Abstract
ABSTRACT Capacity building (CB) assistance for digital development has climbed the foreign policy agendas of powerful states, yet its strategic significance remains opaque. Particularly, while CB is believed to reduce a recipient’s vulnerabilities to weaponized interdependence, three major financiers of such assistance—the United States, China, and the European Union—have been accused of exploiting global interdependence for strategic gains. How do powerful donors perceive CB assistance provisions as shaping their strategic advantage? Which factors have shaped variation in their provision of CB assistance to developing states? This paper argues that donors have perceived CB assistance as a way to outcompete geopolitical rivals and to (re)shape global digital networks through forming strategic alignments. This logic is supported with evidence from American, EU, and Chinese CB for digital development in Africa. By foregrounding CB's strategic dimension, this study contributes to emerging scholarship on (digital) networked, geopolitical competition in the current digital era.
Published Version
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