New Friends, Old Friends? The World Bank and Africa When the Chinese Are Coming

Kopiński, Dominik; Sun, Qi

doi:10.1163/19426720-02004008

Cited by 14 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Finally, these observations also raise broader implications for international relations. Both international financial institutions and non-state actors have been key disseminators of liberal international values, however imperfectly (Keck and Sikkink 1998;Kopinski, and Sun 2014;Woods 2008). Not only are emerging powers' governments and banks, in contrast, less willing to impose those values, but our study of the BNDES network suggests that NGOs have a narrower set of effective strategies to influence them.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 84%

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Transnational Activist Networks and Rising Powers: Transparency and Environmental Concerns in the Brazilian National Development Bank

Sierra

Hochstetler

2017

International Studies Quarterly

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This article studies how transnational advocacy networks can influence international development finance. Transnational activists shaped the World Bank's lending by increasing its transparency and limiting its socio-environmental impacts. Developing countries can now look towards rising-powers' national development banks to finance their infrastructure and energy projects. The national development banks' weak transparency and socio-environmental standards pose a new challenge for transnational activism. Can activists leverage strategies used in World Bank reform to influence emerging power national development banks? We argue that whether a target is a supranational or national institution shapes the deployment and effectiveness of the strategies activists can use for influence. A supranational mandate and structure facilitates the deployment and effectiveness of a direct strategy focused on the transnational level, targeting the bank itself, and an indirect strategy focused on the national contexts of the bank's shareholders and borrowers. In contrast, a national mandate and structure encourages activists to deploy influence strategies solely in the context of the lending state. They furthermore make indirect strategies more effective than direct ones. We illustrate our argument by exploiting variation in the success across campaigns of a transnational network created to reform the Brazilian National Development Bank.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…The rise of South-South finance may therefore shape the global normative structure well beyond the direct effects of their loans. These are serious potential shortcomings, especially if they instigate a "race to the bottom" in transparency and socioenvironmental expectations among global financiers (Kopinski, and Sun 2014;Woods 2008).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transnational Activist Networks and Rising Powers: Transparency and Environmental Concerns in the Brazilian National Development Bank

Sierra

Hochstetler

2017

International Studies Quarterly

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“…China's approach to governing the environmental impacts of IDC and overseas investments was underpinned by both the non-conditionality norm and the passive governance style of the MOFCOM. On IDC, China has strictly followed the non-conditionality principle during the project cycle, which puts recipient countries in the driver's seat even in designing projects (Kopiński and Sun 2014) However, such interactions did not change China's attitude towards Western norms and rules as environmental safeguards for China's overseas activities remained weak.…”

Section: Before the Bri: Weak Environmental Rules For China's Idcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Greening China’s Belt and Road Initiative: From Norm Localization to Norm Subsidiarity?

Sun¹,

Yu²

2023

Global Environmental Politics

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From 2015, China began to promote eco-sustainability in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through not only vision statements but also specific guidelines and governance initiatives. What has driven these policy changes? Bringing together theories of norm localization, norm subsidiarity, and policy deliberation, we argue that China’s move toward green BRI began as a norm localization process where environmental norms emerged in the open policy space created by China’s top leaders carrying the ambition to make the BRI a new global governance model. After adopting a broad norm on environmental stewardship, state bureaucracies found opportunities to create procedural and operational rules. A novel procedural rule-making methodology emphasizing inclusive dialogue with host countries has emerged, driven by top leaders’ pursuit of international leadership and preexisting local norms guiding South–South cooperation. With operational rules, different actors follow their preferences to localize existing international standards or develop new ones.

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“…In 2012, the World Bank launched Program‐for‐Results (P4R) Lending, ‘using a country’s own institutions and processes, and linking disbursement of funds directly to the achievement of specific program results’ (World Bank n.d.a). The World Bank’s willingness to forego some of its traditional conditions is likely a response to China’s model of bilateral development assistance (Kopiński and Sun, 2014). In many ways, Chinese bilateral development assistance has eroded the influence of traditional donors, including the World Bank.…”

Section: Chinese Approach To the Idf Regime Complexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regime Complexity and Complex Foreign Policy: China in International Development Finance Governance

Wang

2021

Global Policy

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This paper examines China’s involvement in the governance of international development finance (IDF), analyzes its approach to the IDF regime complex, and explains its strategic policy incoherence. It shows that in recent decades China has actively engaged with the elemental IDF regimes at multiple levels – global, regional, cross‐regional, subregional, and bilateral. It argues that the Chinese government has been strategically incoherent in its policy toward IDF governance, lending support to competing models and norms. China’s ‘forum linking’ strategy with regard to multilateral development banks has enhanced international cooperation while its unconventional bilateral development assistance programs have facilitated ‘forum shopping’ by the recipient countries, thus undermining the traditional IDF framework. There are multiple sources of China’s strategic policy incoherence. Besides the country’s multiple identities and complex interests, this paper highlights the impact of the fragmented nature of the regime complex and Chinese perception of this fragmentation.

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New Friends, Old Friends? The World Bank and Africa When the Chinese Are Coming

Cited by 14 publications

References 18 publications

Transnational Activist Networks and Rising Powers: Transparency and Environmental Concerns in the Brazilian National Development Bank

Transnational Activist Networks and Rising Powers: Transparency and Environmental Concerns in the Brazilian National Development Bank

Greening China’s Belt and Road Initiative: From Norm Localization to Norm Subsidiarity?

Regime Complexity and Complex Foreign Policy: China in International Development Finance Governance

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