3. Is it politically and ethically acceptable to provide development aid to countries ruled by military dictatorships?
Critically discuss this question referring to at least two different types of donors and two different types of recipients to substantiate your argumentation. You should refer to the theories, definitions
and concepts discussed in weeks 5 and 6 of the course and incorporate such into your essay (Learning Objectives 5+6).
The theories, definitions and concepts discussed were:
Importance of the military: nature of the armed forces, political and civil society. Coup proofing.
Prominent role of the military : internal characteristics of the military and external : broader political environment. Internal : strong internal cohesion, clarity of purpose, internal orientation in training vs external orientation, correlation between level of civil control over the military.
Types of coups: reformist break through coup , guardian coup, veto coup. Type of military regimes : personalistic regimes, institutional military regimes : bureaucratic , authoritarian regimes. Revolutionary military regimes.
New role of the military : anti drug trafficking, anti terrorism, emergency relief, regional forces, humanitarian action, un PKO, civic action.
Motives to give aid: political strategic motives, historical ties, economic interest, environmental concerns, sdg and globalization, security concerns etc.
What is Aid? Transfer of resources at non commercial rates. Multi vs bilateral , loans, FDI, remittances, ODA (official development assistance) vs voluntary NGO based.
The EU is the fourth largest donor globally. The current globalized context : china top destination of foreign direct investment, growing south south trade, world bank IMF have lost much standing. A shift to remittances. Trend trade for aid .
Abolish budget aid. Does aid help and why is it difficult to asses the impact? Purpose challenge ( it is provided in different forms with different purposes), poor data challenge (hard to access data) , attribution challenge ( how to show the link between aid provided and outcomes achieved, counterfactual challenge ( the problem of the lack of having a comparable situation.
Main contraints for more effective aid, commercial and short term political interest of donors. Multiplicity of donors and projects. Volatility and unpredictability of voluntary aid.
How to improve effectiveness ? donors need to harmonize aid and align more with the development country, provide more predictable and multi year commitments, provide long term aid independent from short term commercial gains, compulsory contributions by rich countries.
Paris declaration on aid effectiveness 2005.
Aid effectiveness ( Ridell).
Radi-Aid , Africa for Norway.
These books / online sources were used :
Additional :
Handelman, H. (2019). Challenges of the Developing World. (9th edition), Rowman & Littlefield Publishers ( chapter 1 : Understanding Underdevelopment Chapter 2:The Political Economy of the Developing World
Chapter 6: The Politics of Cultural Pluralism and Ethnic Conflict. Chapter 3: The Surge and Partial Retreat of Democracy Chapter 10: Soldiers and Politics