This thesis explores tensions emerging from the growing engagement of so-called South-South providers in the field of international development cooperation, discussing some of their effects on the behavior of recipient governments, North-South donors and governance structures within the referred social space. The primary concepts mobilized are those of field and audit culture, as used by Pierre Bourdieu and Marilyn Strathern respectively. Through these, we describe the trajectory of international development cooperation during the second half of the twentieth century, emphasizing the role of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in creating and maintaining the field’s organizing principles and dominant practices. We emphasize the symbolic realm in narrating the historic opposition between North-South and South-South cooperation, suggesting an inextricable connection between the emergence of the later and the critique of the aid effectiveness agenda. We explore the local effects of tensions between South-South and North-South cooperation through a case study on Mozambique, applying the notions of symbolic dependence and the BRICS effect in order to understand trends and impacts on the behavior of the Government of Mozambique, North-South donors and their conditionalities, and the process of democratic consolidation in the country. Finally, we draw some reflections on the state of flux of the development cooperation field, suggesting that its re-politicization does not necessarily imply democratization for recipient countries.