This paper presents and compares the main strategies of EU-Africa relations during the resource crises of the 1960s/70s and the 2000s. Bringing together largely separate discussions from political science and global history, we argue that the parallels between the two crises are not only the result of similar political constellations, but part of long-term political strategies and debates. While the 1970s were still characterized by the leitmotif of a just international division of labor, the 2000s saw growing regime complexity that was increasingly legitimized and obscured by the leitmotif of transparency. Among other things, this led to various certification schemes (such as the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative or the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative), anti-corruption initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (eiti) and other csr-related measures such as the European Conflict Minerals Regulation.[1]
[1] Many thanks for the invaluable input of Charles S. Maier, Michael Homberg, Jos van den Akker, Ianna Hawkins Owen, Felipe Alfonso, Timothy Barker, Hans-Otto Frøland, Mats Ingulstad and Ducan Money.
