Political Economy of Western Aid to the Third World: A Structural Reinterpretation

Abstract

The problem of economic aid requires a comprehensive reassessment. Apart from the shortcomings of the existing studies, a few other developments, having their origins in the seventies, have made this imperative. Firstly, consequent upon the intensified theme of transfer of resources under the demand for a new international economic order and the increasing vulnerability of the international credit structure, the issue of aid has reentered the core of the development debate. The Brandt Commission Report as well as some other development documents have amply recognized this.¹ Secondly, the discipline of international relations has witnessed a paradigm shift towards political economy,² bringing along some new methodological insights which can be used to overcome the limitations of the available studies.³ Of the many such approaches offered,⁴ the structural approach has been found to be exceedingly useful particularly with regard to problems like trade, technology and private capital.⁵ Aid so far has escaped its application. This paper seeks to fill this gap by attempting a two-fold reconstruction, theoretical and empirical.