Inkluderande ägarskap i varierande demokratiska kontexter: En jämförande fallstudie av svenskt utvecklingssamarbete med Rwanda och Tanzania

Abstract

This thesis investigates how recipient countries' domestic type of democracy affects its inclusive ownership in international development cooperation. This is done by examining Swedish development cooperation with Rwanda and Tanzania during the period from 2010 to 2014, a time when ownership - a concept which emphasizes recipient countries' leadership over its own development - was a central part of the international development agenda. The two cases were selected through a most similar case design where the value of potential explanatory variables was similar, except for the recipient countries' types of democracy. Furthermore, the case study uses a comparative analysis to analyze strategies and reports done by SIDA and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previous research focuses on the exclusion that national ownership can result in, in undemocratic national contexts. The main argument for this should be seen as the fact that ownership can not be representative if the power of the recipient's development agenda is limited to a decision-making elite. Therefore, this study becomes relevant in order to create a deeper understanding of inclusive ownership by testing the hypothesis that the recipient's type of democracy affects its inclusive ownership in international development cooperation. The study finds that Rwanda’s and Tanzania’s inclusive ownership - in Swedish development cooperation - differs because of the countries' negative and positive types of democracies. These results can therefore be seen as a confirmation of how undemocratic structures in recipient countries' has a negative impact on its inclusive ownership, even though the countries’ national ownership previously was considered high.