Table Of Content“What this volume does very well is fill a gap in the literature by bringing to-
gether an analysis of country and thematic policies and putting them firmly in
the broader context of foreign policy and international relations. In the process,
it improves our understanding of the politics of aid.”
Andy Sumner, King’s College London, UK
“This book offers a rich analysis of the domestic and international politics of
foreign aid in a range of donor countries and several key crosscutting themes. It
makes valuable theoretical and empirical contributions. I learned a lot from its
historical perspectives and up-to-date examinations of the rapidly changing aid
ecosystem.”
Stephen Brown, School of Political Science,
University of Ottawa, Canada
AID POWER AND POLITICS
Aid Power and Politics delves into the political roots of aid policy, demonstrating how
and why governments across the world use aid for global influence, and exploring
the role it plays in present-day global governance and international relations.
In reconsidering aid as part of international relations, the book argues that the
interplay between domestic and international development policy works in both
directions, with individual countries having the capacity to shape global issues,
while at the same time, global agreements and trends, in turn, shape the political
behaviour of individual countries. Starting with the background of aid policy
and international relations, the book goes on to explore the behaviour of both
traditional and emerging donors (the US, the UK, the Nordic countries, Japan,
Spain, Hungary, Brazil, and the European Union), and then finally looks at some
big international agendas that have influenced donors, from the liberal consensus
on democracy and good governance, to gender equality and global health.
Aid Power and Politics will be an important read for international development
students, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, and for anyone who has
ever wondered why it is that countries spend so much money on the well-being
of non-citizens outside their borders.
Iliana Olivié is a Senior Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute, Spain, where
she works on global development issues and coordinates the Elcano Global
Presence Index. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Applied &
Structural Economics & History, Complutense University of Madrid.
Aitor Pérez, economist and political scientist, works as a consultant for UN
agencies and international NGOs, conducting policy research and evaluation
of aid-funded programmes in developing countries. He is also Senior Research
Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute.
Rethinking Development
Rethinking Development offers accessible and thought-provoking overviews of
contemporary topics in international development and aid. Providing original
empirical and analytical insights, the books in this series push thinking in new
directions by challenging current conceptualizations and developing new ones.
This is a dynamic and inspiring series for all those engaged with today’s de-
bates surrounding development issues, whether they be students, scholars, policy
makers and practitioners internationally. These interdisciplinary books provide
an invaluable resource for discussion in advanced undergraduate and postgradu-
ate courses in development studies as well as in anthropology, economics, poli-
tics, geography, media studies and sociology.
Epistemic Freedom in Africa
Deprovincialization and Decolonization
Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Foreign Aid in the Age of Populism
Political Economy Analysis from Washington to Beijing
Viktor Jakupec and Max Kelly
Researching South-South Development Cooperation
The Politics of Knowledge Production
Elsje Fourie, Emma Mawdsley and Wiebe Nauta
Aid Power and Politics
Edited by Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez
Participatory Arts in International Development
Edited by Paul Cooke and Inés Soria-Donlan
AID POWER
AND POLITICS
Edited by Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 selection and editorial matter, Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other
means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-1-138-34125-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-34127-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44023-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
CONTENTS
Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez
PART 1
Aid in the framework of international relations theories 9
1 The politics of aid from the perspective of international
relations theories 11
Bernabé Malacalza
2 Foreign aid’s motivations: theoretical arguments and
empirical evidence 34
Gino N. Pauselli
PART 2
The politics of donors’ aid policies,
a country-based approach 51
3 The US elite consensus on aid 53
Henry de Cazotte
4 The UK: an aid superpower at a crossroads 73
Myles Wickstead
viii Contents
5 The Scandinavians: aid policy determinants and performances 89
Olav Stokke
6 Japanese development assistance: economic and political
win-win proposals 116
Marie Söderberg
7 Spain: the rise and fall of a compliant donor 131
Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez
8 While the cat’s away, will the mice play? Government-
NGO relations and the politics of aid in Hungary 149
Krisztina Szabó, Balázs Szent-Iványi, and András Tétényi
9 Brazilian cooperation policy: promotion of development
and global projection 165
Guillermo Santander
10 Solidarity and security in the EU discourse on aid 179
Iliana Olivié and Aitor Pérez
PART 3
Thematic agendas 197
11 Donorship in a state of flux 199
Nilima Gulrajani and Liam Swiss
12 The international politics of aid: ‘good governance’ and
democracy promotion 223
David Williams
13 Gender inequality, aid agencies, and global norms 238
Lars Engberg-Pedersen
14 Old and new powers in development assistance in health 255
Eduardo Missoni and Fabrizio Tediosi
15 ‘We first’ and the anti-foreign aid narratives of populist
radical-right parties in Europe 272
Margarita Gómez-Reino
CONTRIBUTORS
Henry de Cazotte, former director at the Agence Française de Developpement
(AFD), has been Special Representative for Habitat III, Special Advisor to the
Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Devel-
opment Rio +20, and Coordinator of the French Inter Department Task Team
on the post-2015 process and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) p rocess.
He has also worked for the AFD and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in
Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil and Southern Africa. Currently,
Henry de Cazotte is involved in diverse NGO sustainable development activi-
ties in France and abroad, including local sustainable development, and practices
winegrowing in the Champagne region.
Lars Engberg-Pedersen is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for
International Studies (DIIS). He works on international development cooper-
ation and global norms. He has undertaken research on aid in fragile situations,
aid management practices, and poverty reduction by local organisations, among
other issues. As a practitioner, he headed the development cooperation of a major
Danish NGO, and he advised on local government for a ministry in Burkina
Faso. He has recently co-edited Rethinking Gender Equality in Global Governance:
The Delusion of Norm Diffusion (2020).
Margarita Gómez-Reino is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. She is currently part of the
research project “Crisis económica, cambio social y nuevos actores politicos”
(Economic crisis, social change and new political actors) funded by the Spanish
Ministry for the Economy and Competitiveness (Research Grant CSO2013-
47667-P). She has belonged to the international network Teampopulism since
2014. She has recently published Nationalisms in the European Arena: Trajectories of
Transnational Party Coordination (2018).
