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The European raw material policy towards Africa in the context of China's Africa ambitions"s policy analysis from 1990-2013

Thull, A. (2013) The European raw material policy towards Africa in the context of China's Africa ambitions"s policy analysis from 1990-2013.

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Abstract:This thesis focuses on the challenges the European Union has to tackle in its African raw material policy, due to the increasing involvement of China on the African continent. The paper represents a study of legal, economic, political and sociological factors influencing EU raw material policy and contrast them with respective factors that influence Chinese raw material policy. The study is meant to analyze the importance of the various factors in the EU policy-making process and takes an additional look at what the EU could learn from the Chinese policy approach. Chinese investments in Africa have grown in a breathtaking way: Whereas the country wasn’t one of the top 20 investors in Africa before the year 2000 (Leeb & Dorsey, 2013) the Chinese managed to become the fourth biggest investment flow provider on the African continent in the year 2011, behind France, the US and Malaysia (Baynton-Glen, 2012). This has been achieved due to the Chinese authoritarian government style which allows for a bundling the country´s corporate investments and the country`s aid and foreign diplomacy together in order to buy extraction rights in Africa in return for large infrastructure projects, which makes Chinese investments very attractive for the African states. The EU on the other hand followed a different strategy since its free market economy gives the responsibility of raw material supply solely to the Union´s private companies. That is why European aid policy, its foreign policy and private investments are coordinated relatively weakly in comparison. However, due to increasing fears of raw material shortages the EU raw material initiative was launched in 2008 to establish a more effective raw material policy. The paper compares both the Chinese and European policy approach in detail, looks at which factors influenced the European raw material policies the most and takes a look at how much the EU is trying to copy Chinese policies or establishes a different kind of policy. The factors influencing the European raw material policies are inspired by Sabatier’s Advocacy Coalition Framework, which also allows for an actor analysis of the EU according to their belonging to a coalition: Namely the coalition representing the EU´s business interests on the one hand and the coalition representing African development concerns on the other hand.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:88 social and public administration
Programme:European Studies BSc (56627)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/63476
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