Chinese Manufacturing Firms in Ethiopia

Beschreibung

"Weiwei Chen successfully unpacks how Chinese manufacturing investment in Ethiopia becomes realised in everyday ways. Using unparalleled qualitative data collected over a decade this path-breaking book greatly enriches the still polarised and generalised accounts of ‘China in Africa’." – Professor Giles Mohan, The Open University

"You will likely have formed a view about ‘China in Africa’, one way or the other. But one way or the other is exactly what Weiwei Chen’s wonderful book helps you to abandon: there are multiple ways, great variation in the performance of Chinese manufacturing firms in Africa. Her brilliant, decade-long fieldwork in Ethiopia helps make sense of this variation." –  Professor Christopher Cramer, SOAS University of London

This book explores the diverse nature of Chinese manufacturing activity in Ethiopia and highlights how investments can be guided by local political economy conditions. It examines the economic potential of foreign direct investment and its role in facilitating structural change within African economies. The approaches taken by Ethiopia to steer investment towards development objectives are compared with global trends of industrial relocation and corporate adaptation to illustrate how foreign direct investment can benefit both China and African countries. Ethiopia’s proactive industrial policies are highlighted to show that African states can leverage Chinese manufacturing capital to enable industrial development and economic growth.

This book provides unique detail into the specific strategies used in Ethiopia to maximise foreign development and drive economic development. It will be relevant to students, researchers and policymakers interested in development economics, industrial policy, and the international political economy.

Weiwei Chen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at The Open University.

This book explores the diverse nature of Chinese manufacturing activity in Ethiopia and highlights how investments can be guided by local political economy conditions. It examines the economic potential of foreign direct investment and its role in facilitating structural change within African economies. The approaches taken by Ethiopia to steer investment towards development objectives are compared with global trends of industrial relocation and corporate adaptation to illustrate how foreign direct investment can benefit both China and African countries. Ethiopia’s proactive industrial policies are highlighted to show that African states can leverage Chinese manufacturing capital to enable industrial development and economic growth.

This book provides unique detail into the specific strategies used in Ethiopia to maximise foreign development and drive economic development. It will be relevant to students, researchers and policymakers interested in development economics, industrial policy, and the international political economy.

Autor*in

Weiwei Chen

Themen in »Chinese Manufacturing Firms in Ethiopia«

Foreign direct investment Industrial economics Social development Ethiopian natural resources Chinese manufacturing firms Ethiopian institutions African states Industrial relocation Chinese investment in Africa Chinese private capital in Africa State-business relations Environmental costs of FDI African industrialization Global value chains

Stimmen zu »Chinese Manufacturing Firms in Ethiopia«

“Chen’s study of the everyday governance of Chinese manufacturing in Ethiopia provides the detail and nuance that is so often lacking in discussions of ‘China in Africa’. Through an innovative theoretical approach which disaggregates Chinese capital and a multi-scalar and multi-actor understanding of politics the book provides a rich account of how Chinese private manufacturing firms are inserted into Ethiopia’s complex political economy. But this is not a dry account but one built on ten years of meticulous fieldwork where the author gained unrivalled access to the varied sites of negotiation, implementation and contestation. I know of no other account that gets so close to the action. In an era when industrial policy is back on the agenda Chen’s study will serve as a rich source for others to understand how such policies become realised in locally mediated ways and act as a salutary reminder that policies are built on real people not official proclamations.” (Professor Giles Mohan, The Open University)

“Weiwei Chen’s excellent new book is a much-needed contribution to the growing field of Global China studies. The book carefully unpacks the drivers of Chinese manufacturing investment in Ethiopia and their shifting trajectories, and offers a nuanced and empirically-grounded account of state-business relations between Chinese firms and Ethiopian state institutions. This book is based on several years of exemplary fieldwork, including unusual participant observation, which give Chen a unique perspective on patterns, variation of outcomes and experiences, and contradictions.” (Professor Carlos Oya, SOAS University of London)

“Chinese manufacturing investment in Africa reached its apex in Ethiopia. Weiwei Chen's impressive scholarly debut adds rich new detail to this story. Ten years spent tracking firms and interviewing entrepreneurs allows Chen to show how, and why, some Chinese factories fail in the risky business environments of Africa, and why many succeed. Countries wishing to build nests to attract China's flying geese will have much to learn from this book.” (Professor Deborah Brautigam, John Hopkins University)

“You will likely have formed a view about ‘China in Africa’, one way or the other. But one way or the other is exactly what Weiwei Chen’s wonderful book helps you to abandon: there are multiple ways, great variation in the performance of Chinese manufacturing firms in Africa. Her brilliant, decade-long fieldwork in Ethiopia helps make sense of this variation. The implications matter – for policy officials, for firms, and for observers and the ‘commentariat’. Starting from the puzzle of firms that operated under the same policy rules and organizational framework but had varying accumulation trajectories, Chen allows us to observe closely how different firm strategies, varying governance, and specifics of everyday bargaining processes, ad hoc decisions, and discretionary enforcement shape outcomes. And the dramas of the Covid pandemic, political instability, and the end of AGOA preferential access to US markets all intensified the causal mechanisms at play.” (Professor Christopher Cramer, SOAS University of London)

“In the welter of generalised and often dire commentaries on Chinese firms in Africa, this book stands out as a detailed antidote. It studies how Chinese firms strategise under different circumstances in both entering and remaining in Ethiopia, and how they adjust their strategies under changing conditions – sometimes of duress.  The hybridisation of strategies shows great pragmatism and resilience, as well as sensitivity to local conditions. It makes of Chinese investment in Ethiopia something sophisticated. The author has made a rich contribution to our understanding of these detailed processes.” (Stephen Chan OBE, Professor of World Politics, SOAS University of London)

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