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EU 's Aid To Africa' S Aid Policy

Posted on:2014-01-04Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:R DaiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2176330434970959Subject:International relations
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
EU’s aid to Africa has been lasting for more than50years. EU adjusted its aid policies for several times and established norms-spread aid based on its "normative power" strategy. This paper takes the adjustment of EU’s aid policies as the object of studies. Focusing on the causes of polices adjustment from the aspect of "normative power". Furthermore, it summarizes the norms-spread mechanism and discusses the influence of China’s aid to Africa on EU’s norm-spread aid. At last, it analyzes the effectiveness of EU’s norms-spread aid from the aspects of norms-spread conditions as well as political and economic situation in Africa.From the beginning of1957, EU’s aid to Africa has experienced the "Treaty of Rome", two "Yaounde agreement", three "Lome agreement", which is the first stage of EU’s aid. The emphasis during this period is economic aid mainly in order to maintain the relationship with EU’s former colonies in Africa. After the cold war, EU formed the norms-spread mechanism through the fourth "Lome agreement" and the "Cotonou agreement". That’s the second period of EU’s aid. EU changed its aid from solely economic aid to an integration of economic, political and social assistance and forced African countries to push on democratization reform. EU tried to use its "normative power" to strengthen the control of Africa in the new international order so as to maintain its traditional influence and market position in Africa.EU’s norms-spread aid mainly has three mechanisms, namely, role construction, incentive and normative persuasion. Firstly, EU let African countries understand and accept the EU’s norms by signing the aid agreement and directly participating in the formulation of aid projects. Secondly, EU made African countries comply with norms and carry out reforms by increasing the amount of aid or suspend aid. Lastly, EU made the African people psychologically recognize EU’s norms by democratic propaganda.However, EU’s norms-spread mechanism has its inherent defects. Through analyzing the norms-spread conditions, this paper found that the mechanism has better conditions only in EU-Africa’s close relationship and African countries highly depending on foreign aid. But the mechanism lacks the conditions of domestic structure and the matching of norms, whose result is the far-from-satisfactory effect of EU’s aid. EU’s aid didn’t completely solve the problems in Africa’s political and economic development. On the contrary, the democratic reform intensified the national and social conflicts of Africa, indirectly led to wars in Africa and aroused the dissatisfaction in many African countries.In the meantime, EU’s norms-spread aid is impacted by China’s aid, without political side conditions. Since2007, EU adjusted its aid policies once again. EU proposed to establish the equivalent strategic partnership with Africa, eased the requirement of the norms and hoped to establish the cooperative mechanism among China, EU and Africa. However, due to the differences in values, China and EU failed to implement the mechanism. In the future, China and EU should build a dialogue mechanism on foreign aid to eliminate the misunderstanding, emphasize on Africa’s self-development, and treat African countries as an equal development partner. Only by doing that, China, EU and Africa can realize a win-win cooperation.
Keywords/Search Tags:The European Union, Foreign Aid to Africa, Norm Spread, Normative Power
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