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Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics
A twentieth-century innovation, foreign aid has become a familiar and even expected element in international relations. But scholars and government officials continue to debate why countries provide it: some claim that it is primarily a tool of diplomacy, some argue that it is largely intended to support development in poor countries, and still others point out its myriad newer uses. Carol Lancaster effectively puts this dispute to rest here by providing the most comprehensive answer yet to the question of why governments give foreign aid. She argues that because of domestic politics in aid-giving countries, it has always been—and will continue to be—used to achieve a mixture of different goals.
Drawing on her expertise in both comparative politics and international relations and on her experience as a former public official, Lancaster provides five in-depth case studies—the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and Denmark—that demonstrate how domestic politics and international pressures combine to shape how and why donor governments give aid. In doing so, she explores the impact on foreign aid of political institutions, interest groups, and the ways governments organize their giving. Her findings provide essential insight for scholars of international relations and comparative politics, as well as anyone involved with foreign aid or foreign policy.
Drawing on her expertise in both comparative politics and international relations and on her experience as a former public official, Lancaster provides five in-depth case studies—the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and Denmark—that demonstrate how domestic politics and international pressures combine to shape how and why donor governments give aid. In doing so, she explores the impact on foreign aid of political institutions, interest groups, and the ways governments organize their giving. Her findings provide essential insight for scholars of international relations and comparative politics, as well as anyone involved with foreign aid or foreign policy.
- GenresPolitics
284 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 4, 2025
*includes personal reflections on aid in general*
My post-bar exam brain surprisingly led me to Carol Lancaster's "Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics" as my first read. Written over 18 years ago now, the book is surprisingly relevant and useful for trying to make sense of witnessing your former career being decimated in real-time. I had skimmed parts of it when I was a far less diligent student 16 years ago in graduate school. The book does an excellent job of tracing the origins of aid and examining the various objectives that foreign aid seeks to serve. The case studies from 5 countries gives a lot of food for thought about what the future of aid will be.
A few key takeaways:
- While neutrality is central to the *practice* of humanitarian aid, it would be disingenuous and naive for anyone to claim that the *disbursement* of aid is neutral. Foreign aid was conceived as a foreign policy tool and remains to be one (Morgenthau wrote, that foreign aid is among the "real innovations which the modern age has introduced into the practice of foreign policy"). How and to what extent this tool is deployed depends very much on how the donor country sees its role in the world.
- Aid has seen much ebb and flow since it became an important foreign policy tool post-WWII. Interestingly, in more recent years in the US, it was President Clinton who massively slashed aid funding and President Bush who dramatically increased it (with the lobbying of evangelicals, among other interest groups).
- USAID is dead. No amount of handwringing and court action will bring it back (that is not to say we shouldn't fight for it). Even if the agency remains, aid as we know it is gone, at least aid in the form of microinterventions funded through NGOs working overseas. While aid flows have increased and decreased in the past decades, the difference this time is that it is coupled with a dramatic shift of *both* how the US sees its place in the world and, even more importantly, the country's commitment to core values like democracy and rule of law. Even when aid was massively cut down in the past, there was never any retreat from these values on both sides of the aisle, at least broadly speaking.
- I find the current emerging narratives about finding alternative funding streams through the private sector absurd. Sure, there may be a few dimes squeezed out, but this reflects a severe lack of understanding about corporations, their purposes, and how they are structured under corporate law. In no world will the private sector step in to fill that gap that aid leaves behind. Relatedly, the notion that private sector is somehow more "efficient" in managing money (and hence we should apply those ideas to aid) is also absurd. I draw these (strong) opinions from my own experience working in the private sector on community engagement and social investments. Yes, private sector is "more efficient" managing financial resources, but "more efficient" *vis-a-vis its shareholders*, so as to bring better financial returns to them. Aid deals with public goods. These are inherently different things, with very different purposes, and conceptually operate on very different planes. When I worked in the private sector managing social investments, I found that money was spent in a much more wasteful manner *from a public good perspective*, but that spending made sense from the perspective of ensuring the business's continuity and maximizing returns. The public and private objectives *can* overlap, but often, they do not. If I hear another person say that aid should be more like the private sector, I will lose my mind.
- I, of course, find this episode with USAID deeply unsettling on a personal level. But even more so, I am very perturbed by the broader geopolitical shifts underway. Look, a world with an American hegemony was never my favourite state of the world. As a minority, having grown up as a colonial subject, I am conscious of all the critiques of a world order under neoliberalism. But I am frankly terrified of world order manoeuvred by Russia, China, and all those with an authoritarian streak.
And on a final note, one of the more difficult things seeing this latest episode is that we humanitarian aid workers are probably the first to raise our hands to say that the system is deeply, deeply flawed. None of us will come out to defend USAID (and the broader aid system) as perfect. Many of us are also sorely aware of the neocolonial, neoliberal critiques of aid. These things are all true.
But until you have personally met a displaced family whose life is marginally made better by the distribution of food after fleeing from fighting in Congo, until you have sat in a small, modest classroom in a tiny village seeing Afghan girls learning to read, until you have met that mother giving birth in a clean village health centre — all made possible by aid funding, you cannot fully appreciate how deeply insane and cruel the recent decisions are. It is so easy to sit in the comfort of your armchair to theorize and critique how neocolonial aid is. We all wanted (and want) reform, but that is not how you do it.
I am proud to have been a humanitarian aid worker, even for all the faults the system has.
My post-bar exam brain surprisingly led me to Carol Lancaster's "Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics" as my first read. Written over 18 years ago now, the book is surprisingly relevant and useful for trying to make sense of witnessing your former career being decimated in real-time. I had skimmed parts of it when I was a far less diligent student 16 years ago in graduate school. The book does an excellent job of tracing the origins of aid and examining the various objectives that foreign aid seeks to serve. The case studies from 5 countries gives a lot of food for thought about what the future of aid will be.
A few key takeaways:
- While neutrality is central to the *practice* of humanitarian aid, it would be disingenuous and naive for anyone to claim that the *disbursement* of aid is neutral. Foreign aid was conceived as a foreign policy tool and remains to be one (Morgenthau wrote, that foreign aid is among the "real innovations which the modern age has introduced into the practice of foreign policy"). How and to what extent this tool is deployed depends very much on how the donor country sees its role in the world.
- Aid has seen much ebb and flow since it became an important foreign policy tool post-WWII. Interestingly, in more recent years in the US, it was President Clinton who massively slashed aid funding and President Bush who dramatically increased it (with the lobbying of evangelicals, among other interest groups).
- USAID is dead. No amount of handwringing and court action will bring it back (that is not to say we shouldn't fight for it). Even if the agency remains, aid as we know it is gone, at least aid in the form of microinterventions funded through NGOs working overseas. While aid flows have increased and decreased in the past decades, the difference this time is that it is coupled with a dramatic shift of *both* how the US sees its place in the world and, even more importantly, the country's commitment to core values like democracy and rule of law. Even when aid was massively cut down in the past, there was never any retreat from these values on both sides of the aisle, at least broadly speaking.
- I find the current emerging narratives about finding alternative funding streams through the private sector absurd. Sure, there may be a few dimes squeezed out, but this reflects a severe lack of understanding about corporations, their purposes, and how they are structured under corporate law. In no world will the private sector step in to fill that gap that aid leaves behind. Relatedly, the notion that private sector is somehow more "efficient" in managing money (and hence we should apply those ideas to aid) is also absurd. I draw these (strong) opinions from my own experience working in the private sector on community engagement and social investments. Yes, private sector is "more efficient" managing financial resources, but "more efficient" *vis-a-vis its shareholders*, so as to bring better financial returns to them. Aid deals with public goods. These are inherently different things, with very different purposes, and conceptually operate on very different planes. When I worked in the private sector managing social investments, I found that money was spent in a much more wasteful manner *from a public good perspective*, but that spending made sense from the perspective of ensuring the business's continuity and maximizing returns. The public and private objectives *can* overlap, but often, they do not. If I hear another person say that aid should be more like the private sector, I will lose my mind.
- I, of course, find this episode with USAID deeply unsettling on a personal level. But even more so, I am very perturbed by the broader geopolitical shifts underway. Look, a world with an American hegemony was never my favourite state of the world. As a minority, having grown up as a colonial subject, I am conscious of all the critiques of a world order under neoliberalism. But I am frankly terrified of world order manoeuvred by Russia, China, and all those with an authoritarian streak.
And on a final note, one of the more difficult things seeing this latest episode is that we humanitarian aid workers are probably the first to raise our hands to say that the system is deeply, deeply flawed. None of us will come out to defend USAID (and the broader aid system) as perfect. Many of us are also sorely aware of the neocolonial, neoliberal critiques of aid. These things are all true.
But until you have personally met a displaced family whose life is marginally made better by the distribution of food after fleeing from fighting in Congo, until you have sat in a small, modest classroom in a tiny village seeing Afghan girls learning to read, until you have met that mother giving birth in a clean village health centre — all made possible by aid funding, you cannot fully appreciate how deeply insane and cruel the recent decisions are. It is so easy to sit in the comfort of your armchair to theorize and critique how neocolonial aid is. We all wanted (and want) reform, but that is not how you do it.
I am proud to have been a humanitarian aid worker, even for all the faults the system has.
March 14, 2015
This book helps to introduce readers to the history of global development discourse. As a beginner to the field, I gained useful introductory explanation on how the USA and its former cold-war allies started the discourse, and why. I would recommend this book to those who, like me, just starting their academic research on development cooperation.
May 10, 2014
The book did not specifically dealt with policy matters. Moreover it left to imagination the recent development of aids politics in war devastated countries.
June 30, 2008
Not as educational as I had hoped...
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews