Browsing by Author "Che, Afa’anwi Ma’abo"

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    Comparing the Effects of Chinese and Traditional Official Finance on State Repression and Public Demonstrations in Africa
    (Johns Hopkings University, 2020) Che, Afa’anwi Ma’abo
    There is little, non-biased, existing literature on the effects of Chinese official finance on state repression and public demonstrations. As such, this paper employs standard multiple regression analysis to assess how different attributes of Chinese and traditional official finance predict variations in rates of repression and demonstrations in Africa. Although Chinese and traditional official flows have more similarities than differences in their effects on repression, there is a distinct positive and statistically significant relationship between aggregate traditional official finance and public demonstrations. Looking at regional distributions of foreign financed projects and public demonstrations in Cameroon (receiving predominantly Chinese official finance) and Uganda (receiving mainly traditional aid), I find evidence to support a negative correlation between Chinese official finance and public demonstrations on the one hand and a positive correlation between traditional official finance and public demonstrations on the other. However, when specifically analyzing demonstrations against foreign funded development projects this paper reveals, through interviews on selected Chinese and World Bank-funded projects in Cameroon, that owing to less stringent project impact assessments, impact management standards, and the absence of complaint management offices, Chinese-funded projects are more prone to anti-project demonstrations.
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    Comparing the Effects of Chinese and Traditional Official Finance on State Repression and Public Demonstrations in Africa
    (2020) Che, Afa’anwi Ma’abo
    DO FOREIGN OFFICIAL FINANCE FLOWS FROM CHINA and traditional Western sources vary in their effects on state repression and public demonstrations in Africa? While one study by Kishi and Raleigh asserts a distinct, statistically significant positive association between Chinese official finance and repression, no quantitative comparative study has been conducted on the effects of Chinese and traditional official finance on public demonstrations in the form of protests and riots.1 The working paper on which this policy brief is based reassesses the effects of Chinese and traditional official finance on repression after rectifying some biases I identified in Kishi and Raleigh’s study. Notable among the biases is the study’s exclusion of analysis relating to recent (post-2013) years which have witnessed nascent reforms to Beijing’s foreign aid policy that, ostensibly, induce checks against misuse of Chinese official finance.2 More innovatively, the research assesses the effects of Chinese and traditional official finance on anti-government, public demonstrations. Additionally, the working paper compares case studies in Cameroon, which mostly receives unconditional Chinese official finance and Uganda, which receives more conditional traditional finance, to determine how well the paper’s statistical relationships are borne out. While Uganda has suffered more protests and riots than Cameroon over the period between 2001 and 2018, data on demonstrations in the two countries from Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) suggests that Chinese-funded development projects have encountered more anti-project protests and riots compared to Western, particularly World Bank-funded projects. To verify and explain the higher rates of manifestations against Chinese-funded projects, I undertook fieldwork in Cameroon involving comparative project interviews on three selected Chinese projects (the Douala- Yaounde expressway project; the Memve’ele hydropower project; and the Kribi deep seaport project) and two World Bank-sponsored projects (the Lom Pangar hydropower project and the Douala road infrastructure project). The fieldwork was guided by the following research questions:
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    Tracing the Distribution of Chinese and World Bank-Funded Projects and Public Demonstrations in Cameroon and Uganda
    (Sage, 2020) Che, Afa’anwi Ma’abo
    Extant literature has explored the effects of foreign aid on armed conflicts and state repression, but not on public demonstrations. This article compares distribution patterns of Chinese and World Bank-funded projects and public demonstrations in Cameroon, receiving predominantly Chinese official finance, and Uganda, receiving predominantly traditional, Western aid. Distributive patterns suggest negative and positive associations between Chinese and traditional official finance on the one hand and public demonstrations on the other. However, with respect to anti-project demonstrations specifically, I find through fieldwork interviews in Cameroon that Chinese-funded projects are more prone to anti-project demonstrations owing to less stringent risk management standards