Date of Award

5-17-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Alexandru Grigorescu

Abstract

This dissertation examines how unique qualities of democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa and their foreign policy decision making processes affect their ability to exercise state agency. Specifically, democratic qualities affect a state’s receipt of investment from China and how well those investment projects fare once accepted. It is hypothesized that a strong executive branch leads to decreased or inconsistent Chinese investment while a strong legislature may have the opposite effect. A strong executive may also lead to an increased chance of project success while a strong legislature may have the opposite effect. High levels of party contestation may lead to decreased levels of investment also while increasing the chance that a project will ultimately be successful. Drawing on previous research in foreign policy decision making and democratization literature, this project turns the focus away from the great power and instead towards the recipients who exercise state agency despite a clear power imbalance. Using primary sources such as government documents and loan agreements supplemented with information gleaned from databases such as AidData, Varieties of Democracy, and other sources, I conduct within-case analyses of the foreign policy decision making processes of Botswana, Kenya, and Nigeria towards China. Different levels of engagement and circumstances between the case nations and China are observed within and between all three cases. The findings confirm that party contestation leads to higher chance of project success, but do not conform to hypothetical expectations regarding a recipient state’s executive and legislative branches and their willingness to accept investment or ability to complete a major infrastructure project.

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