About 25 years after Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the ‘end of history’, ideological and strategic competition between democracies and autocracies has firmly reentered international relations. The rise of China has fuelled debates about the economic performance of authoritarian regimes compared with democratic ones (Zhao 2010; Acemoglu and Robinson 2012). Questions about the attractiveness of alternative development models have gained prominence, not least with the economic and financial crises that hit the European Union (EU) but left China largely unaffected. In addition, several observers have identified a pushback across the developing world against EU and USA good governance support, which is at least partly driven by the rise of China and other authoritarian powers (Puddington 2008; Carothers and Brechenmacher 2014).

One prominent aspect in these discussions is the question of whether and how China’s engagement in Africa affects the EU’s attempts to support governance reforms in African countries. Some argue that China’s economic cooperation ‘with no strings attached’ undermines the EU and other Western actors’ efforts to support human rights and democratic structures (Halper 2010). Others point out that for the EU and other Western actors security, economic or aid policy interests often trump efforts to support political reforms (Olsen 1998; Brown 2005; Brüne 2007; Jünemann and Knodt 2007). China’s presence would thus have a minor effect, if any. More than 15 years after China began intensifying its engagement with Africa, a comprehensive study on the interaction effects between China’s presence in Africa and the EU’s good governance strategies is still lacking. This book makes one of the first theoretically guided and empirically grounded contribution to this debate.

Empirical evidence suggests that governments in Africa have responded very differently to the EU’s demands to engage in governance reforms. Autocratically governed countries, such as Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda, started to reluctantly engage with the EU on governance reforms in the early 2000s. Yet, since the mid-2000s when China’s presence started to reduce Africa’s dependence on the EU, the openness of countries like Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda to engage with the EU has varied widely. Since the mid-2000s, Rwanda has willingly cooperated with the EU on governance reforms; Ethiopia has remained very reluctant to engage; and Angola has largely ignored EU requests for cooperation. These different reactions cannot easily be explained. All three regimes can be classified as authoritarian, dominant party systems with similarly low levels of political liberalisation. Moreover, all three have seen a reduction in their dependence on the EU because of increased access to cooperation with China.

Two main questions are therefore at the core of this book. What explains the differences in African governments’ willingness to engage with the EU on governance reforms? To what extent does China’s presence affect African governments’ openness to engage with the EU on governance reforms? The analysis thus focuses on African governments’ strategies towards the EU and China. It analyses how and to what extent African governments engage with the EU on governance reforms, and it investigates whether access to cooperation with China influences African governments’ cooperation strategies.

Linking research on good governance support and on authoritarian regimes, the book develops a theoretical framework to address these questions. It contributes to the academic debate on the influence of external actors on governance reform elsewhere. In particular, it explains how the domestic logic of political survival shapes authoritarian governments’ incentives to engage with the EU and China.

Moreover, the analysis makes an empirical contribution by providing an in-depth analysis of the interaction of the EU’s good governance strategies, the survival strategies of dominant party systems and the engagement of China with three African authoritarian regimes—Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda—between 2000 and 2014. The empirical analysis is informed by more than 200 semistructured interviews conducted with government officials and non-state actors in the EU, China, Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda between 2009 and 2013. The analysis centres on the EU’s engagement in African dominant party regimes and on China as a third external actor. However, the findings yield broader implications for authoritarian regimes beyond Africa and for the EU’s and China’s engagement in other regions.

The main argument of this book is that the survival strategies of governments in dominant party systems are the most important factor that influences African governments’ willingness to engage in governance reforms. The survival strategies define the government’s basic preferences for cooperating with the EU. Other variables, such as the specific good governance strategy the EU uses, African countries’ dependence on the EU and access to cooperation with China, set additional incentives that make cooperation more beneficial or less costly. In contrast to widespread assumptions that the growing presence of China in Africa has made it more difficult for the EU to support good governance, this study finds little evidence that would support this claim. Instead, China’s engagement with African countries is part of a broader set of factors that influences African governments’ openness to engage with the EU. These findings have important implications for researchers as well as policy-makers.

1.1 EU Good Governance Strategies Face Two Challenges: The Predominance of African Dominant Party Systems and China’s Rise in Africa

While bringing good governance reforms more prominently onto the agenda in its relations with African countries, the EU has been confronted with two key challenges. First, dominant party systems have become the predominant type of political regime in Africa and political liberalisation has been on the decline, making it more difficult for the EU to promote reforms. Second, the growing presence of China in Africa has fundamentally changed the broader context in which the EU seeks to support reforms, raising questions about the implications of China’s rise for the EU’s good governance policies.

1.1.1 EU Good Governance Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa

Support for democracy, human rights and the rule of law became an explicit objective in the EU’s external relations with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. During the 1990s, the EU could rely mainly on sanctions and small volumes of governance aid to support reforms in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond (Crawford 2001). The turn of the century then brought a qualitative and quantitative shift in the EU’s policies. Since 2000, good governance support has become a more prominent issue in the EU’s development policy and other areas of external relations. The EU has developed a positive approach to support governance reforms in sub-Saharan Africa that aims to establish an active cooperation with the target government. Particularly reforms in the international aid system have allowed the EU to expand its positive instruments since 2000.

Over time, the EU has broadened its understanding of good governance (see also Börzel and Risse 2009; Carbone 2010). In the 2005 European Consensus on Development, the EU presented good governance as a precondition for sustainable and equitable development as well as for providing effective development assistance (European Union 2005). At the same time, good governance was put forward as an important objective of EU development policy and EU external relations. In the ‘Agenda for Change ’ (European Commission 2011), the EU’s more recent development policy strategy, the EU has made assistance for democratic governance one of the two main areas on which development policy should concentrate. The Agenda for Change confirmed that the EU views ‘good governance’ as a comprehensive concept, stating that the EU aims at promoting ‘human rights, democracy and other key elements of good governance’ (European Commission 2011; emphasis author).

However, one has to bear in mind that even as support for governance reforms has become a more important concern in the EU’s external relations, it is obviously only one of the EU’s policy objectives and interests (for an overview on conflicting objectives in democracy promotion, see Grimm and Leininger 2012). In its relations with African countries and elsewhere, the EU often prioritises security, stability and cooperation on migration management over good governance (Kopstein 2005; Burnell and Calvert 2005; Jünemann and Knodt 2007, for Africa see Olsen 1998; Brüne 2007; Brown 2005). EU energy, trade and other economic interests mitigate the EU’s willingness to push for governance reforms. Moreover, development policy interests and objectives may also conflict with the EU’s good governance support. Similar to other aid bureaucracies that are under (public) pressure to show that development aid positively impacts poverty reduction and economic growth, the EU is less likely to push for political reforms and use negative conditionality in countries with good economic performance and progress in poverty reduction (Del Biondo 2011).

Between 2000 and 2014, the EU developed a range of instruments that allow it to not only react to imminent political crises, but to pro-actively support tendencies towards political openness and prevent degradations in political liberalisation. In its relations with sub-Saharan African countries, the EU seeks to promote good governance through political and aid policy dialogues, the provision of governance aid and (non-)material incentives. According to statistics from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC), EU good governance aid gradually increased between 2000 and 2014 in absolute and relative terms. The EU institutions provide almost as much governance aid to Africa as Germany and the UK combined (Hackenesch 2016). The EU also strengthened political dialogue as defined in Article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement. It introduced new instruments such as the Governance Incentive Tranche that aims at setting positive incentives to support reforms (Molenaers and Nijs 2009). While the EU could also rely on sanctions to respond to serious violations of human rights or a coup d’état, it has been more reluctant to apply sanctions in the 2000s than it was in the 1990s (Portela 2010; Zimelis 2011).

The EU’s positive approach towards good governance reforms requires that African governments are, at least to some extent, willing and open to engage with the EU on the implementation of its good governance instruments (see also van Hüllen 2015). If African governments are not ready to engage in political and aid policy dialogues, to respond to positive incentives such as the Governance Incentive Tranche, and to cooperate on the implementation of governance aid, the EU has few means by which to engage with them on governance reforms. While the EU has enhanced its positive approach to support good governance, dominant party systems with very specific domestic incentive structures have become the most prominent regime type in Africa. Moreover, China has become an alternative cooperation partner, potentially affecting African governments’ incentives to engage with the EU.

1.1.2 The ‘New Authoritarianism’ in Africa: Dominant Party Systems

The EU started developing its good governance instruments in the 1990s, when the third wave of democratisation triggered greater political openness and regime change in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. However, after a period of political liberalisation, it quickly became evident that many countries in sub-Saharan Africa remained authoritarian despite democratic institutional façades (Ottaway 2003; Kemmerzell 2010, 348; Levitsky and Way 2010).

The variation in authoritarian institutions and regime types is immense. Scholars commonly differentiate between monarchies, military, one-party and dominant (or multiparty) regimes (Hadenius and Teorell 2007; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010). These distinctions are based on the different modes of maintaining power: hereditary succession (monarchies), threat of the use of force (military) or elections (party regimes) (Hadenius and Teorell 2007, 147f). Dominant party regimes are characterised by a hegemonic party that dominates the political and economic life in a country. They hold regular elections and allow opposition candidates to participate in elections, but their elections are not free and fair, and possibilities for opposition candidates to participate are considerably restricted. On the other hand, dominant party regimes are distinct from one-party systems as one-party systems forbid all parties other than the one in power (Hadenius and Teorell 2007, 147f).

Globally speaking, the incidence of different types of authoritarian regimes changed markedly over time. Macroanalyses find that the number of dominant party systems has significantly increased since the early 1990s. Magaloni and Kricheli (2010) demonstrate that today dominant party regimes constitute by far the largest category of authoritarian regimes and about one-third of all political regimes. Hadenius and Teorell (2006, 2007) argue that since the early 1990s, more than 50 per cent of all authoritarian regimes are dominant party autocracies.

As these macro-quantitative studies do not focus on specific regions, they overlook the fact that the high number of dominant party systems that we observe today is driven to an important extent by regime changes in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s. The large majority of African authoritarian regimes can be classified as dominant party systems (Fig. 1.1). Many African autocracies combine dominant party rule with a strong personalistic element (Bratton and Van de Walle 1997; Geddes 2003). Many countries have institutionalised regular elections. In fact, by 2017 only two countries in Africa had not held elections.Footnote 1 However, whether elections and other formally democratic institutions contribute to more democracy in Africa has been controversially discussed (Lindberg 2009; Lynch and Crawford 2011; Cheeseman 2015). Clearly, authoritarianism in Africa has not vanished. But compared to the postcolonial states in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that were dominated by military and one-party regimes (Bratton and Van de Walle 1997; Kemmerzell 2010, 337f), the political institutions of authoritarianism in Africa today are considerably different in nature.

Fig. 1.1
figure 1

Political regimes in Africa in 2012

Source: Author’s compilation, building on Magaloni et al. (2013) but with several modifications

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Insights from studies on the domestic politics of authoritarian regimes give reason to be tentatively optimistic about the EU’s and other external actors’ chances of supporting democratisation in African dominant party systems. Quantitative research finds that development aid and democracy aid are more likely to support democratisation in party-based autocracies than in other types of authoritarian regime (Wright 2009; Cornell 2012). The effect of aid and democracy aid is attributed to the role of the ruling party: in party-based regimes, the ruler can afford higher levels of political liberalisation and is more likely to remain in an influential position even after regime breakdown. Development aid and democracy aid thus produce lower costs for political leaders in party-based regimes compared with other authoritarian regimes (Wright 2009; Cornell 2012). Foreign aid has been found to have a stronger positive effect on democratisation since the end of the Cold War (Escribà-Folch and Wright 2015); a finding that is in line with earlier studies on the effect of development aid on democratisation (Dunning 2004). Moreover, positive instruments apparently have more effect than negative instruments: economic sanctions are less likely to destabilise party-based autocracies (Escribà-Folch and Wright 2015).

Based on these findings, the EU and other external actors should be more successful in supporting governance reforms in party-based autocracies than in other types of authoritarian regimes. However, empirical findings in this book suggest that the EU’s success in encouraging governments in these regimes to address governance reforms varies widely across countries and over time. A more nuanced perspective regarding the factors that explain these differences within the large group of dominant party systems thus seems necessary.

1.1.3 China’s Rise in Africa

Support for governance reforms became a priority in the EU’s and other Western actors’ policies towards Africa at a very specific period in time, and with regard to the international context. During the 1990s, the EU and other Western actors were the most important international political and economic partners for African countries. Moreover, the normative underpinnings of the good governance agenda were largely unchallenged. This international context has changed considerably since the early 2000s and notably as a result of the rise of China. China’s emergence as a major actor in Africa is part of a broader international power shift; but China is by far the most substantive actor in terms of its economic size and global reach (Humphrey and Messner 2008). Moreover, it is the only one of the emerging powers that potentially represents an alternative economic and political model.

China’s engagement in Africa intensified tremendously within a relatively short period of time. From 2000 onwards, activities including trade, investment, assistance and diplomacy have reached previously unknown heights. While political interests dominated China’s relations with African countries until the mid-1990s, economic interests have been at the core of the relationships since. Intensification and diversification of economic relations between China and Africa are both a direct consequence of China’s economic growth since the mid-1990s and of reforms in China’s foreign economic policy.

Aid, trade, investments and loans often form comprehensive packages in Chinese relations with individual states (Alden 2007). In 2009, China became Africa’s second-largest trading partner after the EU (in total), ahead of the USA and far ahead of other emerging economies, such as India or Brazil. With regard to aid volumes, the exact amount is hard to establish, due to a lack of comparable statistics (Grimm et al. 2011; Brautigam 2011). In recent years, the Chinese aid budget has increased by about 30 per cent annually. Chinese aid was estimated to have been at around USD7.1 billion in 2013 (Kitano and Harada 2015). About half of Chinese aid is provided to African countries (Information Office of the State Council 2011). This would have made China a donor comparable to Germany and much larger than India or Brazil—but considerably smaller than the EU institutions. Chinese loans to Africa appear to greatly exceed aid volumes: Brautigam and Hwang (2016) estimate that China provided about USD86.3 billion between 2000 and 2014. Chinese banks, such as the Export Import Bank and the China Development Bank, are giving preferential and commercial loans to African countries at low interest rates. These loans are often linked to resource revenues, and they are used for infrastructure projects that are implemented by Chinese state-owned companies (at either the central or provincial levels).

The implications of China’s rise for Western governance and democracy promotion are still mostly discussed within the media and the policy community; academics have only recently started taking an interest in this topic. While African countries are in great need of more financial support to advance their economic development, many commentators in Europe suspect that China’s growing engagement undermines Western actors’ efforts to support governance reforms in African countries.

Three main lines of argument are put forward. First, some observers suggest that China reduces the leverage of the EU and other Western actors to set incentives for reform. EU diplomats in Uganda, for instance, openly complain that they are ‘rapidly losing influence’.Footnote 2 Second, China is perceived to represent an alternative development model that competes with a European/Western model. The former German Minister for Development Cooperation, Dirk Niebel, observed: ‘China perceives our value-based development cooperation as interference in the domestic affairs of developing countries. There is indeed a competition among donors. We are asked for issues related to good governance. China is approached for supporting large infrastructure projects’.Footnote 3 Third, some argue that China and other authoritarian regional powers bolster authoritarianism in third countries. Recent quantitative work demonstrates that China’s economic cooperation with party-based autocracies tends to have a stabilising effect (Bader 2015b). This would make it more challenging for the EU and other Western actors to support governance reforms.

1.2 Different Parts of the Same Elephant? Researching EU Good Governance Strategies and China’s Engagement in Africa

In order to investigate why African dominant party systems are willing to engage with the EU on governance reforms, this book brings together debates related to EU good governance support, authoritarian regimes and China’s engagement in Africa. Each of these fields of research, if taken individually, gives limited insights to analyse why African governments engage with the EU in governance reforms, or not. Despite an impressive body of studies on (the EU’s) good governance strategies and on authoritarian regimes, the interaction between international factors and the behaviour of political actors in the target country remains under-researched. This book therefore combines research on EU good governance support and on authoritarian regimes and develops a theoretical framework to analyse the interaction between the EU, African governments and China.

Debates on external good governance support have been particularly concerned with the EU’s influence on its immediate neighbours. Studies on external Europeanisation and EU external governance have developed comprehensive frameworks on what works, what does not work and why in the EU’s attempts to support political reforms beyond its borders (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Vachudova 2005; Lavenex and Schimmelfennig 2009; Youngs 2009; Freyburg et al. 2011; Börzel and Risse 2012; van Hüllen 2012). Yet, the theoretical frameworks in these strands of research cannot be easily transferred to investigate the EU’s support for governance reforms in Africa in light of the rise of China and to identify the factors that shape African governments’ willingness to engage with the EU on governance reforms. The necessary conditions, causal mechanisms and scope conditions for effective rule and norm transfer—for instance, the level of statehood or interdependence with the EU—differ considerably between the EU’s neighbours and countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Beyond research on the EU’s influence on political reforms in neighbouring countries, a vibrant discussion on the effectiveness of democracy aid and other instruments to promote democratic reforms has emerged since the late 1990s. This research is driven by an ‘instrument-logic’, focussing on the effect of specific (EU) instruments such as development aid (Goldsmith 2001; Dunning 2004), democracy aid (Kalyvitis and Vlachaki 2010; Dietrich and Wright 2012), sanctions (Portela 2010; Zimelis 2011; Del Biondo 2015) or budget-support suspensions (Hayman 2011; Molenaers 2012; Faust et al. 2012; Molenaers et al. 2015) on governance reforms (see also Warkotsch 2008; Kotzian et al. 2011). This work is generally interested in two main questions: why does the EU use a specific instrument or strategy in a given situation, and not others? How effective are the EU’s instruments, measured in terms of their impact on governance reforms? Both questions are closely related. The coherence and consistency in the EU’s usage of certain instruments (for example sanctions or budget-support suspensions) is one important factor that influences the success of these instruments. By doing so, however, the agency of domestic actors, which is crucial for political reforms, is often neglected.

In turn, studies on authoritarianism have traditionally been concerned with the domestic factors that explain regime durability or transition to democracy. Analyses on authoritarianism have thrived over the past decade (for example, Wintrobe 2001; Bueno de Mesquita et al. 2003; Burnell and Schlumberger 2010; Croissant and Wurster 2013; Köllner and Kailitz 2013; Gerschewski 2013). While most of this work is interested in the stability, durability, and social and economic performance of authoritarian regimes, some researchers have began using insights into the domestic logic of political survival to study the influence of aid, democracy aid and sanctions (Lektzian and Souva 2007; Wright 2009; Cornell 2012; Escribà-Folch 2012; Bader and Faust 2014) or to ascertain the effects of external linkage and leverage on political reforms (Levitsky and Way 2010). Research on the effects of external good governance support in authoritarian regimes provides first insights on the effect of aid, democracy aid and sanctions on political liberalisation and democratisation in different types of authoritarian regimes. Yet, this work gives little explanation for why aid, democracy aid and other instruments have differential effects on the same type of authoritarian regime, such as the large group of dominant party systems.

Literature on the influence of external actors on authoritarian regimes is dominated by studies analysing the effects of democracy promotion instruments on political reforms. In parallel, a new research agenda on the influence of authoritarian powers, such as China, Russia, Venezuela or Iran, on political reforms elsewhere has started to evolve (Bader et al. 2010; Burnell 2010; Melnykovska et al. 2012; Vanderhill 2012; Tolstrup 2013; Bader 2015a; von Soest 2015). These studies conduct macro-quantitative analyses or investigate the influence of authoritarian great powers on their immediate neighbourhood. Only very few authors explicitly address the implications of authoritarian powers for the EU’s or other actors’ attempts to support democratic reforms (e.g. Risse and Babayan 2015). These studies mostly focus on the interaction between the EU and Russia in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics (Dimitrova and Dragneva 2009; Tolstrup 2013).

Finally, China’s engagement in Africa has been widely researched in recent years. Scholars interested in China–Africa relations have been investigating, for instance, the role of different actors involved in the decision-making process of China’s Africa policy; how China’s aid, trade and investment in Africa have developed; and what factors explain the intensification of bilateral relations (Alden 2007; Reilly and Na 2007; Alden et al. 2008; Brautigam 2009; Taylor 2010; Brautigam 2015). Some have also analysed interaction effects between China and the EU’s engagement in Africa with regard to development, security or other policy fields (Men and Barton 2011; Wissenbach 2011; Carbone 2011; Grimm and Hackenesch 2017). These bodies of work have made great empirical contributions to deepen our understanding of the current power shift. To date, however, no structured analysis has been conducted to investigate the implications of China’s rise for the EU’s good governance policies in Africa.

1.2.1 Why Should We Focus on African Governments’ Strategies?

In order to examine the effects of China’s presence on the EU’s good governance policies, this book centres on domestic politics and African governments’ strategies to engage with the EU and China. Investigating whether and if so why African governments are willing to engage in the implementation of the EU’s governance instruments is essential for understanding whether these instruments result in their intended outcomes. In this regard, the findings of this book matter for several reasons:

First, research on external democracy and governance support (Carothers 1999; Andrews 2013), EU political conditionality in the neighbourhood (Checkel 2000; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; van Hüllen 2012), economic conditionality (Killick 1997) or democratic sanctions (Portela 2010; Blanchard and Ripsman 2013) has argued time and again that the political will of the decision-makers in the target country to engage with external actors is a precondition for effective governance support. Similarly, literature on the effectiveness of development aid has demonstrated that ‘ownership’ of the recipient country, in other words the political will of the partner government to engage with external actors in the implementation of reforms, substantially shapes the impact of external support (Fraser and Whitfield 2009). Yet, research on good governance promotion and aid effectiveness has so far paid little attention to the factors that actually influence the willingness of African governments to engage with the EU.

Second, gaining a better understanding of why governments in dominant party systems are (not) willing to engage with the EU on governance reforms is of important empirical relevance. Dominant party regimes constitute by far the largest group among the authoritarian regimes today (Magaloni and Kricheli 2010). No consensus exists regarding the likelihood of dominant party regimes democratising or transitioning to another form of authoritarian rule. Some argue that dominant party regimes are more likely to transform into single party regimes (Magaloni and Kricheli 2010, 133), while others find that they are the ‘typical stepping stones to democracy’ (Hadenius and Teorell 2007, 152). Understanding why governments in these regimes are (not) willing to engage with the EU on governance reforms thus contributes to deepening our knowledge of whether the EU ultimately supports these regimes to democratise or to transition to another form of authoritarianism.

Third, insights into why governments in dominant party regimes are willing to engage or not in governance reforms may lead to a more nuanced perspective on the effects of China’s rise on the EU’s good governance instruments. Debates in the media and academia are often biased in two ways: they start by assuming that China has mainly negative implications for the prospects of democratic reforms in third countries and for external good governance support; and they rarely enquire about the negative effects and unintended side-effects of the EU’s good governance strategies. In this regard, analysing the domestic incentives of African authoritarian governments to engage in governance reforms provides a starting point for assessing how attractive (or costly) not only the EU’s but also China’s support to African countries is.

Finally, this specific research perspective also holds relevance in judging the legitimacy of external good governance support. The rise of the good governance agenda has been characterised as a substantial shift in donor–recipient relations (Moore 1995; Herdegen 2007). The traditional understanding of sovereignty, in which a government could organise its domestic political processes without interference from the international community, gave way to a modified view on sovereignty according to which not every form of political system regardless of its organisation is seen as valuable and worth preserving (Moore 1995, 94; Dolzer 2004, 54; Herdegen 2007, 122f). Several observers have challenged the legitimacy of external good governance support and argued that it should become more demand driven (Tilly 2007). In development policy, this controversy centres on the question of how external good governance support relates to African countries’ ‘ownership’ (i.e. Pender 2007). In authoritarian countries, where governments do not allow for meaningful political competition, normative considerations that external actors should not impose their priorities face a fundamental dilemma. A better understanding of the incentives for African governments when presented with the EU’s demands to engage on governance reforms is therefore also paramount to advance debates about the legitimacy of the EU’s policies.

1.3 Why Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda?

The EU’s success in making African authoritarian, dominant party regimes address governance issues has varied markedly since the turn of the century. Empirical evidence presented here illustrates that African dominant party regimes have responded very differently to the EU’s demands to engage on governance reforms. We will investigate three dominant party regimes—Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda—where the difference in the governments’ openness towards EU good governance policies has been particularly pronounced. At the same time, the cases differ with regard to the four main explanatory factors identified in the theoretical framework—the EU’s good governance strategies, African governments’ survival strategies, their dependence on the EU, and their access to cooperation with China. This variance on the dependent variable and explanatory factors across countries and over time allows for assessing the explanatory power of each variable (Gerring 2007, 97f).

1.3.1 Three Dominant Party Regimes

Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda can all be classified as dominant party regimes. In all three countries, political life is controlled by a ruling party that has strongly entrenched itself in power. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has dominated Ethiopian politics since it overthrew the militarist Marxist Derg regime in the early 1990s (Abbink 2006). In Rwanda, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has controlled political and economic developments since the genocide in 1994 (Beswick 2010). In Angola, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) has dominated political life since independence and particularly since the end of the civil war in 2002 (Roque 2008; Soares de Oliveira 2015).

Research on authoritarian party regimes suggests that the way the ruling party comes to power considerably impacts its resilience and durability (Smith 2005; Brownlee 2007). All three ruling parties have their origins in well-organised guerrilla movements with strong internal discipline and a high level of indoctrination. All three parties came to power after a violent struggle. All three had a difficult relationship with the international community during their power struggle. All three parties have maintained relatively high levels of independence from international pressure, influence and financial support.

A close connection between the party, the military and the business sector has emerged in all three regimes, at least partly as a result of the liberation struggle. All three governments have strongly centralised access to rents. In Ethiopia (Vaughan and Gebremichael 2011) and Rwanda (Booth and Golooba-Mutebi 2012), party-run companies dominate the private sector. These companies not only allow for the creation of sources of income for regime supporters, they also make it possible for the ruling party to generate important revenues. In Angola, the state-owned oil company Sonangol gives the presidency centralised access to oil revenues and their distribution. Moreover, the policy of ‘Angolanisation’Footnote 4 permits the party to use its access to rents from foreign investments to generate support for the regime.

At the same time, Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda have set up formally democratic institutions: they hold regular elections, have established parliaments and some—at least formal—separation of powers. Yet, governments in all three countries do not allow for meaningful political competition or a change of government. All three countries score low on political rights and civil liberties according to international macroindices, such as the one published by Freedom House or the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI). Moreover, the institutionalisation of succession remains a fundamental challenge. In Rwanda, President Kagame initiated a referendum and changed the constitution to remain in power when his second term ended in 2017. In Ethiopia, the issue had to be addressed when Prime Minister Meles died suddenly in the summer of 2012. In Angola, discussions on the succession of President Dos Santos started ahead of the parliamentary elections in 2012. The president did not have to step down formally, but his age and health situation required him to leave office in 2017.

1.3.2 In a Nutshell: Angola’s, Ethiopia’s and Rwanda’s Responsiveness

The case studies will investigate Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda’s responsiveness in more detail. In a nutshell, the analysis finds that in the early 2000s, the Rwandan, Ethiopian and Angolan governments all started to reluctantly engage in political dialogue with the EU. All three governments cooperated with the EU on the implementation of governance aid, albeit reluctantly. All three have been willing to engage on governance reforms related to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of government institutions, but have been hesitant to cooperate on democratic governance. Despite these strong similarities between the three countries in the early 2000s, some differences can also be observed. From the beginning, the Angolan government was more hesitant in responding to EU demands to cooperate compared with Ethiopia and Rwanda (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2
figure 2

African governments’ responsiveness to EU good governance strategies

Source: Author’s compilation

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From the mid-2000s onwards, in parallel to China’s rise in Africa, the openness of these countries towards EU demands to cooperate has varied widely. Rwanda has willingly engaged in political and aid policy dialogues, has implemented governance aid and committed to a comprehensive strategy to promote governance reforms. Ethiopia has remained much more reluctant to institutionalise political and aid policy dialogues on governance reforms, to commit to governance reform objectives and to cooperate on the implementation of governance aid. Angola has largely ignored EU demands for cooperation and showed little interest in engaging in dialogue or the implementation of governance aid.

The clear variance with regard to Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda’s openness to engage with the EU makes these countries particularly pertinent cases. Angola, Ethiopia and Rwanda represent ‘diverse cases’ (Gerring 2007, 97f) that capture the full range of possible variation on the dependent variable. African government’s strategies towards the EU are conceived as a continuous variable that can range from (pro)active cooperation to indifference. On this continuum, Angola and Rwanda represent ‘extreme cases’, where the government is particularly open to cooperation (Rwanda) or indifferent towards the EU (Angola). Selecting ‘extreme cases’ builds on the premise that the insights gained from these cases can be generalised to the cases located between the two extremes (Rolfing 2012, 70). Ethiopia is an interesting example for what could be called a ‘mean’ or ‘median’ case, where the government is reluctant to cooperate with the EU on governance reforms. The strategies of the three governments change over time, which gives additional variation for analysing the explanatory factors.Footnote 5

1.4 Structure of the Book

Building on the domestic logic of political survival in authoritarian regimes, this book develops a theoretical framework to explain why African dominant party regimes are (not) willing to cooperate with the EU on governance reforms in light of the rise of China (Chap. 2). Building on research on the EU’s good governance strategies and the politics of authoritarian regimes, Chap. 2 argues that differences in African governments’ openness to engage with the EU on governance reforms can be explained by the interaction of four factors: the specific good governance strategies that the EU adopts in its relations with individual African countries; the domestic survival strategies of African authoritarian regimes; the economic dependence of African authoritarian regimes on the EU; and African countries’ access to cooperation with China as an alternative cooperation partner.

Chapters 3, 4 and 5 delve into the cases of Rwanda, Ethiopia and Angola. For each country, two to four time periods are identified, depending on how the EU adapts its good governance strategies towards African dominant party regimes. For each period, the case studies investigate the interaction of the four main variables established in the theoretical framework to explain why African governments respond differently towards the EU’s demands to engage in governance reforms. Chapter 6 summarises the main findings, highlights contributions to academic research, and discusses policy implications that emerge from the analysis.