Foreign Aid in a World in Crisis

This book investigates the geopoliticisation of foreign aid in recent years, against a background of global overarching crises such as climate change, conflict, Covid-19, economic crisis, energy shortages and migration.

Foreign aid has historically been understood as assisting both with the development objectives of the recipients and with the trade and geopolitical interests of the donors. In the first decades of the 21st century, however, this balance has been shifted by a series of complex global challenges. This book argues that donors have now moved towards framing aid as a geopolitical instrument, wherein aid can be given or withheld based on power or political intent, thus imposing the donor’s specific values and norms. This book provides an in-depth analysis of this weaponisation of foreign aid within a framework of global disruption and ultimately concludes that the world is at a tipping point towards a new socio-political world order.

Asking important questions about the power dynamics at play within the aid sector, this book will be an important read for researchers across development studies, political science, international relations and global affairs.

Viktor Jakupec is an Honorary Professor in Development Studies at Deakin University, Australia and Potsdam University, Germany, and a Member of the Leibniz Society of Sciences, Berlin. His research focus includes political economy analysis, development aid policies, multilateralism and international relations. He has extensive experience as an international consultant for the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, International Finance Corporation, Millennium Challenge Corporation and EU and European Training Foundation, in Asia, MENA, the Balkans and the Caucasus countries. He holds a Dr. habil. from Giessen University and a Dr. phil. from FU Hagen.

Max Kelly is an Associate Professor and course director of International and Community Development, and Sustainable Development and Humanitarian Action, at Deakin University, Australia. Her areas of expertise include international and community development policy and practice. She has a sectoral focus in food security, food systems and sustainability at local, national and international levels, alongside a critical focus on global political economy of development and social justice.

John McKay is a partner in Analysis International in Melbourne, Australia, and Honorary Professor in Development Studies at Deakin University and in International Studies at RMIT University. He was Foundation Director of the Monash Asia Institute and the Australian APEC Study Centre, both at Monash University. He has served as President of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in Melbourne and is President of the Melbourne Chapter of the Society for International Development. He has a special interest in the economic restructuring of Asia, the emerging security situation and economic and political cooperation in the region and has undertaken detailed studies in Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan.