The Political Economy of China’s Infrastructure Development in Africa: Capital, State Agency, Debt (International Political Economy Series)

✍ Scribed by Tim Zajontz

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2023
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 350
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book sheds light on structural drivers that led to the Chinese omnipresence in African infrastructure markets and offers a strategic-relational approach to the study of African agency in Sino-African infrastructure encounters. Case studies cover the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), Zambia’s road sector as well as Tanzania’s Bagamoyo port and Standard Gauge Railway. It is shown that African (state) agency in the infrastructure sector is contingent upon dynamic state-society relations and distinct political-economic contexts and constraints. The book problematises contradictions related to infrastructure debt, the emergence of Sino-African public-private partnerships and the intensifying geopolitics-cum-geoeconomics of infrastructure across Africa.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations and Acronyms
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
The Infrastructure-Debt Nexus
Chinese Capital Encounters African Infrastructure States
The “African Agency Turn” in Africa–China Studies
Critical Realist Research
Methodology and Case Selection
Research Techniques and Data Collection
Positionality and Limitations of the Study
Structure of the Book
List of Interview
2 Chinese Capital and Its Spatio-Temporal Fix
Overaccumulation and China’s Spatio-Temporal Fix
The Function of Debt Finance and Accumulation by Dispossession
The Chinese Infrastructural Fix in Africa
The Under-Theorised Politics of the “Fix”
References
3 Theorising African State Agency
African State Agency in Sino-African Relations
On the (Un)Usefulness of the Neopatrimonial “Moniker”
Neopatrimonialism as a Mode of Accumulation
The Strategic-Relational Approach
The State as a Strategic-Relational Domain
Towards a Strategic-Relational Analysis of China’s Infrastructure Development in Africa
References
4 The Destiny of the Freedom Railway: From Anti-imperialism to Accumulation by Dispossession?
The Monumental Rise and Steady Decline of the “Freedom Railway”
“The Uhuru Line Will Fight Imperialism”: The Chinese Rescue and Its Legacy
The Devaluation of a Monument
China’s Failed Attempt at a “Not so Friendly” Takeover
The 2016 Tripartite Negotiations
The Chinese Infrastructural Fix at an Impasse
The Path-Dependency of Railway Concession “Traumata”
Tanzania’s Strategic Learning from a “Case of Failed Privatization”
Zambia’s Private Railway Odyssey
Conclusion
List of Interviews
5 Divergent State Agency: Zambia’s Debt Impasse and Magufuli’s Nationalist Infrastructure State
TAZARA—“A Drain on Zambia’s Coffers”
Railway Privatisation as a Potential Source of Rents?
From Neopatrimonialism to Autocratic Developmentalism: State Transformation under Magufuli
The Rise of Tanzania’s Nationalist Infrastructure State
Scrutinising “Win–Win” Cooperation in the Freedom Railway
“Fixing” TAZARA on Tanzanian Terms
The Bagamoyo Controversy
The Standard Gauge Railway: From Confrontation to Pragmatism
Conclusion
List of Interviews
6 The Price of the Sino-Zambian “Road Bonanza”
Build Now, Pay Later: The Costly Ambition of a “Land-Linked Zambia”
Loan Financing with Chinese Characteristics
The Price of Chinese Road Investment
The Renaissance of Public–Private Partnerships
Accumulating by dispossessing Zambian roads
The Commodification of Zambia’s Roads
Conclusion
List of Interviews
7 The Political Economy of “Not so Public” Procurement
Zambia’s Neopatrimonial Infrastructure State
“Not so Public” Procurement as a Win-Win-Lose Strategy
Seeking rents from roads
In Search of “Local Content”: Zambianising Chinese Circuits of Capital
Subcontracting as (In)formal “Trickle-Down” Strategy
The Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway
A Case of “Not so Public” Procurement
The Fallacy of Project Finance at No Cost
Conclusion
List of Interviews
8 Towards a “New Era” of Sino-African Infrastructure Cooperation
African State Agency Matters—Yet It Matters Differentially
Debt and the Renaissance of PPPs
The “Fragility” of the “Fix” and the Regional Dimension
References
Appendix
List of Interviews
Index