Development Aid Confronts Politics: The Almost Revolution

362 Pages·2013·2.299 MB·English

by  Thomas Carothers, Diane De Gramont

C THOMAS CAROTHERS | DIANE DE GRAMONT
“A hugely insightful book on how the international development community has failed A
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to take politics into account in its efforts to help poor countries, with sometimes
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disastrous results. Carothers and de Gramont incisively chronicle the evolution of T
thinking on this critical topic and set out a practical agenda for how aid practitioners H
can do better.” E
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—Francis Fukuyama, author, The Origins of Political Order

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“The assertion that development aid is, or should be, political, sparks widely diverging D
reactions, from outrage at crude Western interference to recognition that aid must E

understand domestic politics. The authors have done us all a service by rigorously G
dissecting the different meanings of politics in aid and providing a clear under- R
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standing of what smarter aid practice requires.”
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—Mark Malloch-Brown, former minister of state, UK Foreign and O
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Commonwealth Office
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“The story of how aid agencies have finally accepted that ‘politics matter’ in shaping
development outcomes and what it means in practice is brilliantly told in this pene- D
trating book. The sweep of the authors’ research and the power of their insights will E
stir scholars and practitioners alike.” V
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—Adrian Leftwich, research director, Developmental Leadership Program L
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“The authors bring a great amount of experience, common sense, and clarity to explain P
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what ‘taking politics into account’ means in foreign aid, encompassing goals such as
democracy promotion as well as addressing the political economy of economic reform.” E
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—Dani Rodrik, professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University T

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THOMAS CAROTHERS is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for DEVELOPMENT AID
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International Peace and director of Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program.
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A leading authority on international support for democracy and governance, he is N
CONFRONTS POLITICS
the author of numerous critically acclaimed books and articles on the topic.
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DIANE DE GRAMONT , a Clarendon Scholar at Oxford University, was previously a O
researcher in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment N T H E A L M O S T R E V O L U T I O N
for International Peace. T
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Development AiD
Confronts politiCs
T h e A l m o s T R e v o l u T i o n

ThomAs CARoTheRs | DiAne De GRAmonT
Development AiD
Confronts politiCs
T h e A l m o s T R e v o l u T i o n
© 2013 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means
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Cover design by Jocelyn Soly
Composition by Cutting Edge Design
Printed by United Book Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Carothers, Thomas, 1956-
Development aid confronts politics: the almost revolution / Thomas Carothers and Diane
de Gramont.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-87003-400-8 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-87003-401-5 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-
87003-402-2 (elect)
1. Economic assistance--Political aspects. 2. Economic assistance--Government policy.
3. Economic development--Political aspects. 4. International economic relations--Political
aspects. I. Title.

HC60.C2953 2013
338.91--dc23

2013003672
CONTENTS
Foreword vii
Acknowledgments ix
IntroductIon
Chapter 1
The New Politics Agenda 3
tHE orIGInAL FrAMEWorK: 1960s–1980s
Chapter 2
Apolitical Roots 21
BrEAKInG tHE PoLItIcAL tABoo: 1990s–2000s
Chapter 3
The Door Opens to Politics 55
Chapter 4
Advancing Political Goals 89
Chapter 5
Toward Politically Informed Methods 125
tHE WAY ForWArd
Chapter 6
Politically Smart Development Aid? 157
Chapter 7
The Unresolved Debate on Political Goals 195
Chapter 8
The Integration Frontier 225
concLuSIon
Chapter 9
The Long Road to Politics 255
Notes 285
Bibliography 319
Index 335
About the Authors 347
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 349
FOREWORD
When we think about the noble aim of development assistance—reducing
the devastating poverty that cripples the lives of so many people around the
world—the idea of a potentially constructive role for politics in this endeavor
may at first seem an oxymoron. We are all too familiar with the United States
and other aid providers playing politics with aid—channeling large quanti-
ties of it to some governments that are unwilling or unable to make good
use of it, for domestic reasons or to shore up strategically useful partnerships.
And we know how development dollars can fall prey to corruption or the
narrow political designs of unhelpful leaders in developing countries, under-
mining their governments’ ability to help the poor.
Yet as Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont show in this magiste-
rial, sharply perceptive book, a transformative movement is under way in
development aid, one that is all about integrating politics both into what
aid tries to do and how it tries to do it. The movement is an attempt to get
beyond the technocratic, apolitical ways of thinking about developmen-
tal change that have dominated foreign assistance for decades and so often
produced disappointment or outright failure. It is an effort both to carry out
politically smart development programs that take local realities into account
and to infuse positive political values into our basic conceptions of what aid
can and should achieve. As the authors chronicle in their examination of the
evolution of aid from the 1960s to the present, the new politics agenda got
its start in the 1990s as the Cold War straitjacket that had long constrained
aid dropped away. It has made significant though inconsistent progress in
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viii dEvELoPMEnt AId conFrontS PoLItIcS
the ensuing twenty years. Yet despite the power of these new ideas, deeply
entrenched obstacles in the aid business raise serious doubts about whether
the attempted transformation will succeed.
Here, the authors offer both a fresh perspective on the history of devel-
opment assistance and an insightful account of the cutting edge of efforts
to renovate aid. Readers familiar with Thomas Carothers’ writings will not
be surprised either by the breadth of this ambition or the success of the
book in fulfilling it. Over the past twenty years he has produced one field-
defining book after another on core components of democracy support,
including rule of law assistance, civil society aid, and political party
support. His decision to take on the broader domain of development aid,
in particular the changing role of politics within it, is a natural extension
of his earlier work. He has been joined in this undertaking by Diane de
Gramont, a gifted young researcher who joined Carnegie’s Democracy and
Rule of Law Program in 2010 and quickly demonstrated a level of analytic
acuity and intellectual maturity far beyond her years.
In an age of ever-increasing pressure on think tanks to chase after head-
lines and reduce findings to quick digital bits, Carnegie is proud to balance
its embrace of the opportunities new communications technologies provide
with an enduring commitment to producing research that reaches deeply
and stands for years. In the best of cases this is work that helps change
the dominant paradigms that guide entire policy domains. This book is
a shining example. I am proud Carnegie is offering it to the international
policy community and of the role that I am confident it will play in shaping
basic policy choices and outcomes.
–Jessica T. Mathews
President
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
ACkNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for their generous
financial support that made the writing of this book possible. We also thank
the UK Department for International Development for early research
support that helped introduce us to the topic. At the Carnegie Endowment,
Saskia Brechenmacher made substantial contributions to the underlying
research, Zoe Benezet-Parsons, Amina Edwards, and Tiffany Joslin provided
helpful support in many areas, the Carnegie publications team, including
Ilonka Oszvald and Jocelyn Soly, ably saw the manuscript through produc-
tion, and Carnegie president Jessica Mathews provided the institutional
leadership that made Carnegie the ideal environment for this project.
Special thanks to Larry Garber, Adrian Leftwich, Mark Robinson,
Petter Skjaeveland, and Graham Teskey for their tremendously useful
comments on an earlier draft. We are also grateful for the valuable assis-
tance we received along the way in many forms from Kaya Adams, Per
Øyvind Bastøe, Helena Bjuremalm, Bella Bird, Derick Brinkerhoff, Robyn
Chomyshyn, Noha El-Mikawy, Poul Engberg-Pedersen, Nancy Estes,
Verena Fritz, Francis Fukuyama, Annabel Gerry, Claudia Hernandez,
Ann Hudock, Stefan Kossoff, Benjamin Latto, Brian Levy, Sarah Lister,
Susan Loughhead, Barry Lowenkron, Sarah Mendelson, Mary Page,
Laure-Hélène Piron, Chris Pycroft, Keith Schulz, and David Yang. We
are indebted to the numerous practitioners, scholars, and activists in many
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