American Development Aid, Decolonization, and the Cold War

2022 ◽  
pp. 190-212
Author(s):  
Corinna R. Unger
Author(s):  
Sara Lorenzini

In the Cold War, “development” was a catchphrase that came to signify progress, modernity, and economic growth. Development aid was closely aligned with the security concerns of the great powers, for whom infrastructure and development projects were ideological tools for conquering hearts and minds around the globe, from Europe and Africa to Asia and Latin America. This book provides a global history of development, drawing on a wealth of archival evidence to offer a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a Cold War phenomenon that transformed the modern world. Taking readers from the aftermath of the Second World War to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, the book shows how development projects altered local realities, transnational interactions, and even ideas about development itself. The book shines new light on the international organizations behind these projects—examining their strategies and priorities and assessing the actual results on the ground—and it also gives voice to the recipients of development aid. It shows how the Cold War shaped the global ambitions of development on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and how international organizations promoted an unrealistically harmonious vision of development that did not reflect local and international differences. The book presents a global perspective on Cold War development, demonstrating how its impacts are still being felt today.


Author(s):  
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale

Most of the discourse on development aid in Africa has been limited to assistance from Western countries and those provided by competing capitalist and socialist blocs during the Cold war era. Japan, a nation with great economic and military capabilities; its development assistance for Africa is encapsulated in the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) initiative. The TICAD started in 1993 and Japan has so far held 5 TICAD meetings between 1993 and 2013 during which Africa’s development challenges and Japan’s development assistance to the continent were discussed. The emphasis on “ownership”, “self-help” and “partnership” are major peculiar characteristics of Japan’s development aid that puts the design, implementation and control of development projects under the control of recipient countries. This is a major departure from the usual practice in international development assistance where recipient countries are bound by clauses that somewhat puts the control of development aid in the hands of the granting countries. Such binding clauses have often been described as inimical to the successful administration of the aids and development in recipient countries. Though Japan’s development aid to Africa started only in 1993, by the 2000s, Japan was the topmost donor to Africa. This paper examines the context of Japan’s development aid to Africa by analyzing secondary data sourced from literature and secondary statistics.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinna R. Unger

AbstractThis article studies the activities of American philanthropic foundations in India between the 1950s and 1970s. It discusses why private institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation felt committed to responding to problems of hunger and population growth abroad and how they managed to establish themselves as leaders in the development aid arena. Instead of considering the foundations as handmaidens of US national strategic interests shaped by the Cold War, the article argues that they should be understood as highly flexible transnational agents who, in an ambitious combination of philanthropic motives, institutional interests, and trust in the power of science, diagnosed political problems and developed methods to overcome them in order to reduce global inequality.


Author(s):  
Jason C. Parker

The decolonization of the European overseas empires had its intellectual roots early in the modern era, but its culmination occurred during the Cold War that loomed large in post-1945 international history. This culmination thus coincided with the American rise to superpower status and presented the United States with a dilemma. While philosophically sympathetic to the aspirations of anticolonial nationalist movements abroad, the United States’ vastly greater postwar global security burdens made it averse to the instability that decolonization might bring and that communists might exploit. This fear, and the need to share those burdens with European allies who were themselves still colonial landlords, led Washington to proceed cautiously. The three “waves” of the decolonization process—medium-sized in the late 1940s, large in the half-decade around 1960, and small in the mid-1970s—prompted the American use of a variety of tools and techniques to influence how it unfolded. Prior to independence, this influence was usually channeled through the metropolitan authority then winding down. After independence, Washington continued and often expanded the use of these tools, in most cases on a bilateral basis. In some theaters, such as Korea, Vietnam, and the Congo, through the use of certain of these tools, notably covert espionage or overt military operations, Cold War dynamics enveloped, intensified, and repossessed local decolonization struggles. In most theaters, other tools, such as traditional or public diplomacy or economic or technical development aid, affixed the Cold War into the background as a local transition unfolded. In all cases, the overriding American imperative was to minimize instability and neutralize actors on the ground who could invite communist gains.


2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 1065-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARCO WYSS

AbstractIn Nigeria, Britain asserted its post-colonial security role during and immediately after the transfer of power, and remained responsible for assisting the Nigerian armed forces. While the Americans recognized Nigeria's potential as an important partner in the Cold War, they preferred to focus on development aid. Washington was thus supposed to complement British assistance, while leaving the responsibility for the security sector to London. But with the escalation of the Cold War in Africa, the Nigerians’ efforts to reduce their dependency on the United Kingdom, and Nigeria's growing significance for the United States in African affairs, this Anglo-American burden-sharing was increasingly questioned in Washington. The United States thus eventually decided to militarize its aid policy towards Nigeria. In analysing the militarization of US aid policy towards Nigeria, this article will, first, assess the Anglo-American relationship in the early 1960s; secondly, position Nigeria in American Cold War policy towards Sub-Saharan Africa; thirdly, question the role of military assistance in Washington's policy towards Nigeria and Africa; and fourthly, discover the regional and local factors that influenced policy-makers in Washington and London.


2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 69-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Jürgen Puhle

Latin American studies in Germany from the 1960s on developed in two waves with (partial) crises and periods of stagnation in between. Whereas in the communist GDR they were affected by the limited scope of academic endeavors and their instrumentalization for state and party politics and policies, in the Federal Republic interdisciplinary Latin American studies had two tiers (within the universities and outside as independent research institutes) and were shaped by the particular structure of funding schemes and agencies and by “triggers” such as the Cuban Revolution, the Chilean coup, the arrival of exiles, and the presence of the Latin American revolutionary experience in the debates of the West German student movement after 1968. While many of the West German features were shared with other Western countries, significant differences emerged because of Germany’s short colonial tradition, the Cold War rivalry between the Federal Republic and the GDR, and the fact that political foundations such as the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation played a key role not only in designing and implementing government-financed development aid projects in Latin America but also in helping to promote and shape a new takeoff for Latin American studies (a uniquely German constellation). A partir de la década de 1960, los estudios alemanes sobre Latinoamérica se desarrollaron en dos oleadas, con crisis (parciales) y períodos de estancamiento en el proceso. En la RDA comunista, la investigación se vio afectada por el alcance limitado de los esfuerzos académicos y su instrumentalización para políticas estatales y partidarias. En la República Federal, los estudios interdisciplinarios latinoamericanos se desarrollaron en dos ámbitos (universidades además de lugares externos como institutos de investigación independientes) y obedeciendo a estructuras y agencias de financiamiento particulares, así como “factores detonantes” (por ejemplo, la Revolución Cubana, el golpe de estado en Chile, la llegada de exiliados y la presencia de la experiencia revolucionaria latinoamericana en los debates del movimiento estudiantil de Alemania Occidental después de 1968). Mientras que muchas de las características de la República Federal eran compartidas por otros países occidentales, surgieron diferencias significativas a partir de la corta tradición colonial alemana, la rivalidad entre la República Federal y la RDA durante la Guerra Fría, y el hecho de que patronatos políticos como la Fundación Konrad Adenauer y la Fundación Friedrich Ebert desempeñaron un papel clave no solo en el diseño e implementación de proyectos gubernamentales de ayuda al desarrollo en Latinoamérica, sino también en promover y encaminar los estudios latinoamericanos (en una constelación exclusivamente alemana).


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