Foreign Aid and Development: Analytical Essay

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Introduction and Thesis –

All human beings require a set of resources such as food, shelter and clothing and it is necessary that any political leader takes care of that so to fulfill that we need other countries to help which directly leads to foreign aid which means assistance from rich, industrialized to poor developing countries (Copley, wood &Ehrhardt 2006).As we have discussed in class that foreign aid has brought both pros and cons to the recipient countries. However, this essay will revolve around the positive and negative aspects of foreign aid related to democracy and dictatorship and addition to it how it leads to corruption and ways to get rid out of it will also be discussed in the upcoming paragraphs on the basis of selectorate theory.

Detailed description of the topic-

In this modern era, foreign aid and development are hot potatoes in my country. It can be defined as the help or assistance provided in the form of goods, services and money by the rich countries like Canada to the poor nations. The authors Copley and wood says that the foreign aid has started growing its roots in post Second World War and the foreign aid is inspired from the marshall plan in distributing resources from developed countries to undeveloped countries. Canada has a good historical background in helping other countries due to which it has good relations and trade links with other countries which directly make it a multicultural country. In 2012 Canada has spent $5.6 billion among 80 countries across the world (Copley, wood &Ehrhardt 2006). Foreign aid does not only involve the distribution of cash, but it can be in the form of other services and goods. To support this Copley and wood says that Canada provides bilateral aid to many countries such as India, Pakistan and Sri lanka in the form of Canadian goods and services for example it provides fertilizers, hybrid seeds to develop agriculture but these things are not going to their right places like to poor farmers as I lived in India for 18 years only leaders are taking profit from such type of things and which leads to corruption which will further discussed in following paragraphs on the basis of selectorate theory.

This essay assess the utility of selectorate theory in democracy and dictatorship by using the concept of selectorate(s), winning coalition(W).As we have discussed in class that winning collection is the subset of S without whose support incumbment cannot stay in office whereas selectorate are the people who has a nominal say in choosing leaders. There are two different sizes of w and s, the large w and s describes the democracy while the small w and s describes the dictatorship. Moving further, as we learned during our lectures that there is more corruption on basis of resources or goods that are provided to the people because leaders are not answerable to the people. There are very less chances of getting punishment if you are on a higher post and leaders take advantage of these things and the needs of people are not fulfilled. In democracy it’s totally opposite to dictatorship people have right to punish their leaders and the system is more transparent as compared to dictatorship. Furthermore, Foreign aid is directly linked to the international relations and the actions of political leaders are determined how they affect their political framework for example democracy have option to go to war while autocrats can go to war whenever they want (from lecture slides). Sometimes, foreign aid can also include some bad policies and democracies have less chances of becoming their prey as compare to autocracy(Baush, 2014). The main reason behind this is that how much long leaders stay in their office and how much they care for their citizens. Foreign is greatly affected by the loyalty norm. It is the ratio of w/s in which wining coalition can be loyal or less loyal to the leader. Moreover, as we have read in class that King Jung’s income was 500 times more than average NK income, but the wining coalition does not say anything to him as they are rich in themselves and they don’t care about foreign policies. So the size of w/s shows that foreign policies can help us to raise our living standards but it depends on the form of government a particular country is having and how much the leaders are loyal to the people as distributing private goods shows more loyalty then distributing public goods (in autocracies). After researching from class notes we come to know that democracy has large base of support so they more public goods which shows more loyalty (Baush, 2014).

Empirical support –

Likewise, education also plays an important role in people’s life so there is hard need to develop the education sector in some countries. Education makes the man to stand by its own and make him or he is able to earn their livelihood. To further explain this, I will throw light on the case study of largest foreign aid receiver in the world known as sub- Saharan Africa. According to Yogo, the main aim of foreign aid is to fulfill the requirement of construction of schools and classrooms. To increase the enrollment in schools some nations of Africa started the primary education for free, but the national funds allocated for the education was unable to meet the the demands of infrastructure for education (Yogo, 2017). Countries like Nigeria and Zimbabwe which comes under sub-Saharan Africa have Autocracies and therefore have more corruption and they are not distributing public goods properly. So, the poor people who cannot afford money for higher education they are dropping off the schools which indirectly kill their future. So, according to me people living in autocracies should punish their leaders if they are not meeting their demands. Moreover, transparency should be increased between government and people for example in Canada there is less corruption and government are providing free care and education to the small children.

Conclusion –

We have so far studied that what foreign aid is, how it emerges and why some countries are unable to use it properly. All in all, we can say that if corruption will be continued the rate of poverty in the Autocratic countries will increase. So, there is hard need for people that they should take some steps so that democratization can increase more. Many people think that receiving money can never be harmful, but it is true only to a certain limit as it indirectly leads to corruption and complacency. So, in the end, we can say that leaders should be loyal towards their citizens and distribute the goods and services equally so that there can be more economic development of the nations. Foreign aid has now turned in to a business for the political leaders and they want the policies to fulfill their own interests only. There is no doubt that lessons learned from previous mistakes may to lead to some changes in politics and methods of working in the future (Yogo, 2017). Therefore, there is hard need of awareness among local people so that they can live properly and raise their livelihoods and standards of living.

Works Cited

Bausch, A. W. (2014). An Experimental Test of Selectorate Theory. International Interactions, 40(4), 533–553. https://doi-org.ezproxy.columbiacollege.bc.ca:2443/10.1080/03050629.2014.891997
Copley, B.,, & Wood, B.,, & Ehrhardt, R., Foreign Aid (2013). In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/foreign-aid
Yogo, T. U. (2017). Assessing the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid in the Education Sector in Africa: The Case of Primary Education. African Development Review, 29(3), 389–402. https://doi-org.ezproxy.columbiacollege.bc.ca:2443/10.1111/1467-8268.12276

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Foreign Aid and Development: Analytical Essay

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