How (Not) to Sell Big Ideas
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800307 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Author | Janis Van Der Westhuizen |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JANIS
VAN
DER
WESTHUIZEN
How
(not)
to
sell
big
ideas
Argument, identity
and
NEPAD
IN
A
CONTROVERSIAL EDITORIAL
three
years
ago,
The
Economist
lamented
that
"all
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."' 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 con-
flicts,
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
subsi-
dies
amounted
to
over
USD$360
billion
a
year"-some
$30
billion more
than
Africas
entire
GDP."'
The
New
Partnership
for
Africa's
Development
(NEPAD)
is
an
ambi-
tious,
long-term
project
aimed
at
overcoming
these
tremendous
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.
i"Hopeless
Africa"
The
Economist,
13
May
2000.
2
The
Economist,
24
February
2001.
(Emphasis
added).
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Summer
2003
Janis
van
der Westhuizen
obstacles by
eradicating
the
continent's
poverty
and
continued
mar-
ginalization
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.'
Failure
to
convince
both
African
states
and
the
West
of
NEPAD's
significance
could
cause
a
big 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
address
how
(and
with
what
level
of
success)
the partnership's
pro-
ponents
have
sought
to mobilize
ideational
power
and
convince
skep-
tics
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
partnership
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,
con-
ditions
favouring
and
constraining popularization
of
the
idea
can be
identified
through
the
broader
view
of
the
challenges
posed
by
trans-
lating
"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
3
A
critical
element
of
persuasion,
a
frame
is
"a
persuasive
device"
used
to
"fix
meanings, organize
experience,
alert
others
that
their
interests
and
possibly their
identities
are
at
stake,
and
propose
solutions
to
ongoing
problems
...
[and]
provide
a
singular
interpretation
of a
particular situation
and
then indicate
appropriate
behaviour
for
that
context.
A
carefully
crafted
interpretative
frame
therefore consti-
tutes
a
social
"power resource
with
relative autonomy
from
material
resources."
Frames
are
basic
building
blocks
for the construction
of
broadly
resonant
norms
and
thereby
serve
to
legitimate
normative orders."
R.A.
Payne,
"Persuasion,
frames
and norm
construction,"
European
Journal
of
International
Relations
(2001),
39.
370
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Summer
2003
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