While crises accumulate in the developing countries, major donors decrease their aid budget. Consequently, understanding determinants of aid effectiveness is crucial to improving health around the...Show moreWhile crises accumulate in the developing countries, major donors decrease their aid budget. Consequently, understanding determinants of aid effectiveness is crucial to improving health around the World. Previous research has put forward the positive influence of democratic regimes on health improvements. Nonetheless, little is known about the role of recipients' political regimes on the success of aid project implementation. This paper seeks to clarify this relationship by answering the question “What is the effect of regime type on the effective implementation of project-aid targeted to health?”. The study focuses on the World Bank projects in the health sector in Africa. An OLS approach is chosen to investigate democratic mechanisms, data is retrieved through the Independent Evaluation Group and Freedom House. The results show a positive but weak non-significant effect of democracy on aid effectiveness. Hence, findings do not provide evidence that democracies are better at implementing health aid projects. Using a larger sample is recommended for future studies.Show less
Foreign aid policies vary greatly in their means and ends. Long-term development policies, aiming to promote development and welfare, distinguish from short-term humanitarian policies that respond...Show moreForeign aid policies vary greatly in their means and ends. Long-term development policies, aiming to promote development and welfare, distinguish from short-term humanitarian policies that respond to humanitarian emergency crises. Politicians seem to differ in their preferences, leading scholars to question how these preferences emerge. Existing literature has been focusing on theories of elite competition in explaining why states construct and implement certain policies. However, these theories seem to ignore the concept of political agency, and grant no primacy to the role of ideas and values. This thesis aims to fill this gap by asking how party ideologies influence foreign aid policy preferences. It employs the discursive legitimation model of Van Leeuwen (2008) to analyze Dutch parliamentary debates. Here, it is found that conservative values affect politicians to refer to authorization and rationalization when legitimizing their preferences, while liberal values work through to moral evaluation and story-telling strategies. This confirms that ideas and ideologies do matter for policy preferences.Show less
The rising prominence of Chinese aid has aroused both enthusiasm and worry among those concerned with economic development. Some believe that China’s approach to aid offers developing countries a...Show moreThe rising prominence of Chinese aid has aroused both enthusiasm and worry among those concerned with economic development. Some believe that China’s approach to aid offers developing countries a better alternative than traditional methods of aid, that have arguably failed to stimulate economic development among emerging economies. Others believe that China threatens the international aid architecture, and its engagements in the developing world represent a “neo-colonial” relationship with recipient countries. Yet, despite these contesting debates, very little empirical research tests China’s effectiveness in stimulating economic development in developing economies, specifically their engagements in South Asia. This research hopes to use the China-Pakistan economic corridor as a case-study to analyse China’s engagements in Pakistan, a topic not currently discussed in mainstream international relations. Using Ezeala-Harrison’s theory of economic definition to test China’s developmental efforts in Pakistan, the findings of this study critique China’s aid patterns in developing countries, and hope to reveal the deeper underlying motivations behind China’s investments in Pakistan, and in extension, their engagements with the developing world.Show less
Thomas Pogge claims to close the gap between proponents of large-scale humanitarian aid to the third world, and those opposing such policy. Pogge turns this last group into his target audience by...Show moreThomas Pogge claims to close the gap between proponents of large-scale humanitarian aid to the third world, and those opposing such policy. Pogge turns this last group into his target audience by adopting an alleged core-principle of libertarianism, a premise that is often held among those who oppose large governmental programs, roughly the political ‘right’. According to Pogge’s argument, those holding onto the libertarian tenet must completely turn their stance on foreign aid around, as their principle actually prescribes moral duties of first world citizens to aid the third world in order to salvage inflicted damages. In this essay, I examine the actual persuasiveness of Pogge’s argument by assessing the similarity between premises used by Pogge and those held by his target audience. I do so by distinguishing two variants of Pogge’s argument, which both consist of three sub-arguments. Despite the occasional agreement, Pogge’s argument fails to concord with many key-premises generally associated with libertarians, liberals and conservatives. Due to the clash in between the two sides of the debate, Pogge’s tactic to reconcile them into one proposal fails to truly convince. I conclude that Pogge is more likely to sway his target audience by using their similarities to open a dialogue.Show less
Foreign aid, inherently political in its nature and deeply embedded into the states’/organizations’ external relations, has been a subject of intensive analysis. The academic literature concerning...Show moreForeign aid, inherently political in its nature and deeply embedded into the states’/organizations’ external relations, has been a subject of intensive analysis. The academic literature concerning foreign aid reveals that the topic of international assistance is a complex heterogeneous subject, since a number of factors directly or implicitly shape aid, these being institutional characteristics, domestic and international politics, as well as the role of public opinion. Moreover, International Relations scholars argue that aid policies differ tremendously depending on the channel through which the international assistance is disbursed. As a result, aid has been classified into bilateral, multilateral and multi-bi, where each of these channels has been associated with specific characteristics. In fact, on the basis of the donor’s trends in the employment of these channels, implications could be drawn about the overall foreign aid policies of traditional state donor. Yet, it is controversial whether the same approach could be used when considering other fund providers, such as international organizations, which feature peculiar arrangements. Especially intriguing is the case of the European Union, due to it being reputed as highly humanitarian international organization, which also contributes large volumes of aid. This research aims by expounding the trends in the Union’s employment of aid channels to explore the extent to which these are correlated to and indicative of its overall foreign aid approach.Show less
