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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Sovereignty matters: Africa, donors, and the aid relationship
Author:Brown, William
Year:2013
Periodical:African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society (ISSN 1468-2621)
Volume:112
Issue:447
Pages:262-282
Language:English
Geographic terms:Africa
Tanzania
Rwanda
Subjects:sovereignty
development cooperation
External link:http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/112/447/262.full.pdf
Abstract:This article critiques the predominant opinion that aid undermines the sovereignty of African states. This claim implies not only that a recipient State's policy autonomy is curtailed by development assistance, but also more fundamentally that the politico-legal independence of the State itself is being challenged. While the former is often the case, the latter is not. Drawing a conceptual and analytical distinction between sovereignty as a right to rule and national control over policy and outcomes, the article develops a more accurate identification of the areas in which aid, as a particular form of external influence, does and does not have an impact on recipient states. Using the examples of Tanzania and Rwanda, it argues that sovereignty as a right to rule constitutes the very basis of the aid relationship, and endows African States with the agency with which to contest the terms of aid deals. The article thus provides a new reading of the politics of aid and, by reasserting the centrality of sovereignty as an organizing institution in contemporary aid relations, supports rather than questions the relevance of the discipline of International Relations to African studies. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]
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