Public opinion indicates the EU is not seen as a better development partner than China in most African countries

Both China and the EU have attempted to form strong relationships with African countries over recent years, but how do citizens within these countries view China and the EU as development partners? Floor Keuleers presents survey evidence from a number of different countries in Africa. She notes that while views of the EU are positive in most cases, there is no evidence that the EU is seen as a better development partner than China overall

The study of the EU as an international actor: Bringing the outside back in. Examples from EU-China relations.

Concerns on EU-centrism in EU foreign policy analysis have become more frequent in recent years. In contrast to the mature debate in International Relations, however, a systematic toolbox for diagnosing and remedying this problem is still lacking. This article’s contribution is twofold. First, it proposes a new typology of five approaches to foreign policy analysis, giving conceptual body and nuance to the debate on EU-centrism. It draws on publications on EU-China relations to further illustrate the proposed categories. This typology can be used for scrutinizing existing analyses, as well as for shaping new research projects. The second part of the article applies this typology in a meta-analysis of post-Lisbon EU foreign policy scholarship. To this end, it analyses a built-for-purpose dataset of 482 articles, which covers all work on EU foreign policy published in 2010-2014 in seven key journals. It finds, first, that academic work on EU foreign policy is indeed rife with EU-centric approaches. Moreover, this is the case irrespective of the policy area under study and of the focus of the journal. Second, while non-western authors form a small minority within the dataset, their work on EU foreign policy holds promise for a move away from EU-centrism. The article concludes by proposing research strategies that aim to assist the EU foreign policy analyst in adopting an outside-in perspective, both in terms of his analytical competences (linguistic outside-in, disciplinary and methodological outside-in) as well as well as concerning the acquisition of knowledge on the context of the region, country or society that is the subject, target, recipient, beneficiary or victim of EU’s external policies (material ‘outside-in’, polity ‘outside-in’, normative ‘outside-in’). These various dimensions of an outside-in perspective are illustrated through the example of EU-China relations. This analytical framework can not only be used to analyse the EU’s foreign policy, but can also contribute to the strengthening of the analysis of foreign policy in general

EU-Afrikatop: Niet Afrika, maar Europa dreigt uit de boot te vallen

Opiniestuk werd gepubliceerd op: http://www.knack.be/nieuws/wereld/eu-afrikatop-niet-afrika-maar-europa-dreigt-uit-de-boot-te-vallen/article-opinion-136335.htmlstatus: publishe

783 aanklachten wegens corruptie. Hoe lang is Zuma nog president?

In Zuid-Afrika wisselt de stemming deze dagen af tussen boos ongeloof en gelatenheid. Haast elke week wordt de bevolking getrakteerd op een nieuwe episode in de Zuma-soap waartoe de nationale politiek verworden lijkt. Met elk bijkomend schandaal wordt de roep om het opstappen van president Jacob Zuma luider. Die klampt zich vast aan de macht, ten koste van de bevolking en zelfs van de eigen partij.http://www.mo.be/analyse/783-aanklachten-wegens-corruptie-hoe-lang-zuma-nog-presidentstatus: publishe

Service Delivery, Conflict Management or Local Participation? Decentralisation in the DR Congo

Over the last two decades, decentralisation has been a very popular policy choice among developing country governments, and donor agencies have demonstrated a strong willingness to support such decentralisation reforms. This trend has been accompanied by the emergence of a dominant discourse on the potential benefits of decentralisation. This article analyses the impact of this dominant discourse on one particular case, namely the on-going decentralisation reforms in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It deconstructs the international discourse into three models –the service delivery model, the conflict management model and the local participation model- and explores the theoretical foundations of each. Subsequently, the article shows that while a combination of these models is used to conceptualise the Congolese decentralisation, a number of basic conditions for their applicability are not met in this particular case. The article concludes that the emphasis on context-specificity found in general donor strategies does not always translate into realistic models for conceptualising the costs and results of concrete instances of decentralisation. It argues that such a misfit of models is not inconsequential, as the underlying model crucially influences the strategy and expectations of all actors involved in a decentralisation process.status: publishe

The Morality of China in Africa: The Middle Kingdom and the Dark Continent (Book Review)

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The Invention of a European Development Aid Bureaucracy: Recycling Empire (Book Review)

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South Africa’s relationship with the International Criminal Court: moving closer to the BRICS?

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Congo Masquerade: The political culture of aid inefficiency and reform failure (Book Review)

Article has been published at: http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/112/448/518.extractstatus: publishe

Explaining External Perceptions: The EU and China in African Public Opinion

While the past decade has seen a remarkable growth in research on external perceptions of the EU, this literature remains characterized by three important gaps: highly uneven geographical coverage, lack of comparisons between the EU and other actors, and a near-exclusive focus on description to the detriment of explanation. This article introduces a novel explanatory framework for perceptions research and applies this to popular perceptions of the EU and China in 19 Sub-Saharan African countries, shedding light on a neglected dimension of the 'traditional' versus 'emerging donors' debate. It finds, first, that China has quickly succeeded in becoming more well-known among African populations than the EU. Second, popular perceptions do not reflect the antagonism pervading the discourse on 'emerging donors', with both the EU and China enjoying broad-based popular support. Finally, preferences are a function primarily of individual experiences and outlooks, refuting earlier claims on the importance of national-level factors.status: publishe