2. Research Design

This chapter lays out the research design guiding the present study of India’s Africa policy in three steps. First, the metatheoretical approach and the methodology are outlined. Subsequently, the chapter delineates the theoretical approach, which explicitly avoids a mono-factor- or mono-causal approach to foreign policy analysis. Instead, the case is put forward for a poly-factorial analysis, which allows for insights beyond the possibilities of narrow frameworks as the interplay between several ‘explanatory’ factors can also be scrutinised. Finally, the chapter presents the matrix of analysis that guides the study of India’s Africa policy. The matrix breaks down the subject into three foreign policy fields, incorporates the explanatory factors derived from the (meta-)theoretical considerations and provides a framework for analysing each foreign policy field with regard to important foreign policy dimensions: actors, instruments, geographies, institutional settings, results, normative repercussions and feedback.