Ethiopian and Kenyan Government Negotiations with Non-Western Autocracy Promoters

这个项目探讨了“促进专制”的现象；这是一个集体术语，指的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。此前在这一领域的研究探讨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进行扩展，对俄罗斯和中国在支持接受国政权方面的方法和动机，以及两国促进独裁活动的最终结果进行比较概述。在此过程中，它将采用混合方法，结合对非洲政策制定者、学者和记者的亲自采访，以及档案研究来探索促进独裁和谈判的历史实例。这个项目超越了对促进专制国家本身的主要关注，而是强调了接受者专制政权在促进专制过程中的作用。利用代理框架，本项目将强调受援国政权如何能够有选择地与中国和俄罗斯接触，挑选和选择从促进专制的国家获得对其政权支持的时机。这项研究将集中在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。本项目将强调这两个政权如何利用几种策略在与独裁推动者的谈判中行使其代理权，从而导致两个受援国政权在很大程度上侧重于其偏好，即使是在捐助国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。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，参与专制促进文献的理论辩论。它将证明，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在损害受援国利益的情况下扩大影响力的简单叙述，相反，它们之间的关系更为微妙。受援国制度可以影响谈判进程，这两个案例都证明了这一点。为了探讨这些问题并了解非洲决策者的行动和机构，将在肯尼亚内罗毕对政府官员、学者、记者、智库成员和政策研究所进行半结构化采访。这些访谈将为了解非洲决策者如何在谈判中行使代理权提供重要见解。如前所述，迄今为止，在学术文献中，非洲机构往往被忽视，这些文献过分关注这一进程的推动者方面。对非洲政策制定者的采访将突出专制促进本身相互构建的本质，展示接受者和推动者如何在专制促进的运作中发挥至关重要的作用。为了补充面谈，还将进行档案访问和文件分析，以便探讨冷战期间进行的谈判，同时用于证实面谈数据。由于该项目强调了接受者专制国家在如何塑造与独裁促进相关的结果方面的机构行使和决策，预计该项目的研究结果可能有助于更广泛地理解俄罗斯和中国的独裁支持过程，以及西方政府和民主促进者如何最好地抵消这一点。

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.