between economic liberalization and bureaucratic-authoritarian regimes. This article argues that the relationship between governance and economic development cannot be resolved in such abstract and ahistorical terms but must be approached through concrete analyses of political strategies around and within the post-colonial state. A closer examination of authoritarianism and economic liberalization in Sri Lanka supports this argument.     

规划决策民主化:基于城市管治的透视

管治是探索政府、市场、公众等多元力量协调整合的理念与过程。在中国城市发展面临巨大转型的背景下引入、借鉴管治的思维,对促进城市规划健康发展与决策民主化都具有重要的意义。文章介绍了管治的背景、内涵,从管治的角度论述了中国特定发展环境中的城市规划民主决策问题,并辨证地评析了管治的作用。文章认为,中国正在转变的社会经济背景和城市管理的要求,使得管治进入中国有其必然性和必要性。随后文章分别从城市规划存在的整体性体制缺陷、政府的企业化导向、薄弱的公民社会等方面,分别阐述了在中国开展城市规划决策民主化所面临的严峻挑战。在发展转型期,中国城市规划决策的民主化只能是有限目标、有限进度的。文章的基本结论是:城市规划决策民主化是与整体社会经济发展阶段、体制相匹配的一个环节,它的建设与完善取决于整体的社会管治水平。     

Regional Strategies for Renewable Energies: Development Processes in Greater Manchester

Making the transition to renewable, low-carbon forms of energy could be the defining question of our times. Especially for complex problems such as energy supply the regional scale and new forms of control, coordination and cooperation—subsumed under the term regional governance—are widely discussed both in politics (e.g. G8 conferences, Climate Summits, etc.) and academia. The turn from conventional to renewable energies is one major topic of discussion. For this process of change, regional governance can be seen as the best way to initiate it. With the help of a case study conducted in Greater Manchester, UK, this article concentrates on two points: (1) the development of regional governance arrangements in the light of a low-carbon agenda as mixture of path-dependent bottom-up and top-down approaches and (2) the impacts of specific constellations and environments for regional energy development that include institutional rules, strategic behaviour of actors and strategic discourses. This article shows that the integration of a regional governance structure into the strategic development process can achieve a substantial qualitative improvement for the development of a regional energy strategy.     

Monitoring Elite Capture in Community‐Driven Development

Recently, a lot of attention has been paid to improving ways of assessing the effectiveness of development interventions. This is to be welcomed, especially with regard to community‐based or participatory aid projects, since considerable resources are currently being earmarked for these by almost all types of donor agencies, including large international organizations. Such projects are vulnerable to elite capture at local level, and this problem must be mitigated if most of the aid funds thus disbursed are to reach the intended beneficiaries. This article discusses several methods available to achieve that objective. In particular, it argues that the sequential and conditional release of aid funds may not be sufficient to keep elite capture well under control, making it necessary to resort to co‐ordination mechanisms among aid agencies, such as multilateral reputation mechanisms. Even these are not going to be effective enough, however. In the end, an active role will have to be played by the ultimate purveyors of aid money, whether the taxpayers or the contributors in fund‐raising campaigns.     

Policy governance from an autopoietic perspective: revisiting Hungary’s regionalization experience

This perspective on Hungary’s post-socialist regional policy governance is informed by an approach that relates region-building and regional governance to social autopoiesis and the self-referential and self-(re)producing nature of social systems such as states. Following debates in regional studies that reflect tensions between the local constitution and external determination of regional governance, we will demonstrate how Hungary has incorporated European Union (EU) policy frameworks through specific appropriations of territorial politics and regional ideas. These appropriations reflect Hungary’s post-socialist transformation not only in terms of responses to global forces, but also as specific spatial practices and regionalization experiences. As we argue, this has in effect resulted in a regionalism without regions – a strategy of Europeanizing territorial politics without creating institutional structures that directly challenge existing power relations. Autopoiesis thus helps explain the resilience of social systems, not only their resistance to institutional change but also their capability to ‘domesticate’ external influences. While criticisms of Hungary’s technocratic and post-political regionalization projects cannot be ignored, our analysis indicates why externally driven intervention in self-organizing governance processes, for example through EU conditionality, has had less impact than expected.