Search

Begin New Search Publishing Institution German Institute of Global and Area Studies Publication Year within 10 Years

31. The Brazilian Rise and the Elusive South American Balance

Author:
Luis Leandro Schenoni
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Within the last 50 years, the Brazilian share of South American power has increased from one‐third to one‐half of the overall material capabilities in the region. Such a significant change in the regional power structure cannot have gone unnoticed by Brazil's neighbors. The article addresses the main question related to South American unipolarity (1985–2014): Why have most countries in the region not implemented any consistent balancing or bandwagoning strategies vis‐à‐vis Brazil? Drawing on neoclassical realism, the article proposes that certain domestic variables – government instability, limited party‐system institutionalization, and powerful presidents – have diverted the attention of political elites and foreign policy executives from the challenges generated by a rising Brazil. Crisp‐set qualitative comparative analysis is used to test this hypothesis and other alternative explanations for the regional imbalance.
Topic:
Foreign Policy
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

32. Regional Linkages and Global Policy Alignment: The Case of China–Southeast Asia Relations

Author:
Georg Strüver and Pascal Abb
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
This paper uses the case of Sino–Southeast Asian relations to gain insights on China's ability to muster support for its global agenda. The analysis focuses on the regional–global nexus of interstate relations and explores the extent to which the quality of two states' regional relations influences the likelihood of behavioral alignment in global politics. To this end, we consider a range of potentially influential aspects of Sino–Southeast Asian relations (the quality of bilateral relations based on recent event data, alliance policy, regime similarity, development level, and economic ties) and employ a statistical model to search for correlations with observed trends of voting coincidence in the United Nations General Assembly during the period 1979–2010. We find a strong correlation between the quality of regional bilateral relations and global policy alignment, which indicates that patterns of regional cooperation and conflict also impact the trajectory of China's rise in world affairs.
Topic:
Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
China and Southeast Asia

33. The Plasticity of Regions: A Social Sciences–Cultural Studies Dialogue on Asia-Related Area Studies

Author:
Heike Holbig
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Representatives from the social sciences and cultural studies continue to exhibit mutual reservations and sensitivities when they encounter each other in the field of area studies. This is particularly so with regard to research on East and Southeast Asia. Given this background and with the intention of deriving a productive definition of area studies, this article attempts to assess the current state of Asia-related area studies by reviewing and comparing the debates within the social sciences and cultural studies in the Anglo-Saxon and German-language spheres on the changing role of the discipline. In this text, region is defined as an ongoing process involving the communicative construction of social relations. Various approaches to describing the regions of East and Southeast Asia illustrate that this process is subject to dialectical movements of de- and reterritorialization, which should be examined as issues of equal empirical rank. In view of a growing focus primarily on transnational and transregional entanglements, this text suggests using the term “reflexive essentialism” and proposes more extensive reflection on the new and essentialist self-assurances, limitations, and entrenchments at the regional, national, and subnational levels.
Political Geography:
Asia

34. SMARTer Indicators for Decent Work in a Post-2015 Development Agenda: A Discussion and a Proposal

Author:
Jann Lay, Sarah Lindemann-Komarova, Sebastian Prediger, and Martin Ostermeier
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the design of a post-2015 development framework by proposing indicators to monitor employment outcomes. Our analysis of the current MDG employment indicators shows that measurement problems, the inappropriate use of aggregate statistics, ambiguous interpretability, and assumptions that often do not hold true in the context of developing countries are major shortcomings of the current indicators. Based on this critique, we develop a new set of indicators for productive employment and decent work. We propose four indicators: (i) the growth of labor value added per worker, (ii) the working poverty rate, (iii) (a) the share of workers receiving less than an absolute labor income and (b) the share of workers receiving less than 60 percent of the median labor income. We demonstrate the empirical application of these indicators using the country cases of Uganda and Peru.
Topic:
Development
Political Geography:
Uganda and Peru

35. Polyarchies, Competitive Oligarchies, or Inclusive Hegemonies? 23 Global Intergovernmental Organizations Compared

Author:
Dawisson Belém Lopes
Publication Date:
03-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
In this paper, I assume that global intergovernmental organizations (GIGOs) function as “enablers” of interstate liberal politics by way of their multilateral institutional frameworks. To support this view, I recall and adapt the classical concept of “polyarchy,” coined in the early 1950s by Robert A. Dahl. It consists of a two-dimensional theoretical construct applicable for measuring the level of liberalization in modern political societies. It follows that the more actors who take part in politics, and the more that institutions allow political opposition, the more open a society (of states) is likely to be. I thus wish to assess and rate the level of “polyarchization” of 23 GIGOs that cover various issue areas and fit some specific criteria (for example, more than one hundred member states from at least three different continents). The methodology section includes a scorecard that I have specially developed to help achieve these research objectives.

36. Adaptation and Learning among Chinese Actors in Africa

Author:
Karsten Giese and Erdem Dikici
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
When we talk about “China in Africa”, we should always remember to differentiate between the various actors and scales that are too often conflated and hidden behind such large and all-encompassing labels like “China” or “Africa”. Common containers and the homogenizing of diversity seldom help to broaden our knowledge or deepen our understanding of the various phenomena which can be observed at the various scales of the multiple relationships that have evolved between this East Asian country and the African continent. Moreover, it is necessary to specify the point in time or particular period we are covering in our scholarly work and that from which we draw our conclusions. Quite a few of the publications addressing China–Africa relations have succumbed to broad generalizations, neglected diversity and specificity and overlooked the temporal dimension. The last couple of years, however, have seen the emergence of a growing body of well-informed case studies on the Chinese presence across the African continent that stress the particularity and the situatedness of Chinese–African encounters and interactions in Africa. We now can rely on thick descriptions of various Chinese actors' realities on the ground in Africa that more often than not defy and counter longstanding and still very common stereotypes, such as that of China's grand strategy in the scramble for Africa or of the generally exploitative and belligerent character of Chinese economic endeavours across the African continent.
Political Geography:
Africa and China

37. Chinese Adaptations: African Agency, Fragmented Community and Social Capital Creation in Ghana

Author:
Katy N. Lam
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Chinese migrant entrepreneurs in Ghana perceive themselves as vulnerable, as regularly they encounter problems and their businesses fail. The adaption experiences of Chinese entrepreneurs in Africa, especially non-traders, remain largely unstudied. By looking at the interactions of newly arrived and established Chinese migrants with institutional actors, partners, local employees and other Chinese in Ghana, this paper shows the multiple dimensions of how Chinese entrepreneurs' migration adaptation evolves, and how they create social capital to develop their businesses in Ghana. From the Chinese perspective, established entrepreneurs condemn the recent numerous “new” Chinese in Ghana as part of the root cause of problems, on account of their “poor quality and bad behaviour”; by comparison, the newly arrived Chinese attribute their challenges to deficiencies in the local people and institutions of the host country. The negative experiences of Chinese entrepreneurs in Ghana provide further evidence for, not only African, but also local Chinese agency from below, and suggest that the rising Chinese presence does not necessarily improve the social status of Chinese entrepreneurs or create a stronger, more unified Chinese community on the continent.
Political Geography:
Africa and Ghana

38. Of Other Spaces? Hybrid Forms of Chinese Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa

Author:
Romain Dittgen
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Chinese economic activities in Africa have gained increased visibility in parallel to the recent acceleration of Sino-African relations. This paper, which is framed from a geographical perspective that is often absent or neglected in studies covering China–Africa, focuses on the spatial forms and dynamics. It depicts the way in which two contrasting Chinese economic entities – a state-owned company in Chad and privately owned commercial malls in Johannesburg, South Africa – engage with their respective host environments. While drawing on concepts of “liminality” as well as “heterotopias”, I argue that the modalities of the Chinese footprint are characterised both by closure and interaction, creating a dynamic tension that produces its own set of unique practices. This ambivalence between enclave and active linkages with host societies is not only perceivable from a spatial point of view, but also emerges with regard to economic strategies. In the midst of a transitional period, along with a launching and a consolidating phase, the Chinese economic entities in both case studies show signs of change in terms of behaviour and territorial foothold.
Political Geography:
Africa and China

39. In the Shadow of the States: The Informalities of Chinese Petty Entrepreneurship in Nigeria

Author:
Allen Hai Xiao
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
The burgeoning interstate relation between China and Nigeria is in fact hiding the vulnerable condition of transnational Chinese petty entrepreneurship. Small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs in Nigeria are faced with everyday corruption practised by both Nigerian authorities and ordinary Nigerian people, the dominance of self-interest over cohesion and mutual support among the Chinese compatriots, and variations in state policies due to dynamic and changing interstate relations. To overcome their position of weakness, small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs strategize their interactions with both Nigerian and Chinese nationals. Informality is a characteristic of such interactions. Economic informality is primarily embodied in the documentation service businesses that are indebted to those popular corrupt practices in Nigeria; while social informality takes place in cyberspace. Interaction via the Internet among Chinese involved in Chinese–Nigerian businesses helps small-scale Chinese entrepreneurs to cope with fluctuations in interstate links at the macro-level and to develop a sense of community.
Political Geography:
China and Nigeria

40. Non-Interference 2.0: China's Evolving Foreign Policy towards a Changing Africa

Author:
Richard Aidoo and Steve Hess
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
China's non-interference policy has come under scrutiny in regards to its growing and deepening relations in Africa. The policy has come to represent an about-face from conditional assistance and investment associated with the Washington Consensus. Although often well received in much of the global South, this policy has drawn a lot of criticism from the West and others. These commentators have perceived non-interference as an opportunistic and often inconsistent instrument for enabling China's increasing access to African resources and markets. This article suggests that despite some consistent support for the rhetoric of non-interference, China's implementation of the policy has become increasingly varied and contextualized in reaction to Africa's ever-more diversified political and economic landscape since the early 2000s.
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Washington