TY  - UNPD
A1  - Lejeune, Johannes
T1  - Ruling parties as communities of practice and collective identity in China-Ethiopia relations
T2  - AFRASO working papers : No. 1
N2  - While it helps to put the overemphasis on Chinese agency in the literature into perspective, the recent debate on the role played by African agency in Sino-African relations generally adopts the same rationalist perspective on international politics, and thus stands to miss important aspects of the relations studied. This paper takes the example of Ethiopia, which is often used to highlight African elites’ strategic use of the new options presented by China’s rise, and analyses it from a constructivist perspective. Such a perspective proposes that we need to take the role played by ideas, discourses and emotions seriously, and that Ethiopian policy makers do not exist outside a dense web of personal relations, common knowledge, and shared practices that inadvertently structure their relations with China. More specifically, it is argued here that the ruling parties of China and Ethiopia are linked together in an international community of practice, that exchanges within this community have strengthened the perception of like-mindedness, and that Sino-Ethiopian relations therefore rest on a different basis than is acknowledged by purely rationalist accounts.
T3  - AFRASO working papers - 1 
Y1  - 2015
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/38646
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-386465
UR  - http://www.afraso.org/de/node/682
SN  - 2365-9831
PB  - Goethe-Universität, AFRASO
CY  - Frankfurt am Main
ER  -