Ethiopian and Kenyan Government Negotiations with Non-Western Autocracy Promoters

埃塞俄比亚和肯尼亚政府与非西方独裁推动者的谈判

• 批准号: 2066100
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2066100
• 关键词: Ethiopian; Kenyan; Government; Negotiations; Non

This project explores the phenomenon of 'autocracy promotion'; a collective term for actions that major authoritarian powers such as China and Russia undertake to stabilise and support authoritarian recipients across the non-Western world. Previous research in this area has explored the motivations and impact of Russia and China's engagement and support for authoritarian recipients. This project will expand upon prior research by undertaking a comparative overview of Russia and China's approaches and motivations in supporting recipient regimes, and the eventual outcomes of their autocracy promoting activities. In doing so, it will utilise a mixed methods approach, combining in-person interviews with African policy makers, academics, and journalists, alongside archival research to explore historical instances of autocracy promotion and negotiations.This project moves beyond a focus primarily on the autocracy promoting states themselves, to instead highlight the role of recipient authoritarian regimes in the process of autocracy promotion. Utilising an agency framework, this project will highlight how recipient regimes are capable of selectively engaging with China and Russia, picking and choosing the times in which to receive support for their regimes from autocracy promoting states. This research will be centred upon two case studies of the Kenyan and Ethiopian governments throughout the Cold War and contemporary periods. This project will highlight how both regimes utilise several strategies to exercise their agency in negotiations with autocracy promoters, leading to a significant amount of movement for both recipient regimes to focus on their preferences, even within the restricted negotiating space given to them by donors and their nominally disadvantageous position in the global system. The project will engage with the theoretical debates of the autocracy promotion literature by assessing whether negotiations with Russia and China can be classified within this phenomenon. It will be demonstrated that the negotiating process between recipient regimes, Russia, and China is not a simplistic narrative of autocracy promoters expanding their influence at the detriment of recipients, but that instead the relationship is more nuanced. Recipient regimes can shape the process of negotiations, as evidenced through both these cases.To explore these issues and understand the actions and agency of African policy makers, semi-structured interviews with government officials, academics, journalists, members of think tanks and policy institutes will be undertaken in Nairobi, Kenya. These interviews will provide vital insights into how African policy makers have exercised agency within negotiations. As mentioned prior, African agency are often overlooked in the scholarly literature so far, which has provided undue focus on the promoter side of this process. Interviews with African policy makers will highlight the mutually constructed nature of autocracy promotion itself, demonstrating how recipients and promoters both play a vital role in how autocracy promotion operates. To complement the interviews, archival visits and document analysis will also be undertaken, both to explore negotiations undertaken during the Cold War, alongside being used to corroborate interview data. With this project highlighting agency exercising and decision-making on the part of recipient authoritarian states in how they shape outcomes related to autocracy promotion, it is anticipated that this project's findings could contribute to wider understandings of the process of Russian and Chinese authoritarian support, and how best this can be counteracted by Western governments and democracy promoters.

这个项目探索了“专制促进”的现象，这是中国和俄罗斯等主要威权国家为稳定和支持非西方世界的威权接受者而采取的行动的统称。以往在这一领域的研究已经探索了俄罗斯和中国参与和支持威权接受者的动机和影响。本项目将在先前研究的基础上，对俄罗斯和中国支持受援国政权的方法和动机，以及他们促进专制活动的最终结果进行比较概述。在这样做的过程中，它将使用一种混合的方法，结合对非洲政策制定者、学者和记者的面对面采访，以及档案研究，探索独裁促进和谈判的历史案例。这个项目超越了主要关注促进独裁的国家本身，而是强调了受援国威权政权在促进独裁过程中的作用。利用一个机构框架，这个项目将突出受援国如何有能力有选择地与中国和俄罗斯接触，挑选和选择从提倡独裁的国家为其政权提供支持的时间。这项研究将集中于肯尼亚和埃塞俄比亚政府在整个冷战和当代时期的两个案例研究。该项目将突出两个政权如何利用几种战略在与独裁制度推动者的谈判中行使其机构职能，导致两个受援国政权都大量关注自己的偏好，即使在捐助者给予它们的有限谈判空间和它们在全球体系中名义上处于不利地位的情况下也是如此。该项目将通过评估与俄罗斯和中国的谈判是否可以归类于这一现象，来从事专制促进文学的理论辩论。这将证明，受援国政权、俄罗斯和中国之间的谈判过程并不是专制推动者以损害受援国为代价扩大其影响力的简单化叙事，相反，这种关系更加微妙。受援国政权可以影响谈判进程，这两起案件都证明了这一点。为了探讨这些问题，了解非洲政策制定者的行动和机构，将在肯尼亚内罗毕对政府官员、学者、记者、智库和政策机构成员进行半结构化采访。这些采访将为非洲政策制定者如何在谈判中发挥作用提供重要的见解。如前所述，到目前为止的学术文献中，非洲机构经常被忽视，这使得人们对这一过程的推动者方面给予了不适当的关注。对非洲政策制定者的采访将突出独裁促进本身的共同构建性质，展示接受者和推动者如何在独裁促进的运作中发挥关键作用。为了补充访谈，还将进行档案访问和文件分析，以探讨冷战期间进行的谈判，并用于证实访谈数据。由于这个项目突出了接受援助的威权国家在如何影响与促进独裁有关的结果方面的机构行使和决策，预计该项目的发现将有助于更广泛地理解俄罗斯和中国的威权支持过程，以及西方政府和民主推动者如何最好地应对这一过程。