Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are now working with humanitarian organizations to develop infrastructure abroad. This emerging phenomenon is puzzling: when, where, and why do Chinese SOEs, ...best known for constructing massive overseas infrastructure projects for commercial and political gain, execute smaller, lower-profile humanitarian projects? Similarly, why would humanitarian organizations––often with minimal experience in infrastructure contracting––select partners criticized for lack of emphasis on the international standards and best practices that they seek to promote? We address these questions through qualitative case studies of Chinese SOE-humanitarian organization collaboration in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and the Republic of Congo. These cases suggest that such partnerships are more likely when a humanitarian organization has previous experience working in China or with Chinese actors, when Chinese SOEs aim to enter new markets, or when these firms operate in dangerous or politically unstable environments. This study contributes to scholarship on China’s evolving role in international development by providing the first empirical analysis of Chinese SOE-humanitarian organization partnerships.
Across low-income African countries, a process of foreign-controlled mining (re)industrialisation has been underway since the 1980s, gathering pace during the most recent decade. This paper aims to ...shed light on the long-term effects of this process on the strength and vibrancy of local mining economies. It does so through the analysis of original empirical data collected during 15 months of fieldwork at and around an industrial gold mine in South Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, centred on how the entry of industrial mining into pre-existing artisanal mining economies has affected the total volume of mining wages earned, consumed and invested locally. It is demonstrated that, despite generating a 25-fold increase in productivity, mining reindustrialisation in South Kivu has not resulted in significant wage growth for most industrial workers, compared to the wages earned in artisanal mining. In addition, as a result of the displacement of artisanal mining to more marginal deposits (and the inability of new industrial jobs or wages to compensate), seven years on, the local availability of mining employment has halved and the volume of locally consumed and invested mining wages has decreased by around 40 per cent. Drawing on the findings, the wisdom of current World Bank and African government mining policy is questioned.
We use unique data on direct observations of patient-provider interactions linked to detailed patient exit interviews and household surveys to study the relationship between patients’ socioeconomic ...status and the quality of antenatal care in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We find a significant wealth-quality gradient: a 1 standard deviation in household wealth is associated with a 1.6–3.2 percentage point increase in protocol compliance, depending on the data source and the definition of the compliance index. A large part of the overall wealth-quality gradient is driven by generally lower facility quality in poorer areas. However, we also find a statistically significant within-village wealth-quality relationship that is primarily driven by wealthier women seeking care at higher-quality facilities even if they are more distant. Finally, we find some evidence that even within the same facilities, poorer women tend to receive worse care but, on average, also pay less for care of a given quality.
Belgium was a small, neutral country without a colonial tradition when King Leopold II ceded the Congo, his personal property, to the state in 1908. For the next half century, Belgium not only ruled ...an African empire but also, through widespread, enduring, and eagerly embraced propaganda, produced an imperialist-minded citizenry.
Selling the Congois a study of European pro-empire propaganda in Belgium, with particular emphasis on the period 1908-60. Matthew G. Stanard examines the nature of Belgian imperialism in the Congo and considers its case in light of literature on the French, the British, and other European overseas empires. Comparing Belgium to other imperial powers, the book finds that pro-empire propaganda was a basic part of European overseas expansion and administration during the modern period. Arguing against the long-held belief that Belgians were merely "reluctant imperialists," Stanard demonstrates that in fact many Belgians readily embraced imperialistic propaganda.
Selling the Congocontributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of twentieth-century propaganda by revealing its successes and failures in the Belgian case. Many readers familiar with more-popular histories of Belgian imperialism will find in this book a deeper examination of European involvement in central Africa during the colonial era.
We study from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective how a network of military alliances and enmities affects the intensity of a conflict. The model combines elements from network theory and ...from the politico-economic theory of conflict. We obtain a closed-form characterization of the Nash equilibrium. Using the equilibrium conditions, we perform an empirical analysis using data on the Second Congo War, a conflict that involves many groups in a complex network of informal alliances and rivalries. The estimates of the fighting externalities are then used to infer the extent to which the conflict intensity can be reduced through (i) dismantling specific fighting groups involved in the conflict; (ii) weapon embargoes; (iii) interventions aimed at pacifying animosity among groups. Finally, with the aid of a random utility model, we study how policy shocks can induce a reshaping of the network structure.
My paper concentrates on certain unsolved or controversial questions regarding the famous nganga marinda (person communicating with the spiritual world), prophetess and religious leader and rebel, ...Kimpa Vita (Dona Beatriz) (1684-1706), who - in a period of civil war - "supported" Pedro IV (Nusama a Mvemba) to conquer and maintain the throne of the Empire of Kongo (now part of Angola and the DRC) with Sao Salvador (now Mbanza Kongo) as capital, and then “betrayed” him. She has been compared to Jeanne d' Arc and black Christians have insisted that the Pope make her a saint. She believed that she was the incarnation of St. Anthony of Padua, and her followers have been called Antonines. She has also been labelled in a 2016-film "Mother of African Revolution", trying to free the slaves. The results of these political and religious actions, real or attributed to her, need re-examination and further investigation. In the same context, her Africanism, expressed in her use of traditions, the establishment of an African-Catholic indigenous version of Christianity, her symbolism and philosophy as well as references to another older prophetess, Appolonia (sic!) Mafuta, receive renewed attention. The question is asked whether and in how far her court case and execution as a heretic, resulting from interventions by the Church and the King, were related to the Inquisition. Today, it is recognized that Kimpa Vita has introduced a new theology, an African version of Catholic Christianity. Finally, a post-mortem considers her
influence after her death.
Abstract
All colonial powers granted concessions to private companies to extract natural resources during the colonial era. In Africa, these concessions were characterized by indirect rule and ...violence. We use the arbitrarily defined borders of rubber concessions granted in the north of the Congo Free State to examine the causal effects of this form of economic organization on development. We find that historical exposure to the concessions causes significantly worse education, wealth, and health outcomes. To examine mechanisms, we collect survey and experimental data from individuals near a former concession boundary. We find that village chiefs inside the former concessions provide fewer public goods, are less likely to be elected, and are more likely to be hereditary. However, individuals in the concessions are more trusting, more cohesive, and more supportive of sharing income. We interpret our results as reflecting how institutions and culture may act as substitutes in the context of the widespread colonial concession system.
This paper investigates the trade-offs between local elites and state agents as tax collectors in low-capacity states. We study a randomized policy experiment assigning neighborhoods of a large ...Congolese city to property tax collection by city chiefs or state agents. Chief collection raised tax compliance by 3.2 percentage points, increasing revenue by 44 percent. Chiefs collected more bribes but did not undermine tax morale or trust in government. Results from a hybrid treatment arm in which state agents consulted with chiefs before collection suggest that chief collectors achieved higher compliance by using local information to more efficiently target households with high payment propensities, rather than by being more effective at persuading households to pay conditional on having visited them. (JEL D73, D83, H24, H26, H71, O12, O17)
Der Beitrag geht der Frage auf den Grund, ob – und wenn ja, wie – Regierungen autoritärer Rohstoff-Rentierstaaten angesichts (absehbar) zurückgehender externer Renten Input-Legitimationsstrategien ...verfolgen. Ausgangspunkt ist die Vermutung, dass bei mittelfristig vorhersehbarem Rückgang an Einnahmen durch die Rohstoffförderung – und damit einem Sinken der Output-Legitimität – in diesen Ländern die ausschließliche Anwendung von Repressions- und Kooptationsmaßnahmen zu kostenintensiv sein sollte, um die Stabilität des Regimes in dieser Krise zu sichern. Stattdessen wird erwartet, dass autoritäre Rentierstaaten mittelfristig die Input-Legitimität zu steigern suchen: Dies sollte einerseits durch die Generierung des Narrativs einer von außen kommenden Bedrohung geschehen, welche nur durch die Regimeführung beseitigt werden kann. Andererseits könnten autoritäre Regime auch auf eine (symbolische) Öffnung des politischen Systems setzen. Insgesamt sollten aber eine oder beide der Maßnahmen über die Zeit hinweg verstärkt eingesetzt werden. Die Plausibilität dieses Argumentes diskutiert der Beitrag am Beispiel von drei knappen illustrierenden Fallstudien in Erdöl-Rentierstaaten unterschiedlicher Größe und aus verschiedenen Regionen (Republik Kongo, Russische Föderation und Venezuela). The article analyses whether – and if yes, how – the governments of authoritarian rentier states pursue strategies of input legitimation in face of declining external rents. The starting point is the assumption that in face of such (expectable) declines of resource rents – which results in a decline of the regime's output legitimacy – the elites in these countries should refrain from only using strategies of repression and cooptation, as these strategies seem too costly. Instead, the article assumes authoritarian rentier states to aim to increase their input legitimacy in the medium run. On the one side, this might happen by the authoritarian elites inducing a narrative of an existing external threat which can only be prevented by the elites themselves. On the other side, autocratic regimes might purse the strategy of (seemingly) liberalizing the political system. Furthermore, the article expects that at least one of these strategies should have become more salient throughout the years and discusses the plausibility of this argument by using examples of oil rentier states of divergent size and divergent regional origin (Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Russian Federation and Venezuela).
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