States, Markets, and Foreign Aid

Explores the different choices made by donor governments when delivering foreign aid projects around the world.

Simone Dietrich (Author)

9781009001755, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 November 2021

250 pages
22.9 x 15.1 x 1.6 cm, 0.429 kg

'States, Markets, and Foreign Aid explains why some donor governments provide aid directly to recipient governments while others choose to bypass local authorities. The book's novelty is in the suggestion that to understand aid delivery, we must analyze aid agencies as domestic agencies first. Approaching aid that way reveals that foreign aid reflects and mirrors domestic ideational orientations of the donor country. The elegance of the argument is an outcome of incredible and careful research. The book is a wonderful example of what excellent social science should look like. It uses quantitative measures as well as qualitative case studies. It explores and relies on deep historical context. It engages with existing approaches to foreign aid as well as broader theories in political science and sociology. These empirical and theoretical engagements offer a real contribution to the field.' Nitsan Chorev, Harmon Family Professor of Sociology and International Studies, Brown University.

Why do some donor governments pursue international development through recipient governments, while others bypass such local authorities? Weaving together scholarship in political economy, public administration and historical institutionalism, Simone Dietrich argues that the bureaucratic institutions of donor countries shape donor–recipient interactions differently despite similar international and recipient country conditions. Donor nations employ institutional constraints that authorize, enable and justify particular aid delivery tactics while precluding others. Offering quantitative and qualitative analyses of donor decision-making, the book illuminates how donors with neoliberally organized public sectors bypass recipient governments, while donors with more traditional public-sector-oriented institutions cooperate and engage recipient authorities on aid delivery. The book demonstrates how internal beliefs and practices about states and markets inform how donors see and set their objectives for foreign aid and international development itself. It informs debates about aid effectiveness and donor coordination and carries implications for the study of foreign policy, more broadly.

1. States, Markets and Foreign Aid: A Political Economy of Aid Delivery Tactics
2. How National Structures Shape Foreign Aid Delivery
3. Examining the Causal Mechanism Across Donors: the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, and France
4. Country-level Evidence Linking Donor Political Economies to Variation in Aid Delivery
5. Testing the Argument with Evidence from Aid Officials from the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, France, and Japan
6. Examining Public Opinion as an Alternative Explanation: Evidence from survey experiments with voters in the United States and Germany
7. Implications for Aid Effectiveness, Public Policy, and Future Research.

Subject Areas: International organisations & institutions [LBBU], Political economy [KCP], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], Economic growth [KCG], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], International relations [JPS]