Ideas, Interests and Foreign Aid

Abstract

Why do countries give foreign aid? Although many countries have official development assistance programs, this book argues that no two of them see the purpose of these programmes in the same way. Moreover, the way countries frame that purpose has shaped aid policy choices past and present. The author examines how Belgium long gave aid out of a sense of obligation to its former colonies, The Netherlands was more interested in pursuing international influence, Italy has focused on the reputational payoffs of aid flows and Norwegian aid has had strong humanitarian motivations since the beginning. But at no time has a single frame shaped any one country's aid policy exclusively. Instead, analysing half a century of legislative debates on aid in these four countries, this book presents a unique picture both of cross-national and over time patterns in the salience of different aid frames and of varying aid programmes that resulted.

The Europeanisation of development policy

“…Exceptions mostly concern articles focusing on countries in central and eastern Europe in the context of their accession process (Lightfoot, 2010;Horký, 2012;Lightfoot & Szent-Ivanyi, 2014;Timofejevs Henriksson, 2015), or book chapters that provide explorative overviews without engaging in in-depth theoretical or empirical analysis (Bretherton, 2013;Orbie & Lightfoot, 2015). Moreover, while the development policies of European donors have been studied extensively (Hoebink & Stokke, 2005;Lancaster, 2007;Van der Veen, 2011;Lundsgaarde, 2012), the potential relevance of EU membership and Europeanisation tendencies have been ignored. There is also the growing strand of literature on the Europeanisation of foreign policy (Tonra, 2001;Major, 2005;Moumoutzis, 2011;Wong & Hill, 2011;De Flers & Müller, 2012), but no consistent conclusions have been reached: 'each study claiming that a member state's foreign policy has been Europeanised is challenged by another claiming that it has not' (Wong, 2011, p. 163).…”

BRICS, the southern model, and the evolving landscape of development assistance: Toward a new taxonomy

“…This category aims to capture the motives of development assistance. A lot has been written on what motivates development assistance (Alesina & Dollar, ; Hook, ; Lancaster, ; McGillivray, ; Morgenthau, ; Riddell, ; Van der Veen, ).…”

A new institutionalist analysis on emerging donorship: Explaining the rise of the knowledge dimension in the South Korean aid regime

“…Here, 'aid model' refers to the institutionalized orientation of aid policies and institutions that are specific to an individual donor (Kondoh 2012: 82). Extensive case studies on western donor governments and societies conclude that such aid models are crystalized by particular prioritization and are relevant to the extent and the mix of aid purposes (Lancaster 2008;Schraeder et al 1998;Van der Veen 2011).…”