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Separate Types, Separate Intent: American Foreign Aid Policy

Separate Types, Separate Intent: American Foreign Aid Policy. Leonard N. Chan Rice University Department of Political Science Under the Direction of Cliff Morgan, Ph.D. What is Foreign Aid?.

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Separate Types, Separate Intent: American Foreign Aid Policy

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  1. Separate Types, Separate Intent: American Foreign Aid Policy Leonard N. Chan Rice University Department of Political Science Under the Direction of Cliff Morgan, Ph.D.

  2. What is Foreign Aid? • Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD): financial flows, technical assistance, and commodities that are (1) designed to promote economic development and welfare as their main objective (thus excluding aid for military or other non-development purposes); and (2) are provided as either grants or subsidized loans • Hans Morgenthau (1962): transfer of money and services from one government to another

  3. Purpose of Foreign Aid • Idealism: Humanitarian concerns as the cornerstone • Neo-Marxism: Economic-driven model of subjugation • Realism: Security-driven motives

  4. Systematic Issues in Theory • Difficulty in formulating a general theory behind donor state programs due to varied motives as seen in case studies: Japan, France, Sweden, and the United States • Cold War-driven explanations obsolete • Common thread in ideology

  5. The American Ideal • Political ideology instead of economic ideology: the consolidation and spread of democracy • $700 million devoted annually toward democracy-building programs • The value of democracy

  6. The American Ideal • The United States can either help introduce or consolidate democracy • Limited resources to pursue these objectives • Parallel to Palmer and Morgan’s Two-Good Theory: Promotion of Democracy (Change) and Consolidating Democracy (Maintenance)

  7. Varied Instruments • According to the Two-Good Theory, separate foreign policy instruments have different purposes although some may be interchangeable • Despite foreign aid labeled as a change-inducing mechanism, many forms of foreign aid options available

  8. Typography of Foreign Aid Hans Morgenthau formulates the types of foreign aid and their purposes • Humanitarian • Subsistence • Military • Bribery • Economic Development • Prestige

  9. Typology of Foreign Aid • Not mutually exclusive • Purposes cross-over • Intentional mis-labeling

  10. Hypotheses • Assumption: United States desires democracies but can only influence states that can be affected by aid • H1: Different factors drive the allotment of the varied types of foreign aid • H2: Change-seeking foreign aid will be rewarded at relatively higher rates in non-democracies • H3: Maintenance-seeking foreign aid will be rewarded at relatively higher rates in democracies

  11. Data and Methodology Data • Foreign Aid Data: U.S. Greenbook • Democratization: Freedom House, Polity • Recipient State Information: CIA Factbook Methodology • Cross-section ordinary least squares (OLS)

  12. Results

  13. Results

  14. Potential Issues • The first set of analysis treats economic aid as an aggregate of many accounts • Morgenthau: economic development and subsistence aid are distinct • Food aid and economic development aid can be parsed out

  15. Results: Food Aid v. Economic Development Aid Sub-Saharan Africa

  16. Conclusions • Different mechanisms in play • Unexpected, but previously supported, results in the effect of wealth on foreign assistance • If Morgenthau is correct, the United States acting against its best interests

  17. Possibilities • Need to understand the differences: better specification of the model, checking the impact of other variables, using time-series data, etc. • Two-goods: • Maintenance and change, or • Humanitarian and self-interest

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