Leiden University Student Repository

Waldenberger, Johanna (2020)

Mozambican Agency vis-à-vis China in the Mining Sector

Bachelor thesis | International Studies (BA)

For decades, Mozambique was a showcase of a beneficial Western aid recipient on the African continent. However, following a national debt crisis and the global financial crisis in 2008, the country started looking eastwards, increasingly seeking and accepting investment and aid from China. Mozambique witnessed increasing engagement from China, especially in the exploitation of raw materials and infrastructure development. In academic literature and public discourse, the South-South cooperation between the two developing countries is often portrayed as benefitting only China, ascribing the Mozambican state a merely passive and receiving role. This thesis scrutinizes this assumption and explores the different ways in which the Mozambican government asserts its agency vis-à-vis China, specifically in the mining sector. Indeed, the analysis shows that, despite structural constraints, the government does exercise agency on various levels.

African agency

South-South cooperation

international politics

mining

China

Mozambique

Author

Waldenberger, Johanna

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Africa

Supervisors

Smith, Karen

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en