German Polity Export: A Critical Discourse Archaeology of the Political Objects of German Development Cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa

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Universiteit van Amsterdam Graduate School of Social Sciences

Research Master International Development Studies

MSc Thesis

German Polity Export

A Critical Discourse Archaeology of the Political Objects

of German Development Cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa.

“We are not asked to export our way of life, our forms of production, our political or social structures, but to help others find their own.”

Erhard Eppler, 1971, 33

Thesis supervisor: Dr. ir. Y.P.B. Yves Van Leynseele Second reader: Dr. T.A. Mieke Lopes Cardozo

Kolja Drescher

12784109 kolja.drescher@gmx.de

Submission: Hannover, 31st_{of May 2021}

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Abstract

As any discourse affects the real world, political objects in development aid discourse affect the political reality determines the lives of countless people. This paper examines the discourse of Germany as a donor in development aid, focusing on the establishment of “good” political structures. The existing literature has addressed different concepts of political objects (e.g., democracy promotion), their implementation, and effectiveness. Still, no attention has been given to the process of producing these ideas in the context of donors through public discourse. The objective of this research is to verify the assumption that Germany’s domestic political development influences political objects of its development cooperation and to explore whether this imposition can be understood as export of German polity. This qualitative study encompasses examining documents and semi-structured expert interviews as part of a Critical Discourse Analysis. By making use of Foucault’s approaches of archaeology, the analysis serves to unpack the continuities and shifts in the German discourse formation on polity export to Sub-Saharan Africa. Firstly, the results of this research show that the political objects of German development aid are heavily influenced by values and Germany’s domestic political development. Secondly, even though German actors emphasise the impossibility of simply ‘exporting’ Germany’s political architecture, implications in the discourse suggest that it would be desirable. Thirdly, German actors most actively highlight the exportability of the ordoliberal understanding of state and market relation. Therefore, this paper concludes that the German development discourse constantly reproduces superiority as well as guiding values and determines the German model of political economy as exportable. Based on these findings, the study offers one of the first systematic illustrations of developmental political objects and their discursive origins. Polity export - as conceptual model - can be used for further studies and critique.

Keywords: Development Aid, Germany, Democracy Promotion, Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, Sub-Saharan Africa

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Acknowledgements

A Master's thesis with an obstinate and convoluted orientation such as this one would be impossible to implement and worthless without the degree of academic freedom and encouragement I received from my supervisor. Therefore, my sincere thanks go to my thesis supervisor Yves Van Leynseele, whose patient, comprehensive, critical, and tirelessly motivating guidance has significantly contributed to the preparation and realisation of this analysis. I would also like to thank my second reader Mieke Lopes Cardozo for her critical objections during the defence.

Special thanks go to the people who agreed to give me an interview upon their fields of work, impressions on the ground, and difficulties in implementing concepts. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the people in Federal information offices as well as the foundation offices and library staff in Amsterdam, Oldenburg, Hanover, and Bonn who, under the difficult circumstances of the global pandemic, nevertheless willingly provided me with works for this thesis (even via interlibrary loan). Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the International Development Programme of the Universiteit van Amsterdam, namely Eva van der Sleen and Courtney Vegelin, for their outstanding support and tireless willingness to help. Finally, I would like to thank my family and friends who have supported me at every stage of this work and have added value to it through their feedback.

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List of Figures

Figure 1 Conceptual Scheme - Polity Export ... 12

Figure 2 Units of Observation ... 18

Figure 3 Codes Identity-Building and Othering ... 22

Figure 4 African Governments as Bad Governance... 29

Figure 5 Direct Political Objects ... 31

Figure 6 Democracy in the German Aid Discourse ... 32

Figure 7 Democracy as Precondition and Mean ... 32

Figure 8 Democracy Definitions ... 34

Figure 9 Use of the Term Governance ... 38

Figure 10 Good Governance Definitions ... 38

Figure 11 Variations of Good Governance ... 39

Figure 12 Good Governance as Precondition and Mean ... 40

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List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

ABBR. ENGLISH GERMAN

AA Federal Foreign Office Auswärtiges Amt

AfD Alternative for Germany Alternative für Deutschland

AU African Union Afrikanische Union

AwZ Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development

Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung

BMUB Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und nukleare Sicherheit

BMF Federal Ministry of Finance Bundesministerium der Finanzen BMWi Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and

Energy

Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie BMZ Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation

and Development

Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung BT German Federal Parliament Bundestag

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis Kritische Diskursanaylse CDG Carl Duisberg Society Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft

CDU Christian Democratic Union of Germany Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands CR Critical Realism

CSU Christian Social Union in Bavaria Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern DEval German Institute for Development Evaluation Deutsches Evaluierungsinstitut der

Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

DIE German Development Institute Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik DSE German Foundation for International

Development

Deutsche Stiftung für internationale Entwicklung E+Z Development and Cooperation Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit

FDP Free Democratic Party Freie Demokratische Partei FES Friedrich Ebert Foundation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

FNS, FNF Friedrich Naumann Foundation (for Freedom) Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung (für die Freiheit) GIGA German Institute for

Global and Area Studies

Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien

GIZ German Corporation for International Cooperation

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit

GTZ German Corporation for Technical Cooperation

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit

hbs Heinrich Böll Foundation Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung HSS Hanns Seidel Foundation Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung

IMF International Monetary Fund Internationaler Währungsfonds INEF Institute for Delevopment and Peace Institut für Entwicklung und Frieden KAS Konrad Adenauer Foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

MDG Millennium Development Goals Millenniums-Entwicklungsziele NED National Endowment of Democracy

NIE New Institutional Economics Neue Institutionenökonomik RLS Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung SAP Structural Adjustment Programmes Strukturanpassungsprogramm SDG Sustainable Development Goals Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SSA Sub-Saharan Africa Subsahara-Afrika

OACPS Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States

Organisation Afrikanischer, Karibischer und Pazifischer Staaten

ODA Official Development Assistance Öffentliche Entwicklungszusammenarbeit OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and

Development

Organisation für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung US, USA United States (of America) Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika WBG World Bank Group Weltbank Gruppe

ZEF Center for Development Research Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung ZÖV Central Office for Public Administration Zentralstelle für öffentliche Verwaltung

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1. Introduction

During its G20 presidency in 2017, the German Federal Government set an emphasis on ‘Partnership with Africa’ introducing the ‘Compact with Africa’ initiative of the Federal Ministry of Finance and a strategy paper by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) named ‘Africa and Europe – New Partnership for Development, Peace and Future’ (Kamp, 2017, 66). This particular document has been referred to as ‘Marshall plan with Africa.’ In Germany, the term evokes the collective memory of the financial and technical support provided by the US government after the end of World War II (European Recovery Program, ERP), which led to economic growth and social reconstruction in the years that followed. By making use of this iconic wording, the BMZ invokes the message of crafting a policy, which is capable of bringing about the same economic and social transformation on the African continent. The strategy paper issues this comparison as follows:

“Naturally, these challenges can only be compared to a limited extent with the situation in Europe after the Second World War. The necessary efforts, however, can be compared. At the same time, the Marshall Plan stands for the will and optimism for a successful path of peace and development in the cooperation between Europe and Africa” (BMZ, 2017a, 4).

Interesting is the attempt to duplicate or reuse a strategy of success in the development discourse. Here, the Federal Government utilises the German experience of domestic development as a discourse strategy for its development cooperation with the African continent. This research argues that states engaging in international development processes of aiding or assisting other states tend to draw from their own experience and understanding of social transformation, particularly domestic political development. That would mean that the historical political development of a donor country influences the object of the intentional development cooperation with third countries in the phenomenon called development aid.

The systematic examination of the central assumption of this research comes with the conceptual challenge of the confusing theoretical distinction and terminology of political objects (c. f. Hearn, 2000, 1; Zanger, 2000, 458; Kloss-Tulius, 2003, 320; Burnell, 2007, 1; Catón & Steltenmeier, 2008, 384; Muno, 2012, 396; Hobson, 2015). By political objects, the upcoming analysis encompasses all discourse actions and units of the German aid agenda that relate to the institutional shaping and transformation of public coexistence or the authoritarian allocation of material and immaterial values in society abroad (c.f. Easton, 1965 24). The term political object is not to be confused with the political objectives of development aid, which encompass the instrumentalisation of aid for different ambitions. Therefore, this research argues for the use of a new conceptional approach to examine the phenomenon systematically. To avoid the concepts already in place and enable a systematic verification of the guiding assumption, this study will develop and utilise a new conceptual model in the theoretical frame of Chapter 2. This model will be called polity export and be understood as practices and processes of transplantation and implementation of political culture and institutions of aid donor states in aid recipient states. Here, polity refers to the institutional (e.g., constitutionally created) norms and the resulting orders, political procedures (e.g., constitutional regulations), political system, and political culture and societal organisation. The conceptual model of polity export enables this research to explore the development discourse for political objects needed to pursue the hypothesis deductively. The German aid industry as ‘donor’ (present in Chapter 3) and the SSA region as ‘recipient’ serves as a case. Therefore, the central research question of this study will be: How is the German discourse on polity export to Sub-Saharan Africa shaped by own political development and tradition?

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2 In general, foreign aid practices create or extend a cultural, economic, and political relationship between donors and recipients, which may involve a form of power by which donors seek to inﬂuence recipients (Bindra, 2018, 127). Furthermore, as Western donor countries naturally differ in the specific institutional configurations of their representative democratic system of governance (Rothstein, 2012, 152), they also vary in the ways of concretising and implementing globally accepted objects of development cooperation (e.g., good governance). Hence, this research intends to unpack the national ‘aid industry’ Blackbox discourse while assuming the donor country’s political development as a factor behind the crafting of these policies. The pioneering works of discourse analysis with an aidnographic focus inspire this discourse focus (Escobar 1995; Mudimbe 1988; Abrahamsen, 2000, et al.). The research’s methodology is heavily oriented towards Ziai’s (2016) approach of using Foucault’s concepts of discourse archaeology to analyse the development discourse order. This procedure will be further explained in Chapter 4. Thus, this research explores the discourse order as consistent formations (archaeology) of the political objects of the German development discourse. In summary, it can be said that this research utilises the Foucauldian discourse analysis tool of archaeology in the empirical Chapters 5, 6, and 7 to verify the assumption that the German historical development influences its aid discourse over the polity export yet to be theoretically developed.

1.1. Relevance

It is crucial to raise the relevance of investigating political objects in development aid discourses and their ideological roots. Development studies have always been about politics. One of the earliest standard references of the field ‘political development’ might be The Politics of the Developing Areas by Almond and Coleman from 1960 (Fischer et al., 2016, 6; Bates, 2018, 65). Herein, the authors use Comparative Politics methods to classify `non-Western political systems’ and define the character of ‘the modern political system’ (Coleman, 1960, 532). There have been numerous studies regarding the political inclusion and participation of people living in poverty (e.g., Hickey, 2005) or the de-politicisation effects of development aid projects (e.g., Ferguson 1994; Mosse 2005; Harriss 2001) analysing the demotion from governmental to the public, to the private sphere, etc. (c.f. Mishra, 2011, 165).

However, far less attention has been given to the content and the origin, creation, and transformation of development agendas and policy from the perspective of the donor country. Indeed, there are many calls for political science research on development policy as a policy field, which tend to receive less attention in academic debate and research (Hartmann, 2016, 816; Rokkan 1979; Kevenhörster, 2009, 15). Therefore, an interrelation of political science and development studies is demanded (Faust, 2016, 324), which this research attempts in its research emphasis and approach. Further, there is no denying that the system of governance has a vast influence on the life of the governed people and the development of states towards peace and sustainable growth (Tetzlaff & Jakobeit, 2005, 150; Stockmann et al., 2016, 408; Bridoux & Kurki, 2014, 1; Narayan et al., 2000, 265). Amartya Sen argued in Development as Freedom (1999) that a democratic system is an essential component of the development process because of its intrinsic importance, instrumental contribution, and constructive role (ibid. 157). The creation of a political system with legitimacy in the eyes of the majority has even been titled as the “main challenge facing Third World societies today” (Smith, 2003, 275). Gerring et al. (2012) empirically opposed the assumed relationship between a country’s current regime type and its subsequent human development but argued for a causal relationship if democracy is considered a long-run, historical phenomenon (ibid. 14). Therefore, it is crucial to consider the political dimension of development aid at all times. Thus, this research critically engages with the processes of formation of

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3 these particular objects in political discourse. As any discourse1_{affects the real world, the political}

objects in the discourse on German development aid affect the political reality determines the lives of countless people.

1.2. Thesis Setup

In order to be able to pursue the research question systematically, the academic discourse on political objects will firstly be examined within a theoretical framework, and an applicable conceptual scheme will be developed. After the case of Germany was described in the research context, the methodological procedure will reveal the scientific approach of applying the developed conceptual scheme polity export to the German discourse order. Finally, three empirical chapters will derive from the explored discourse order and will be examined: the construction of Germanness and SSA in the Archaeology of Identity (Chapter 5), the illustration of direct political objects in Chapter 6, and the Archaeology of Implicit2

Political Objects (Chapter 7) within the discourse order.

2. Towards Polity Export – A Theoretical Frame

The academic discourse on development aid and various aid agendas comprises several concepts and definitions for political objects, like the central units of interest for this research. Firstly, the theoretical frame will illustrate what political objects are carried in development aid, secondly why they are part of development aid, and, thirdly, what they are influenced by and how they are implemented. The objective of this chapter is to conclude with a conceptual scheme that encompasses all dimensions of the phenomenon of interest. With the research subject being the discourse practices of the Blackbox ‘aid industry’ and its inherent power relations, the research has an aidnographic emphasis. Not in its methods but in its research orientation and subject, this study aidnographically examines the vertical relation between ‘donor’ and ‘recipient,’ and pragmatically engages with the aid phenomenon (Mosse, 2013, 229; Gould, 2014, 1). The term ‘industry’ is used to focus on the basic description of aid practices: “(…) how they evolved, what they are, experiences, and debates around them” (Haan, 2009, ix). For the purpose of verifying the assumption of development experiences influencing the assistance provided abroad, the aidnographic research will describe and systematically analyse the discourse of a donor country’s aid industry.

While foreign aid is defined as a voluntary transfer of public resources between governments or other (international) organisations (Lancaster, 2007, 9), intentional development (aid) as part of foreign aid has been constructed as multiple means to multiple and continually varying ends. These ends comprise ‘nation’s development goals,’ ‘economic growth,’ ‘equity,’ ‘national self-reliance’ or even the process of enlarging people’s choices’ or of enhancing ‘participatory democratic processes’ (Morgenthau, 1962, 302; Cowen& Shenton, 1995, 2). Political objects of development aid3_{shall not be mistaken with political}

development or the political nature of foreign aid, which is in Morgenthau’s understanding one weapon amongst many in the “political armour of the nation” (ibid, 1962, 309). On the other hand, in the sense of Comparative Political Science, political development can be understood as “the transformation of a political system from one type into another” (La Palombara, 1967, 4). Or, in its unintended nature,

1_{The conception of discourse is explained in more detail in Chapter 4.2. of the methodological procedure.} 2_{See Chapter 4.6. Data Analysis.}

3_{Concerning the translation: development aid (in German: Entwicklungshilfe) and development cooperation} (Entwicklungszusammenarbeit) are in general synonymously united under the term Entwicklungspolitik (literally, development policy), even though all three terms are not interchangeable in their meaning. In this work, the attempt has been made not to distort their meaning and its context.

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4 defined as “elaboration of new and more complex form of politics and government as societies restructure themselves so as to absorb progressively the stock and flow of the modern technology which is, essentially, uniform” (Rostow, 1971b, 3). The first theoretical attempt of this chapter is to identify and delineate objects viewed as being political means of intentional development, firstly distinguished from unintended political development as defined.

Once more, this study defines political objects as discourse units of a development aid agenda related to the institutional shaping and transformation of public coexistence or the authoritarian allocation of material and immaterial values in society abroad. As in other studies before, it is argued here that the political objects can be identified by the discourse that labels these actions and therefore creates them. Hence, development aid objects identified by the academic discourse as intentionally transforming the political or societal sphere will be illustrated in the following.

2.1. Political Objects in The Academic Discourse

Traditionally, the North-South agenda of development aid and cooperation is focused on poverty reduction. From Truman’s ‘creation of the Third World’ (Escobar, 1995, 4) in 1949 until the 1980s, the main objects of this development aid of modernisation and industrialisation have been financial support, equipment (e.g., for agriculture) aid, infrastructure projects, vocational training (Doornbos, 2004, 373; Lancaster, 2007, 44; Williams, 2012, 3; Jakupec, 2018, 20; Resnick, 2018, 411; Bohnet, 2019, 50). These objects might be political in their high significances in terms of allocation and geopolitics but do not intend to alter the political structures of the recipient countries. As the objective of foreign aid in the international system was the economic development and growth of ‘developing states’ (Bindra, 2018, 139), the global development agenda was mainly dominated by economic problems and poverty, for example, in Africa (Cranenburgh, 2019, 1).

The historical origin of development aid object turned political is described differently within the reviewed literature. Most authors agree that development aid started serving the purpose of, for example, democracy promotion in the 1990s (Brown, 2005, 181; Crawford, 2007, 170; Haas, 2017, 3; Kloss-Tullius, 2003, 315; Spranger & Wolff 2003; Lancaster, 2007, 11). The end of the Cold War is also characterised as a turning point for Germany regarding democracy promotion in their aid agenda (Rüland & Werz, 2002, 78). Others identify the rise of political objects in the 1980s (Hearn, 2000, 815; Lazarus, 2013, 260; Cranenburgh, 2019, 1) or even in the 1920s (Lloyd, 2010, 548).

The most common and most frequently encountered objects in the aid agenda defined by the reviewed academic discourse are the promotion (or aiding) of democracy, human and civil rights and good

governance, the rule of law, and civil servants (Cranenburgh, 2019, 2; Hackenesch, 2019, 1). These

self-declared intentional forms of development aid encompass a variety of different concepts and definitions. Burnell (2007) acknowledges the confusing lexicon of terms, spanning from democracy

promotion, democracy support, democracy assistance, democracy aid to political development aid (ibid.

1). But even when looking at only one concept like democracy promotion, it is still hard to clearly define it, partly because of scientific scattering across several academic disciplines, including development studies (Jahn, 2012, 687). Hence, these different terms should be briefly distinguished from each other.

Democracy promotion is not necessarily an object of development aid. Democracy promotion is, in its

nature, a highly complex process (c.f. Axtmann, 2007, 131). As there are numerous definitions of democracy to be found, defining its intentional development is even more complex. Democracy

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5 promotion needs to be differentiated from democratisation, democracy support and assistance (Bridoux & Kurki, 2014, 2). But there are also several ways of fostering democratic structures in international development. For example, as a diplomatic end of international relations, as coerced result of military intervention, as a political condition for receiving ODA, or as the central objective of foreign aid projects and knowledge transfer (Schraeder, 2002, 219-220). However, there can also be aid provided for democracy promotion (Lancaster, 2007, 48). Democracy promotion can be described as “practice of fostering the establishment, improvement and stabilization of democratic regimes from the outside” (Poppe, Leiniger, Wolff, 2019b, 777), or “those foreign policy activities which aim at fostering the transition to, consolidation of, or improvement of democracy in other states and their societies” (Huber, 2015, 23).

Democracy assistance in foreign aid can be described as democracy aid (Carothers, 2007, 112; Barkan,

2012). Democracy assistance might even be used synonymously for political development aid: “More commonly known as 'democracy assistance', political aid is targeted at governmental structures such as parliament, the judiciary and local government, as well as civil society organisations, with the aim of strengthening the institutions and culture of liberal democracy” (Hearn, 2000, 815). Further, democracy assistance is an ensemble of technical, financial, material, and symbolic instruments provided by democracy promotion agencies in non-or semi-democratic states and those are undergoing democratisation (Bridoux & Kurki, 2014, 3). It is also possible to distinguish democracy assistance between political and developmental approaches. In contrast, the developmental one is based on the conviction that basic features of democratic governance—such as transparency, accountability, and responsiveness—contribute to more equitable socioeconomic development overall, democracy here is rather a factor in the larger picture of social and national development (Carothers, 2009, 8).

This developmental notion of democratic governance leads to the next object, which is good

governance. Aid donors claim that good governance and democracy share a synergistic relationship

(Lazarus, 2013, 260). Inherent to the good governance concept are the rule of law, functioning bureaucracy, transparent and accountable administrative structures, fight against corruption, and the respect of human rights (Nuscheler, 2009, 13f.). It is “characterised by minimal, 'neutral', accountable, transparent and participatory government with an effective bureaucracy, and a pluralist, 'independent' civil society” (Ayers, 2006, 323). Despite the participatory notion, good governance is neither simply democracy nor merely the absence of corruption, the rule of law, efficient government, or administration (Rothstein, 2012, 152). Good governance should instead be characterised as a system of management and self-controlled improvement of “efficiency” and “transparency” (Anders, 2009, 2). Even though the promotion of good governance does not equal democracy, their presents in international aid discourses and relevance for examining political objects are undeniable. Abrahamsen (2000) concluded that the good governance discourse “reproduces the hierarchies and relationships that have been the hallmark of development ever since its inception in the post-war period. As ’regime of truth’, development discourse has produced a form of knowledge about the third world that still informs and underpins contemporary North-South relations.” (ibid. 139).

Even more than democracy, good governance can be viewed as a political object of development aid4

and as a guiding principle for many dimensions of the aid discourse. The concept of effectiveness as a principle of good governance is also to found in administrative law and effective implementation of the rule of law (c.f. Addink, 2019). Also, as part of the good governance that emerged in the 1990s issued

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6 later, human rights were incorporated in the discourse, after mostly being considered ‘right to develop’ (Uvin, 2007, 599).

Two other objects need to be shortly described here. The first one being civil society support in foreign aid. With this, the aid of the donor government is directly given to non-state actors working in the recipient country instead of the recipient government (Seng Tang, 2021, 10). The second object of the development debate is the state's role in transforming its economy and society. The theoretical line of conflict stretches particularly between the development theories of Keynesian economics, neo-classical marginalism/neoliberalism and the concept of the developmental state (Desai, 2017, 50). Here, it can be argued that the developmental state agenda with its Listian state management is interchangeable with the principle of good governance. But the developmental state is both less and more demanding than the good governance agenda because of its outcome-oriented emphasis, rather than good governance’s minimalistic setting of rules (Fritz & Menocal, 2007, 538).

In this first section of the theoretical frame, the political objects of the academic discourse regarding development aid have been illustrated. As mentioned above, the central conceptual problem and puzzle were affirmed that there are many different concepts and confusing terminologies. As a result, there is no conceptual consensus regarding the listed objects and further the dimension that the development objects of policy improvements and better governance can be seen as preconditions for development aid and development objectives themselves (Nanda, 2006, 275). Additionally, the multitude of concepts and meanings generally occurs with a pre-defined ideological package, as illustrated in the following.

2.1.1. Historical and Political Reasons

This section will explore why the objects mentioned have found their way into the development discourse by looking at the historical origin and the political reasons behind them.

The promotion of democracy has existed since democracy itself. The case is even made that Ancient Athens recognised the uniqueness of this form of governance through democracy promotion (Huber, 2015, 7). Contemporary democracy promotion originates in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century anti-imperialist foreign policy of the newly formed United States of America (Kurki, 2018, 429/Smith, 1994). Under Woodrow Wilson’s liberal internationalism, the USA started as a first-generation contemporary democracy promoter in the twentieth century, accompanied by the – largely rhetorical – triumph of the democratic ideal around the globe in this time (Ruschemeyer et al., 1992, 46; Huber, 2015, 11).

In the 1960s, democracy promotion became a part of the new “development aid” agenda. It underwent its so-called ‘golden ages’ in the 1980s, introducing the National Endowment of Democracy (NED) in the US (Carothers, 2007, 112). Especially in the 1990s, the confidence of liberal Western states for assistance equalled the demand of many regions to reform their governance structures (Kurki, 2018, 429). The US redirected their foreign policy towards democracy promotion in the 1980s due to the fade of the communist ‘threat’ (Demmers et al., 2004, 6). Democracy promotion in Africa became an increasingly important priority for Western donors in the late 1980s, with a growing normative consensus supporting democracy and human rights since that time (Cranenburgh, 2019, 1). Although democracy assistance also has a long history, its visibility became more prominent during the 1990s as much of the developing world experienced a wave of political liberalization. Several bilateral aid agencies began to establish democracy and governance units (Resnick, 2018, 412). The early 1990s might be a turning point of democracy promotion towards becoming an object of development aid due

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7 to the ‘triumph’ of the Western liberal democracy (Jourde, 2017, 311; Bridoux & Kurki, 2014, 66). While Fukuyama postulated the ‘end of history’ and the “universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government” (Fukuyama, 1989, 4), Platter identified the “extraordinary worldwide momentum and prestige of democracy” (ibid. 1991, 42). The critical outcome of the global spread of Western democracy is the trend of speaking about democracy as a “universal value” whose “roots” can be nurtured in all regions of the world regardless of culture (Schraeder, 2002, 7; Sen, 1999, 5).

The titled “crisis of governance” rooted in the outcomes of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) during the 1970s and 1980s was mainly allocated towards the “weak” governance performance and institutional aberrations in SSA (Brown, 2005, 183; Hearn, 2000, 817; Nuscheler, 2009, 12). The persistent absence of economic growth seen as caused by a lack of government accountability opened the eyes for democracy and political stability with a neo-classical reform and conservative economic turn in the late 1980s (Rapley, 2007, 117f.; Nielinger, 1998, 28; Uvin, 2007, 597; Mokoena, 2018, 756). An early hallmark of this turn was the report Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa in 1981, also known as Berg report (Ziai, 2015, 128). Later, a product of the SAP reflection was the set of new conditions crafted by the Washington based international institutions, given the name Washington

Consensus by John Williamson in 1989 (Kurer, 2017, 216). The move towards neo-liberal principles and

the reorganisation of state bureaucracies can be considered a global phenomenon during the 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century (Anders, 2009, 141).

The long-term study Sub-Saharan Africa. From Crisis to Sustainable Growth (see World Bank 1989a), in which the World Bank evaluated the SAPs of the 1980s, is considered the birth of the good governance approach (Anders, 2009, 146; Stockmann et al., 2016, 398). In this study, poor governance and the alleged "failure" of public institutions are seen as the cause of Africa's weak economic situation (World Bank 1989a: xii). This poor governance includes allowing an unreliable legal system, inefficient public management, and a lack of the rule of law and transparency (ibid.: 60f.; Nuscheler 2009: 12). Therefore, good governance can be considered a specifically produced concept for the SSA region (Nanda, 2006, 271). The World Bank discovered that political institutions were crucial for development and introduced good governance, which rapidly spread and, since the early 1990s, can be regarded as a leitmotif in the development discourse (Beichelt et al., 2014, 69). Governance can be defined as “all the numerous ways in which individuals and public and private institutions manage their common affairs” (ibid.), or in the words of the World Bank as “building a pluralistic institutional structure' and creating intermediaries between the government and the people” (Ayer, 2006, 330).

One reason for good governance in the aid agenda might be the Western intention “to enable themselves to question aid-recipience countries policy structures and processes and get them according to the criteria and conditionalities of as set by the donors” (Doornbos, 2004, 382). As a result, the allocation of aid might be made on political grounds and justified under the rubric of good governance (ibid. 389; Nanda, 2006, 275). African policy makers themselves often consider governance as one more item on the list of aid conditionalities (Mkandawire, 2007). Aid conditionality is also a crucial instrument for democracy promotion of development aid (Bridoux & Kurki, 2014, 57). In the 1980s, the US foreign policy extended the ideological democracy promotion in broader pro-democratic principles (Bridoux & Kurki, 2014, 5). In terms of impact, research findings suggest that—under certain conditions— democracy aid and political conditionality have contributed to political reforms in Africa between 1990 and 2015 (Hackenesch, 2019, 12).

After all, the general change towards new conceptions like democracy, good governance, and human rights (and sustainable growth, globalisation, and ownership) began in the 1990s. Reasons for this

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8 change were the end of the Cold War, the manifest failure of structural adjustment programmes in the crisis of development theory in the 1980s, and a re-definition of development as being about more than holistic economic growth (Uvin, 2007, 597; Ziai, 2015, 90). For Sen (1999), developing and strengthening democracy is an essential component of development due to its intrinsic importance, instrumental contribution, and constructive role (ibid. 157; Beichelt, 2014, 71). For Abrahamsen (2000), the democracy in the development discourse emerges as a “necessary political framework for successful economic reforms” (ibid. 139). Within this discourse, democracy and economic liberalisation are “conceptually linked in the one concept of ‘good governance’” (ibid).

Even more interesting might be why states are actively fostering democratic governance and no other forms of government. Particular when even non-Western or autocratic states formulate strategies for promoting democracy in the international system (c.f. Youngs, 2019). From an institutionalist standpoint, fostering democratic structures in the global system cultivates peace, earliest suggested by Kant’s democratic peace (Scott, 1999, 146). Promoting democracy abroad is also a prime example of identity dynamics, as it constructs an image of the self as democratic and the other as undemocratic (Huber, 2015, 37). Youngs also draw this conclusion in terms of non-Western actors: “Non-Western states’ commitment to democracy support is driven by a combination of country-specific, identity-related values and strategic interests (ibid. 4)”.

In sum, this brief historical review has highlighted the reasons and mechanisms behind the aid and development agenda. It suggests that political objects in development discourses do not follow neutral conceptions, nor are they purely objective conceptions in academic indexing. Instead, there is always a political agenda behind each object, which is why, like development aid in general, it is also seen as “a potent political symbol and signal” (Lancaster, 2007, 11). In addition to the genealogy of theoretical concepts, geopolitical reasons for introducing political objects into the development discourse were also mentioned. Furthermore - and of particular interest concerning the research question - is the dimension of self-definition through development aid, i.e., constructing one's own identity through development discourse.

2.1.2. Theoretical and Ideological Influences

The ambition of identifying all conceptual influences might be extensive enough for research on its own. However, there are several secondary influences regarding the political objects illustrated above. Firstly, the rather technical approach to governing as management in good governance can be traced back to the Weberian understanding of (Western) bureaucratic modernity (Everatt, 2019, 32; Sundaram & Chowdhury, 2012, 11). Secondly, Sen’s freedom approach influenced the entering of human rights in the debate (Uvin, 2007, 601). Finally, the most significant conceptual influences on the political objects described by the academic discourse are the Modernisation Theory and its scientific debate over the nexus of democratisation and economic growth regarding democracy promotion and the impact of New

Institutional Economy on good governance in recent history.

The debate about preconditions for democratisation is inevitably linked to the one of modernisation theory. Modernisation theorist viewed political development as linear statehood development of countries of the Global South towards becoming like the Western representative, parliamentarian democracies (c.f. Huntington, 1965; Pye, 1965; Corning et al. 1988; Bates, 2018, 65; Rapley, 2007, 25; Stockmann et al., 2016, 100). This linear development template applies through economic growth, meaning that economic growth fosters as precondition the establishment of democratic institutions.

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9 In the post–World War II era, modernisation theory dominated5_{the political and academic discourse}

over intentional economic and political development in the so-called ‘Third World’. Abramo F.K. Organski declared a historical pattern with four static steps (‘primitive’, industrial, national, abundance). Every nation must follow these steps to become a politically ‘modern’ one (Kihl, 1967, 1113). Besides the political implications of his stage model in The Stages of Economic Growth (Rostow 1971a), Walt Whitman Rostow further elaborates a political dimension in Politics and the Stages of Growth (Rostow 1971b). Here, the precondition for take-off also encompasses formal constitutional changes (ibid. 77).

After the altering of political institution in the stage of preconditions, the take-off as a third stage can begin, where essentially the policy focus on growth serves the normal condition, and the process of industrialisation itself becomes the centre of politics (Rostow, 1971a, 8; 1971b, 176). Contrary, Barrington Moore Jr. argued that there is more than one path to modernity and that these paths do not always end in democracy (Cheibub & Vreeland, 2018, 6). For Moore, the earliest historical route to the modern world combined capitalism and parliamentary democracy after – in his words – a series of ‘bourgeois revolutions’6_{(Moore, 1966, 413). Central to the debate whether growth determines}

democracy is the work of sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset (Jourde, 2017, 309; Cheibub & Vreeland, 2018, 4). Lipset empirically examined a correlation between national wealth and democratic development (Lipset, 1959, 84-85) and formulated based on his finding’s conditions for democratisation7_{. Even though the nexus of economic and income growth and democratisation was}

scientifically proven not to exist (Przeworski et al. 2000, 273), the assumption continued to influence the debate. Furthermore, other preconditions have been formulated. In terms of providing clear criteria for assessing democracies, Robert Dahl’s polyarchy definition8_{and criteria have become paradigmatic}

in the debate (Huber, 2015, 24). Also, Rostow formulates additional conditions for democracy, including loyalty to democratic values (Rostow, 1971b, 271). Ruschemeyer identifies a contribution of capitalism to democracy, mainly because capitalism changed the balance of class power favouring subordinate interests (ibid. 1992, 302).

With the political influence of the neo-classical counter-revolution as the ideological profile of the 1980s came an essential shift of the modernisation theory belief (Leftwich, 1993, 608). The most critical turning point9_{was democracy being no longer a final stage after economic ‘take off’ towards democracy.}

But rather a necessary prior or parallel condition of development, like good governance (Leftwich, 1993, 605). Thus, with their institutional capacity-building appraisal in 1990, the World Bank Group began incorporating institutional capacity-building in their policies. Here, the WBG was highly influenced by the New Institutional Economics (NIE) thought and its thinkers like Oliver Williamson, Douglas North and Ronald Coase (Ayers, 2006, 325; Muno, 2012, 396; Nuscheler, 2009, 8; Faust, 2016, 327; Oloruntoba & Falolain, 2018, 6; Sundaram & Chowdhury, 2012, 1; Rothstein, 2012, 145). The resulting good governance agenda has been critically defined as the “neoliberal hegemony for the effective state” (Demmers et al., 2004, 13f.).

5_{Authors describe the assumptions of modernization theory as the starting point also of German development policy in the} 1960s (Harnisch & Schmidt, 2012, 35; Adam, 2012, 38).

6_{Moore names the Puritan and French Revolution as well as the American Civil War (ibid. 1966, 413)}

7_{The conditions encompass an open class system, economic wealth, equalitarian value system, capitalist economy, literacy,} high participation in voluntary organisations (ibid. 105).

8_{For Dahl, polyarchy cannot be used synonymously for democracy, which in his eyes must be distinguished as ideal system. A} polyarchy embodies the institutional arrangements that have come to be regarded as a kind of imperfect approximation of this ideal (Dahl, 1971, 9).

9_{For the examination of political objects, this would mean that a reversal of the modernisation theory has taken place, i.e., not} economic growth leads to a "good" political system, but good (governance) systems lead to economic growth.

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10 Towards the next section, the question should be raised what kind of democracy has been promoted. The general understanding of democracy as ‘government by the people’ in the aid context comes from Schumpeter’s definition (Tetzlaff, 1995, 5). Democracy can also be defined as a political form of government in a state carried out either directly by the people (direct democracy) or indirectly through elected representatives of the people (representative democracy) with the key features of accountability, transparency, and participation (Addink, 2019, 91-92). Fukuyama emphasises the need for a set of the necessary institution for functional liberal democracy: 1) state, 2) the rule of law, 3) accountable government (ibid. 2011, 16). Critics refer to the promotion of liberal democracy as the

Neoliberal Democracy. This neoliberal form embodies “an individualist, formally egalitarian, capitalist,

meliorist and universalist conception of self and society, (…) constituted by three domains – the neoliberal ‘minimal’ and ‘neutral’ state, the neoliberal public sphere (‘civil society’), and the neoliberal individual (‘self’)” (Ayer & Saad-Filho, 2014, 598).

Hence, it is crucial to keep the ideological dimension of the promoted concept in mind and actively scrutinise the justifications of their implementation for examining political objects. The section confirms the previous assumption that the identified political objects follow very strongly ideologically predetermined conceptions. The example of democracy promotion shows that the conception of democracy is a Western and Western (neoliberal) capitalist one.

2.1.3. Modes of Implementation

Burmeier (2012) characterises democracy promotion as “value-export” with requirements of the rule of law, checks and balances, and a functional party system (ibid. 4). Exporting values incorporates its own understanding of democracy. The Western accounts of democracy - according to Ayers – are rooted in ancient Athenian concepts of democracy and culminate in European feudalism as well as liberal capitalism and pluralism (ibid. 2006, 334). Even though discussions have been made whether democracy is exportable (Salmon, 2019), political objects like democracy are no good that can simply be exported from one country to another, simply due to the complexity of its nature (Poppe, Leiniger, Wolff, 2019a, 759). Democracy assistance is generally provided by governments, by multilateral agencies, by (international) non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and political parties or party-afﬁliated foundations. (Cranenburgh, 2011, 443). One ‘aid technology for fixing the dysfunctional’ state-society relationship in Africa is, for example, the training of civil servants (Anders, 2009, 5). After the unsuccessful attempts to engineer democratic civil societies worldwide at the turn of the 21st century, democracy promoters turned their attention towards political parties, despite criticism regarding the implementation of party systems in post-colonial societies (Lazarus, 2012, 1925).

The most important aspects this theoretical discussion reveals are the complexity of the multidimensional phenomenon of political objects in development aid and the difficulty of approaching it. As the research interest lies in the political objects and their origin within the donor country, it is not expedient to engage with one of the described concepts. It would lead to a very one-dimensional and inchoated examination of the ideological pre-determined concepts. However, the political objects mentioned (democracy, good governance) remain largely unexplained. In the case of democracy, one might even struggle already in determining the political object of development aid by running into danger of dealing with the wrong subject matter (e.g., international promotion by multinational organisations). To 1) examine the political objective purposefully and in clear conceptual delineation, 2) including the assumption upon which states tend to incorporate their own political and societal development in their development agenda, and 3) approaching political objects through the development policy discourse of the specific donor country, a conceptual scheme is needed that is capable of considering all these requirements.

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2.2. Polity Export as Conceptual Scheme

The central hypothesis of this study is that donor states tend to influence their conceptions of development aid through their ideas of political frameworks and institutional tradition, in short: through their polity. To systematically engage with political objects and the accompanying complexities, which have been illustrated in this theoretical frame, polity export is introduced in this study as the conceptual scheme of this research. For this research, polity export must be understood as practices and processes of transplantation and implementation of institutions and political culture of aid donor states in aid recipient states. This conception encompasses the definition of political objects10_{of development aid}

and extends it by three key features:

Firstly, polity export serves as a point of entry for examining the field of convoluted, biased, and pre-determined theoretical concepts for political objects in development aid. As the theoretical examination has shown, there is no definitional frame encompassing all concepts, and the concepts existing are not only lacking uniform definitions but further is not neutral. In applying conceptual schemes of democracy promotion, assistance, human rights, or good governance in this study, the analysis would be limited to a very narrow perspective, already within a pre-defined mindset. For a systematically investigation of the given hypothesis, a more objective conceptual scheme is needed. Hence, polity export serves as a clear-conceptualised and neutral analytic frame for investigating the conception of political objectives in development discourses. This research assumes that the political objects can be identified through the discourse, as it labels those discourse units, thus creating them. This is the 'reverse' methodological approach (analysis of the structure and roots of political discourse) of polity export.

Secondly, polity export serves as an approach to focus on the creation and implantation process (within the discourse) of the donor aid agenda. In comparison to other empirical studies regarding e.g., external democracy promotion (c.f model by Tolstrup, 2013, 721), polity export is less interested in the external factors influencing the democratisation of recipient country Y. Instead, it seeks to analyse the influential factors of why and how donor country X is conceptualising and implementing the external promotion of political objects. This orientation serves the aidnographic focus of this research on the one hand. On the other hand, the rigour dichotomy of immanent (internal/unplanned) development and intentional (controlled/planned) Development11_{is scrutinised. By utilizing polity export, it is now possible to argue}

against this very clear distinction and look at the concepts and proposition made by and the internal influences and agendas of the ‘exporting side’, e.g., democracy promotion (Salmon, 2019, 734). For one thing, historical and collective experiences and societal and political idiosyncrasy and tradition are included in polity export. For another, a discourse focused analysis with the conceptual scheme of polity export allows the researcher to make claims about the self-definition or affirmation of the donor country constructed through the political objects. As stated earlier, the promotion of democracy constructs an image of the self as democratic and the other as undemocratic (Huber, 2015, 37). Polity export allows the researcher to examine the influencing identity characteristics in reverse. Besides the revealed relations between abstract concepts and their academic roots, the analysis will show certain continuities in how German actors define their nation or society through their foreign policy, including their polity export practices in development discourses. Therefore, polity export allows this research to identify the specific – in this case German - interpretation of the abstract concepts within democracy or a good government. Since the mere use of the same terminology does not imply the same understanding of

10_{Political objects as units of an aid agenda that relate to the institutional shaping and transformation of public coexistence or} the authoritarian allocation of material and immaterial values in society abroad (see page 4).

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12 such broad terms, the donor country's self-definition through its development policy is an additionally exciting aspect of this model. This could be summarised as follows: We stand for this object, so we promote this, and vice versa and even more interesting: We promote this object because we want to be associated with it. This assumption goes in line with the civil power (Zivilmacht) theory by Kirste & Maull (1996), which characterises states whose foreign policy role, concept, and behaviour is bound to values and principles as well as instrumentalising its influence on ‘civilising’ international relations (ibid. 300). The German Africa policy and its development aid have been characterised as civil power policy (Engel, 2000, 272; Harnisch & Schmidt, 2012, 146). In this context, the reasons given for the civilian power efforts within German foreign policy are the concept of German Sonderweg (separated path) and the Wiedergutmachung (reparation) of the National Socialist past (Brunner & Meyer, 2020, 103; Everett, 2015, 2; c.f. Hellmann, 2002). This study can provide further empirical evidence for these assumptions with the help of polity export.

Thirdly, polity export serves as a Weberian ideal type of the central hypothesis of this research. In the sense of the resulting abstracted conceptual model, the ideal kind of polity export would be a donor country X exporting its entire political structure of institutions without adjustments to a recipient country Y. The resulting conceptual scheme comprises all these dimensions of polity export. It further separates political objects into direct political objects, which are also defined as such in the discourse, and implicit political objects, which indirectly affect the change in the political structures of the recipient country12_.

12_{See page 20.}

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13 This conceptual scheme will now be applied to Germany's development discourse as a case for this study in order to answer the following research questions:

RQ: How is the German discourse on polity export to Sub-Saharan Africa shaped by own political development and tradition?

SRQ1: How is the German identity produced, and how is the SSA region constructed?

SRQ2: What political objects and concepts are detectable in the discourse?

SRQ3: What discourse strategies and continuities underlie this polity export?

Following a description of the German development policy landscape in the research context, these research questions will be examined using the following methodological approach.

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3. Research Context

Germany13_{is an interesting case for this research. While being one of the biggest ODA donors in}

international comparison, Germany itself is frequently characterised by the literature as one of the few14

successful examples of external democracy promotion considering its political transformation after 1945 (Axtmann, 2007, 121; Brown, 2013, 2; Hobson, 2015, 457; Huber, 2015, 12). Some would even go so far as to announce Germany as the ‘potent symbol’ of success of Western-style democracy’ and international efforts of international promotion due to its own democratisation (Rüland & Werz 2002, 73). However, bearing in mind the reason for this democracy promotion with the massive financial and systematic effort by the United States were also of its security policy after World War II (Huber, 2015, 12).

The overall German objective of development cooperation has been relatively continuous over time: economic and social development through capacity building, or literally ‘self-help assistance’ (Hilfe zur

Selbsthilfe) (Nielinger, 1998, 171). Gieler (2008) defines five historical periods of German development

cooperation: 1) build-up phase 1961-1968, 2) phase of innovations 1968-1974, 3) phase of pragmatism 1974-1982, 4) phase of substantive innovation of liberal economic policy and conservative understanding of politics 1982-1991 and 5) phase of all-German responsibility from 1991-1998, replaced by the re-evaluation by Wieczorek-Zeul as global peace and structural policy from 1998 (ibid. 11). Significantly, BMZ Minister Warnke's (1982-1987) tenure led German development policy towards a re-politicisation of development aid, strongly influenced by the US Reagan administration (Harnisch & Schmidt, 2012, 117). Engel (2000), in turn, distinguishes between four identity and paradigm shifts in German Africa policy, 1) overall German policy in 1972, 2) peace policy in 1973-1982/83, 3) development policy in 1982/83-1990 and 4) the civil-legal and interventionist paradigm from 1989 onwards (ibid. 282-283). German democracy promotion policy was fragmented and indirect, without financial commitment and often reluctantly enforced without clear direction (Rüland & Werz, 2002, 87). In West German foreign policy, economic motives pushed democratic principles into the background (Rüland & Werz, 2002, 76), like the instrumentalisation of development policy. This instrumentalization was defined as a multidimensional subsystem (Nuscheler, 1996, 286, 362). Since the introduction of the 1991 development policy conditions and the 1993 Accra Guidelines, the enforcement of human rights has been defined as central to Africa policy, and Germany has also been characterised as a "democratiser" in Africa (Engel, 2000, 274; Nielinger, 1998, 172; Tetzlaff & Jakobeit, 2005, 221). Nuscheler (1996) described a phased strategy of the BMZ as an "export attempt of the Western model of democracy in the organisational form of German federalism" (ibid. 354). In this context, Adam (2012) identifies the conception of a German model as a developmental ideal. This conception was inspired by the idea that the success of rapid economic recovery as in Germany [in the 1950s, KD] could also be achieved in developing countries through technical and financial assistance (ibid. 38-39).

Even if this assertion is in line with the hypothesis, a systematic analysis first requires a description of the German actors that could take a relevant position for polity export. A conducted stakeholder analysis for this purpose has indicated the following actors as particularly relevant for the study of polity export discourse (c.f. Nielinger, 1998, 173; Catón & Steltemeier, 2008, 387). Germany’s aid industry is a prime example of institutional fragmentation (Nuscheler, 2009, 50). The orientation of the development

13_{Herein, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) is implied. The development policy of the German Democratic} Republic (GDR) is not part of this study.

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15 policies is mainly set by the German Federal Government15_{, the parliament, Bundestag, and the}

parliamentary Committee for Economic Cooperation and Development (AwZ) (Stockmann et al., 2016, 520). In the first place, the BMZ is the organisational frame of the German development industry. It might not carry out any measures but coordinates many implementation agencies and distributes financial resources (Kebschull et al., 1976, 111; Kevenhörster & Boom, 2009, 56f.).

Although the BMZ is the responsible ministry and holds the highest contribution to the overall ODA, it has no authority over certain important areas of responsibility regarding development aid. The control over trade- and resource-politics lies with the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), the international finances, depth and IMF affairs with the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF), humanitarian aid with the Federal Foreign Office (AA), and issues of sustainability and even the Agenda 2030 are subjects to the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) (Nuscheler, 1996, 359; Stockmann, et al., 2016, 522). The AA is further responsible for electoral assistance and observation abroad (Nielinger, 1998, 175). The German Corporation for International Cooperation, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Interationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), is the key actor in terms of technical and personnel cooperation. The GIZ is a company that provides aid services in the form of consulting, international competence development, sustainable infrastructure, security, peace and reconstruction, social development, state and democracy, environment, and climate, as well as economy and employment (Stockmann et al., 2016, 530). Party-affiliated foundations, so-called

Stiftungen, play an essential role in the German aid democracy promotion. Especially involved regarding

political objects are: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS), Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung (HSS),

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), Friedrich-Naumann-Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FNF), Heinrich-Böll-Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (hbs), Rosa-Luxenburg-Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

(RLS)16_{(Bohnet, 2019, 32). The network and range of influence of the German party-affiliated}

foundations are unique. The main goal of the Stiftungen in countries of the Global South is to promote civic education towards democracy and pluralism by building and institutionalising democratic structures (Stockmann et al., 2016, 557). The KAS, for example, also emphasise the transfer of social market economy values (Thesing, 1997, 183). All foundations have foreign bureaux and – despite being entirely founded by publicly - high autonomy of planning (Kevenhörster & Boom, 2009, 61). The importance of the German Stiftungen is even more exemplified by the term of the “German Model”, showing the uniqueness of the strong involvement of party foundation in German democracy assistance that that was denoted as a model for the US’ and other EU countries’ democracy assistance (Hearn, 2010, 5; Lloyd, 2010, 549).

15_{The German contribution to the EU-development policies is not considered in this analysis.}

16_{The foundation affiliated to the right-wing extremist party Alternative für Deutschland is the Desiderius-Erasmus-Stiftung.} The foundation has no activities abroad listed at their website but intends to represent ‘Germen interest’ and to establish an ‘international order of peace and justice’, https://erasmus-stiftung.de/taetigkeitsbereiche/auslandsaktivitaeten/ - accessed on the 18-06-2020.

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4. Methodological Procedure

This chapter illustrates and justifies the methodological approach to verify the conceptional scheme polity export within the development discourse of German actors within it. Hereby, the research conceptualisation intends to understand and extract the order of the discourse on German polity export and move beyond the static discourse document analysis.

4.1. Critical Realism

This thesis's ontological and epistemological stance follows the understanding of knowledge production of Critical Realism (CR). CR emerged as criticism of the Western positivist philosophy of science. In the late 1970s, Roy Bhaskar accused the positivist and structural-functionalist thinkers of assuming “(…) that science is monistic in its development and deductive in its structure” (Bhaskar & Lawson, 1998, 3). As an ontological and epistemological stance, CR differentiates between three strata of social reality, the experience, the event, and objects' structures and power. The latter can be considered ‘the real’ (Reed, 2011, 59). This implies a reality that is independent of the researcher’s perception and an ontology, in which entities are constituted entirely by epistemological discourse. Knowledge, in this sense, is relative to contextual time and culture and can never be pure and unmediated (Mingers, 2006, 19; Fleetwood, 2014, 182). The main impetus of a CR researcher is the explanation of how mechanisms produce events and how events occur in different cases, or in other words, to “contextualise causal understanding” (Robson & McCartan, 2016, 65; Feilzer, 2010, 7). In Social Science, particularly, Critical Realism identifies the primary task of scientific research in the critical uncovering of the thought and actions that lie behind the ‘false’ explanations of reality (Pawson, 2006, 19; Pawson & Tilley, 1997, 65).

4.2. Discourse Archaeology

With this ambition in mind, the methodological challenge of this research is to uncover the relationship between arguments and interests as central objectives of the traditional political science approach to discourse (Keller, 2006, 225). Accordingly, to critically scrutinise the general narrative of the aid discourse on German polity export to SSA. The additional attempt to understand and explain the causal mechanism behind events - in this case, how domestic development influences planned development abroad – emerges through the preliminary examination and critically depicting.

Hence the methodological approach consists of two elements unified in a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in a Foucauldian tradition. The first element of the CDA encompasses an exploratory document analysis. In contrast, the second includes semi-structured expert interviews conducted to engage in the discourse of German polity export actively. This additional step allows the researcher to investigate the continuation of the discourse rules analysed in policy papers and engage in the discourse actively and indirectly become a part of it. Before explaining the procedure of discourse analysis used in this research, a short excursion on discourse and its scientific evaluation is needed. In a very general sense, ‘discourse’ can be characterised as a field of what can be said, meaning everything sayable in a particular society at a specific time. Including not only the empirical findings but also possibilities and strategies with which the field of what can be said is expanded or also narrowed (Blatter, Langer, Wagemann, 2018, 124).

One core aspect of discourse (and CDA) is the comprehension that we cannot extract the truth from reality, only construe it based on our knowledge. Thus, discourse is less language-focused than knowledge-focused (c.f. Jäger, 2015, 11). This very aspect is crucial for CDA and CR as an epistemological stance. CDA is not interested in finding ‘an objective truth’ but rather in practising criticism of such truth