The politics of dam resurgence: high modernist statebuilding and the emerging powers in Africa

Following a decade from the mid-1990s that saw a near cessation in dam building, the infrastructure has returned. This phenomenon is controversial because dams’ social and environmental impacts, economic costs and development ineffectiveness have been well evidenced. This timely analysis of the dam resurgence asks why and how this trend is happening. It studies three individual dams in Rwanda and Tanzania with Indian, Brazilian and World Bank involvement respectively. Primarily qualitative analysis interrogates three conceptual levels of these projects: The international enabling companies and financiers; driving national governments; and each dam site’s locale. Addressing a literature bias towards materialist explanations, theoretical analysis uses a lens of high modernist ideology. Research finds depoliticising and expert-centric applied high modernist ideas in the case study dams’ justifications, decision-making and knowledge-production. This entailed a singular focus on electricity generation and short-sightedness to these dams’ socio-environmental impacts. However, the thesis also demonstrates the presence of dam reforms and evidences their influence on each case’s discourse and practice. Given reformist policies’ foundation in oppositional principles, the thesis proposes an ideological bricolage with high modernism to describe the rationales and practices of its case studies of dam resurgence; a moulding of past high modernism with new reformist idea-practices. This significantly furthers the social science literature on the dam resurgence, describing and explaining the era’s complexity, its limited but important change and array of, increasingly corporate, actors. Through the case study research, the thesis also furthers understanding of the emerging powers’ presence and influence in Africa. Moreover, it contributes to analysis on the growing number of illiberal modernisation projects across the continent. The dam-building resurgence in Rwanda and Tanzania and its ideological bricolage both demonstrates and nuances this trend. Intersection with these themes ensures the thesis advances understanding of the ideology, politics and geography of development.</p

The politics of dam resurgence: high modernist statebuilding and the emerging powers in Africa

Following a decade from the mid-1990s that saw a near cessation in dam building, the infrastructure has returned. This phenomenon is controversial because damsâ social and environmental impacts, economic costs and development ineffectiveness have been well evidenced. This timely analysis of the dam resurgence asks why and how this trend is happening. It studies three individual dams in Rwanda and Tanzania with Indian, Brazilian and World Bank involvement respectively. Primarily qualitative analysis interrogates three conceptual levels of these projects: The international enabling companies and financiers; driving national governments; and each dam siteâs locale. Addressing a literature bias towards materialist explanations, theoretical analysis uses a lens of high modernist ideology. Research finds depoliticising and expert-centric applied high modernist ideas in the case study damsâ justifications, decision-making and knowledge-production. This entailed a singular focus on electricity generation and short-sightedness to these damsâ socio-environmental impacts. However, the thesis also demonstrates the presence of dam reforms and evidences their influence on each caseâs discourse and practice. Given reformist policiesâ foundation in oppositional principles, the thesis proposes an ideological bricolage with high modernism to describe the rationales and practices of its case studies of dam resurgence; a moulding of past high modernism with new reformist idea-practices. This significantly furthers the social science literature on the dam resurgence, describing and explaining the eraâs complexity, its limited but important change and array of, increasingly corporate, actors. Through the case study research, the thesis also furthers understanding of the emerging powersâ presence and influence in Africa. Moreover, it contributes to analysis on the growing number of illiberal modernisation projects across the continent. The dam-building resurgence in Rwanda and Tanzania and its ideological bricolage both demonstrates and nuances this trend. Intersection with these themes ensures the thesis advances understanding of the ideology, politics and geography of development.</p

New convergence tilt in India’s South–South cooperation with Africa

Traditionally, India’s development cooperation with Africa has been rooted in ideas and praxis supporting a recipient-led approach, in contrast to more donor-led processes, which it ascribes to Western development cooperation with Southern countries. Barnaby Joseph Dye here analyses some recent changes in India’s thinking to find signs of convergence and persistent differences between the two approaches