Does Official Development Assistance Promote Foreign Policy Cooperation from its Recipients? The Case of South Korea

Abstract

This paper examines whether South Korea's official development assistance (ODA) has promoted foreign policy cooperation from its recipients. To this end, vote congruence between South Korea and its ODA recipients over important issues in the UN General Assembly is analyzed. The results show that, as the size of South Korea's ODA increases, its recipients are likely to vote alongside South Korea on issues important to South Korea, such as nuclear issues, human rights, and resolutions on human rights abuses in North Korea, in the UN General Assembly.

How is aid used to exert power? Gender equality promotion and migration control in Senegal

“…Its use can be of a transactional nature, to obtain a political or economic advantage in a different field, as identified by Tarte (2008), who analyses the environmental conditions involved in Japanese aid to developing countries with fishing interests for the donor country. According to Jung et al (2018), this type of aid 4 Other paradigms or agendas strongly linked to international assistance are those of gender equality (Engberg-Pedersen, 2020;Fejerskov, 2017), social policy (Kwon et al, 2015) or global health (Dauvergne & Farias, 2012). 5 It is worth noting that the influential capacity of the EU in the aid domain has also been studied at the European level: how MS shape their aid according to the European doctrine (Carbone & Orbie, 2019;Olivié & Pérez, 2020).…”

“…Its use can be of a transactional nature, to obtain a political or economic advantage in a different field, as identified by Tarte ( 2008 ), who analyses the environmental conditions involved in Japanese aid to developing countries with fishing interests for the donor country. According to Jung et al ( 2018 ), this type of aid conditionality would be similar to that imposed by South Korea when it uses ODA as a mechanism for aligning votes in multilateral organisations. Here too, several works mention EU aid initiatives (including aid forgiveness) subordinated to migration control (Jegen, 2020 ; Vives, 2017 ) (Figure 1 ).…”

“…Academic literature on development cooperation tends to assume that international aid involves a power relation, where the donor country has the ability to exert some type of influence on the partner or recipient. 1 However, not many studies have addressed the precise mechanisms of this aid‐power nexus, resulting in a short list of factors applicable to bilateral aid spaces: aid conditionality, tied aid, consultants, people‐to‐people exchanges and the support of like‐minded donors (Anderson, 2018 ; Banerjee & Rondinelli, 2003 ; Dauvergne & Farias, 2012 ; De Bruyn, 2016 ; Deych, 2015 ; Fejerskov, 2017 ; Gu et al, 2016 ; Harmer et al, 2013 ; Jung et al, 2018 ; Kwon et al, 2015 ; Montinola, 2010 ; Tarte, 2008 ).…”

South Korea’s High-Level Bilateral Meetings with African Countries Concerning Nuclear North Korea

“…But the continent has accounted for less than 4% of South Korean trade and investment (Hwang 2014, 256-258;Yoon and Moon 2014). Jung, Cho, and Hwang (2018) on "vote congruence between South Korea and its ODA recipients" in the UN General Assembly find that the bigger the size of South Korean ODA is, the more likely its ODA recipients vote alongside South Korea on North Korea's nuclear and human rights issues. However, the aforementioned reports of the Panel of Experts suggest that ODA has gained little traction in dampening North Korea-Africa ties and eliciting Africa's compliance with the UN sanctions regime.…”

International Development Cooperation of Japan and South Korea

“…Despite its impressive social transformation and increasing role in international development, there have also been various criticisms directed at Korean ODA. While some commentators argue that Korean ODA does not have a clear policy rationale in terms of goals, strategies, and instruments (Jung et al, 2018), others criticize that it has been too influenced by economic considerations (Hulme, 2016;Kim and Oh, 2012). Although the Korean government is preparing its third Mid-Term Strategic Plan for International Development Cooperation, it is expected to focus on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and enhancing the aid effectiveness of Korean ODA as well as putting forward national interest.…”