Abstract
dc:description.abstractWhy would one nation-state give precious resources to another in the form of overseas aid? Decades of public policy and a rich body of research provides answers to Morgenthau’s (1962) seminal question, ranging from poverty alleviation to neo-liberal market expansion to geopolitics. I argue that contemporary UK aid is positioned as a ‘retro-realist’ tool to advance UK geopolitical and diplomatic interests. Taking the case of UK aid to India, I use an ethnographic methodology and my own co-presence in the research site to explore whether and how UK aid delivers diplomatic benefits for the UK Government and with what implications. When such aims are rooted in explicit mutual benefit for both sides, combined with a high degree of tangibility, particularity, performance and symbolism, UK aid does deliver such benefits—both specific and at a strategic scale. Conversely, where these conditions are absent – or where symbolism is imbued with historical tones of extraction, transaction, and unitary power – aid generates a negative reaction that damages the relationship. The UK Government’s focus on dividends sets up a dependency on Indian government reciprocity in which UK officials feel compelled to ‘give’ to maintain their status, empowering Indian officials and reversing traditional post-colonial hierarchies. However, in this contemporary retro-realist paradigm poverty alleviation is largely subjugated and obscured from view. Ontologically, the thesis argues that examining and measuring aid transfers as a set of geographically arranged reciprocal relationships rather than a material transfer may be a fruitful scholarly route of further study as aid itself takes on a more overtly political role. Finally, it provides a real-life case study in foreign policy ethnography.
Degree
thesis:*- Name dc:type.qualificationname
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Level dc:type.qualificationlevel
- Doctoral
- Grantor dc:publisher.institution
- University of Cambridge
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2023
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Billett, Simon
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- Mawdsley, Emma
Subjects
dc:subject × 4Rights
dc:rightsIdentifiers
dc:identifier.*- DOI dc:identifier.doi
- https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.102259
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/358837