France’s debt-for-development contracts: from blame avoidance to credit claiming?

Cumming, Gordon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2912-8908 2025. France’s debt-for-development contracts: from blame avoidance to credit claiming? French Politics Item availability restricted.

	PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Restricted to Repository staff only Download (462kB)
	PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version Download (17kB)

Abstract

The new millennium witnessed unprecedented levels of African debt cancellation by Northern states, as they coalesced around debt write-offs to Heavily Indebted Poor Countries. Yet, rather than cancelling this debt, France chose to convert it via debt-for-development contracts (the so-called C2D). Heavily criticised at the time, France responded by deploying blame avoidance strategies. But how do such strategies operate in risk-filled international development contexts? What made France’s approach so controversial and what strategies did it prioritise? And how far did blame avoidance give way to credit claiming over time? To answer these questions and provide a better understanding of donor behaviour, we draw upon textual analysis, a parsimonious conceptual framework, and interviews with key officials and non-state actors. We explore the introduction of the C2D and its subsequent implementation in Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire. We identify shifts in the balance between blame avoidance and credit claiming, explain these in terms of blame ‘risk’ and ‘reversion’, and ask what they mean for wider donor-recipient relations.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Modern Languages
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
ISSN:	1476-3419
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 May 2025
Date of Acceptance:	9 May 2025
Last Modified:	12 Jun 2025 09:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178363

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item