How (Not) to Sell Big Ideas

Abstract

Janis van der Westhuizen is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. He is the author of the recently published Malaysia, South Africa and the Challenges of Ethnic Redistribution with Growth (Praeger, 2003).Earlier incarnations of this paper were presented at the Studies of Development in the Era of Globalization Research Workshop, 9-10 August 2002, Halifax, Canada and the 2002 Research Colloquium of the South African Association of Political Studies, Hammanskraal, Pretoria, South Africa. I am indebted to Philip Nel for very useful comments on an earlier draft.IN A CONTROVERSIAL EDITORIAL three years ago, The Economist lamented that the bottom places in the world league tables are filled by African countries, and the gap between them and the rest of the world is widening.(1) Describing Africa as a hopeless continent, the article cited that 45 per cent of Africans live in poverty, that large parts of the continent are afflicted by ethnic and resource-driven conflicts, that corruption is often endemic with the rule of law thwarted, and that people are deeply vulnerable to malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Finally, it argued that, while official aid dwindled from $32 per African in 1990 to $19 in 1998, developed countries' farm subsidies amounted to over USD$360 billion a year--some $30 billion more than Africa's entire GDP.(2)The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is an ambitious, long-term project aimed at overcoming these tremendous obstacles by eradicating the continent's poverty and continued marginalization from the global economy. For Africa, however, the post-9/11 world makes the task of selling the continent's significance to the global economy more complex. Selling or framing NEPAD is as important now as the outcome the project seeks to achieve.(3) Failure to convince both African states and the West of NEPAD's significance could cause a idea to fail.It is, therefore, in the realm of ideational power that NEPAD faces its first and most crucial test. Nearly all analyses of NEPAD have failed to addres how (and with what level of success) the partnership's proponents have sought to mobilize ideational power and convince skeptics of its goals. Significantly, it is not so much the content of the NEPAD plan, but, rather, the way in which the value of the has been argued that remains largely unexamined.Change in world politics is increasingly being tied to successful argumentation processes and the significance of persuasion. Accordingly, this article is a preliminary assessment of the way NEPAD's proponents have sought to make the case for the partnership. Although the process of arguing the merits of NEPAD is ongoing, conditions favouring and constraining popularization of the idea can be identified through the broader view of the challenges posed by translating big ideas into new expectations of behaviour. Specifically, this article draws on constructivist accounts about the interaction between identity, role expectations and social norms to highlight how these issues have helped in the process of selling NEPAD. Unlike neo-realism and neo-liberalism, both of which emphasize material power, constructivists underscore the potential for dynamism and change in the international system by focusing on ideational power. They contend that the nature of actors and the international system is not pre-ordained, but rather determined by social context. It is the social context in turn that is shaped by the actors (their identities, interests and behaviours).(4)After a brief theoretical introduction to the argument, as the basis of ideational power, this article will focus on NEPAD advocates' successes. Specifically, the relevance of good governance and partnership is examined before addressing how the program's interlocutors--Canada, as a traditional middle power, and South Africa, as an emerging middle power--assisted in getting NEPAD on the agenda of global governance. …