Posted: June 27th, 2015

Bilateral cooperation and institutional evaluation in the Sino-Congolese relation

Summary of the project
Architecture of a post-Cold War foreign policy
Bilateral cooperation and institutional evaluation in the Sino-Congolese relation
This project targets to investigate the degree in which the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is economically and politically interconnected and dependent on the influence of China’s economic rise, after the Cold war, and the impact that this dependency inflicts on the formalization of the foreign policies of each towards the other in their bilateral cooperation. Unlike bilateral cooperation between the DRC and some Western powers such as the USA, France and Belgium, being merely labelled as assistance of a poor country affected by a lean economy and a quasi-permanent political instability, using their financial aid, as a sine qua non instrument for maintaining authoritarian leaders in power, through clientelism, the case of China, which evidently spells out this myth of patronage seems rather to be enhanced by different incitements. However, numerous of the fundamental features and settings subsidising to the bilateral cooperation between China and the DRC, since the end of the Cold war, still linger uninvestigated.
Through the lenses of pertinent International Relations’ theories, this project aims to brighten the role that the institutionalisation of Sino-Congolese nexus has played in facilitating both states to cast a fervent working relationship with each other. Bilateral institutions between the DRC and China, which were basically inexistent, have since Mobutu’s fall in 1997, promptly flourished into a compact complex of institutionalised exchanges, working groups, commissions, and practically incorporating major sectors of interaction between the DRC and China. Consequently, this research will investigate the scope to which the newly-created bilateral institutional channels have contributed in facilitating the enactment of cooperative policies between China and the DRC by bridging up significant stakeholders and respectively making each country’s policy towards the other sufficiently predictable and convenient.
Thus, in order to refine this dogma of the Chinese influence and understand the effects of different kinds of regimes and institutions have on foreign policy change, taking the case of the bilateral cooperation between the DRC and China, how their actions are developed, how their institutional links are surmounted, how their attitudes and strategies are enacted toward each another, this project vows to investigate and discover the following question:
• To what extent has the post-Cold War transnational institutions between China and the DRC contributed in boosting up their bilateral cooperation, and how can they be framed
to better engage these two countries in their partnership?
In addition, starting with this central question, several subsidiary questions can emerge on how do some kind of political system and institutional arrangements influence the variation
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foreign policy in other types of regimes? How is the trend of political essence of institutional frameworks that have been spawned between China and the DRC? Are there any influential decisions and insights about each other’s stance and objectives achieved through their bilateral cooperation in these institutions? How is the enlightenment produced via these institutional interactions being canalised to the crest of foreign policy decision makers in both countries? The timeframe in conducting this research will range from 1997, when Zaire’s autocratic and Western backed leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, was ousted and constrained into exile by rebel forces led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, a heavily indoctrinated communist who had a fervent vision of efficiently transforming the DRC into a Chinese-style society, up to 2006 when democratic elections were held for the first time in the DRC ever since this country became independent in 1960.
The three basic approaches used in social science researches are quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method. Creswell argues that the main factor that affects the choice of one approach over another is the problem and research question [1]. If the problem is identifying factors that influence an outcome, the utility of an intervention, or understanding the best predictors of outcomes, the quantitative approach is the best option. Quantitative is also the best approach to use to test a theory or explanation. On the other hand, if a phenomenon needs to be understood because little research has been done on it, then it merits a qualitative approach. With regards to these basic tenets of these two approaches, the research question presented in this study warrants the use of both paradigms under the same roof. According to mixed research, it is important to understand both the subjective (individual), intersubjective (language-based, discursive, cultural), and objective (material and causal) realities in our world. Although it is important not to influence or bias what one is observing, it is undoubtedly relevant to understand the insiders’ meanings and viewpoints. With regard to the hybrid research question of this study, a mix research method (as a triangulation) appears to be suitable [2]. Besides, this approach is a better way of improving the quality of the findings, considering the fact that the quality of data is enhanced by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data [3]. The research will survey a number of individuals to obtain their specific language and voices about the topic. In addition, Onwuegbuzie and Johnson advert that mixed methods increases the accuracy, reliability and validity of the findings, and there will be an in-depth conduction of the research, promoting a deeper understanding of the findings when a mixed research approach is used [4]. Thus, a mixed approach would be an appropriate method to apply on this research since it will seek to measure the efficiency of the transnational institutions in the China-DRC bilateral relationship and identify the role of these institutions to the growing bilateral relationship between the two countries. The study will make use of data collected from field experiments (institutions, different government officials in both China and the DRC). Primary data would be collected by using questionnaires as well as focused interviews. Content analysis will be used to study previously published works.
1 Creswell, Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approach, London: Sage, 2009, p.29 and 54f 2 Corbetta, Social Research: Theory, Methods and Techniques. London: Sage, 2003, p.297f 3 Onwuegbuzie and Johnson, “The Validity Issue in Mixed Research”. Mid-South Educational Research Association, 2006, Vol. 13, No. 1, 48-63, p.51f 4 Tashakkori and Creswell. “Exploring the nature of research questions in mixed methods research”. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 2007, p.209f
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