The Domestic Political Logic of International Development Cooperation: The Politicization of the BRI in Southeast Asia

This paper investigates the domestic political underpinnings of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), arguing that domestic dynamics are crucial to the implementation and outcomes of international development cooperation, particularly the BRI’s politicization. The study explores the increasing risks associated with the BRI in ASEAN, identifying openness of the public policy process, domestic political divisions, and external power dynamics as key drivers of politicization. Previous studies tend to focus solely on the results of country-to-country projects, while partially ignoring the domestic dynamics of the countries targeted by the projects. Indeed, donors are usually more sensitive to aid projects than recipients, leading them to ignore the projects’ environments when negotiating policy priorities. A theoretical framework is developed to define politicization, distinguishing between issue continuation, instrumental politicization, and ideological politicization. A mechanism involving contact, differentiation, mobilization, and solidification is proposed to explain how international development cooperation integrates into domestic political contexts. The “impossible trinity of development cooperation” is introduced as a framework for understanding the challenges of international development cooperation in the Global South.