States, Markets, and Foreign Aid

Session Submission Type: Virtual Author meet critics

Session Description

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`s book States, Markets, and Foreign Aid (forthcoming at Cambridge University Press) makes the case that the bureaucratic institutions of donor countries shapes 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 donor countries whose institutions are organized around neoliberal principles bypass recipient governments, while donors with more traditional public sector-oriented institutions cooperate and engage recipient authorities on aid delivery. The book establishes connections between ideological orientations and patterns of donor behavior. It 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. These insights carry implications for debates about the effectiveness of international development efforts, donor coordination, the diffusion of international development norms in world politics, as well as the role of bureaucratic organization in foreign policy and multilateralism, more broadly.

The proposed author meets critics panel brings together five outstanding academics across different subfields of IR who will critically assess the relevance of these findings, including scholars of international development, foreign policy, international finance, multilateralism, and norm diffusion in world politics. They include Lawrence Broz (University of California, San Diego), Susanna Campbell (American University), Susan Hyde (University of Berkeley), Christina Schneider (University of California, San Diego), Alexander Thompson (Ohio State University). The panel is co-convened by Susan Hyde and Simone Dietrich.

The panel aims to provide an opportunity of the following:

1. Panel members present their individual readings of the book and critically assess the relevance of the findings and the potential uses of the book in their own research areas and teaching.
2. Panel members discuss the book`s place in and contributions to the International Relations literature, more broadly.
3. Panel members and author formulate and discuss ideas about how to expand upon the book`s theoretical framework and, more generally, discuss the book`s implications for future research on questions related to foreign policy, international finance, multilateralism, and norm diffusion in world politics.
4. The author responds to the critiques of the book, and, alongside critics, respond to questions from the audience.

If desired by the Division Chair (and as suggested by APSA), the author meets critics panel could also feature a 10-minute presentation of a new research project (presented by Simone Dietrich) that represents a next step in one research agenda set forth by the book. I would be happy to discuss this option with the Division Chair and find ways to include it into the panel`s agenda.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Cosponsor

• Division 16: International Political Economy

Chair

• Simone Dietrich University of Geneva

Presenters

• J. Lawrence Broz University of California, San Diego

• Susanna Campbell American University

• Susan D. Hyde University of California, Berkeley

• Christina J. Schneider University of California, San Diego

• Alexander Thompson Ohio State University