World Society and Foreign Policy: Clarifying Determinants of Official Development Assistance

• In Event: 479 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Global Political Spaces

Abstract

This article addresses the isomorphism of foreign policy by examining official development assistance (ODA―foreign aid delivered by national governments and their agencies). World polity scholars have demonstrated isomorphic changes of the modern nation state, but, surprisingly, homogenization of foreign policy has received little attention. Guided by world polity theory, this article analyzes factors that determine the allocation of ODA from four donor countries to developing countries in the Post-Cold War era. Our analyses of the determinants of ODA in Germany, France, Japan, and Korea support our predictions that various strategic, humanitarian, and global normative considerations are at work in mutually reinforcing fashion. However, we note that the effects of donors’ strategic considerations are more pronounced when the outcome involves loans, whereas those of recipients’ needs tend to be emphasized when analyzing grants. The effects of the world polity appear to be remarkable on both elements of ODA, but, unexpectedly, its effects tend to be more substantial when analyzing loans. Donor countries are more likely to provide concessional loans for the developing countries that are favored by other donor countries and better linked to the world polity via INGO membership. In addition, donors appear to favor developing countries with higher human rights profiles when providing loans as opposed to grants. These unexpected findings concerning the effects of the world polity suggest that countries seem to appropriate global discourse in ways that pursue their national interests―a theme often debated in globalization literature.

Authors

• Jeong-Woo Koo, Sungkyunkwan University

• Dae-Wook Kim, Seoul National University