A Converging China?

Perspectives: China, Africa, and the African Diaspora, 2009

There are few issues more essential to long-term global stability than the integration of the People’s Republic of China into the world economic and political system. From Cold War pariah to international powerhouse, the country’s transition over the past 30 years has driven two parallel reactions among the world’s countries – admiration from the developing world and nervousness among developed countries. The developing world admires China for its economic success, a model of controlled yet entrepreneurial capitalism that provides for political stability. Coupled with the country’s closed-off domestic system, however, the behavior and intentions of the Communist Party continue to be viewed with suspicion by the world’s largest powers. In other words, we see unique and divergent evaluations of the same facts of China’s rise in the world. Read More »

China, Africa, and the African Diaspora: Perspectives

Author and publisher of the new book China, Africa, and the African Diaspora: Perspectives, Dr. Sharon Freeman will be joined by additional contributing authors to discuss and analyze China’s increasing interest and participation in African economic markets. Capturing the diversity of China’s engagement is necessary to achieve any understanding of the complex and sometimes contrary reactions that its presence inspires across Africa.

Panelist:

Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, Walter H. Annenberg Chair in Communication, University of Southern California
Read More »

CHINA ’S ROLE IN THE WORLD: Is China a Responsible Stakeholder in Africa?

Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2006
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing

There are few issues more vital to U.S. national interests than understanding and responding appropriately to the changing global role of the People’s Republic of China. Read More »

Negotiating the Net: The Politics of Internet Diffusion in Africa

Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006

CHINA’S INFLUENCE IN AFRICA: Implications for U.S. Policy

Testimony before the Sub-Committee on Arica, Human Rights and International Operations, 2005
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Divining U.S. interests out of the intersections of China and Africa is truly a daunting challenge. We are dealing with more than 50 African countries, each quite different from the others, and each with different relations with China; we are tracking and evaluating half a dozen critical foreign policy issues, from petroleum to foreign aid; and from this mix we then try to distill answers to the question- “So what? What should America do, if anything, about the influence of China in Africa?” Let me take up each of these in turn. Read More »

What is Internet Governance and Where Does it Come From?

Journal of Public Policy, 2005

The literature on governing the Internet suffers from such lacunae as overly narrow, technocratic conceptions of Internet governance; insufficient attention to governance dynamics within countries; and limited appreciation for the micro-level political and social roots of governance. This essay suggests ways they may be addressed by asking two foundational questions ‘What is Internet governance and where does it come from?’ Read More »

The Information Revolution and Developing Countries

MIT Press, 2003

African information revolution: a balance sheet

Telecommunications Policy, 2003

This paper provides a policy and institutional framework to describe and analyze the diffusion of information technology and the global information revolution (IR) in Sub-Saharan Africa and the major factors that influence this diffusion. We begin by examining regional diffusion and find substantial crossnational diffusion differences across the continent, with considerable variation in regional diffusion of telephone, internet, radio, and television. This pattern undermines technologic and economic explanations as sole determinants of variation in diffusion. Then we conduct an analysis of the IR in Sub-Saharan Africa based on a policy framework. This framework identifies four key policy balances (1. public and private initiatives, 2. monopoly and competition ‘‘markets’’, 3. domestic and foreign ownership or control, and 4. centralized and de-centralized administrative controls) as important elements to a better understanding of the diffusion of the IR. We find that a necessary condition for an explanation of the diffusion of the IR is a policy and institutional framework that incorporates these four balances. Read More »

Are Poor Countries Losing the Information Revolution?

with Francisco Rodriguez, infoDev, 2000

New IT and Social Inequality: Resetting the Research and Policy Agenda

The Information Society, 2000