Giving as a Mechanism of Consent: International Aid Organizations and the Ethical Hegemony of...

8/11/2019 Giving as a Mechanism of Consent: International Aid Organizations and the Ethical Hegemony of Capitalism

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/giving-as-a-mechanism-of-consent-international-aid-organizations-and-the-ethical 1/22

http://ire.sagepub.com/ International Relations

http://ire.sagepub.com/content/17/2/153The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/00471178030172003

2003 17: 153International Relations

Tomohisa HattoriEthical Hegemony of Capitalism

Giving as a Mechanism of Consent: International Aid Organizations and the

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

On behalf of:

David Davies Memorial Institute for International Studies

can be found at:International Relations Additional services and information for

http://ire.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://ire.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Jun 1, 2003Version of Record>>

at UNIV DO EST DO RIO DE JANEIRO on October 13, 2014ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from at UNIV DO EST DO RIO DE JANEIRO on October 13, 2014ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://ire.sagepub.com/



http://ire.sagepub.com/content/17/2/153


http://www.sagepublications.com/

http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/DDMI/DavidDavies.htm

http://ire.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts


http://ire.sagepub.com/subscriptions


http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav


http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml


http://ire.sagepub.com/content/17/2/153.full.pdf








http://ire.sagepub.com/content/17/2/153.full.pdf

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav




http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/en/research/DDMI/DavidDavies.htm

http://www.sagepublications.com/





fractions to the forefront of the transnational realm.7 These scholars also identify

the ultimate effect of this process of transnational class formation as the

emergence of new political forms, which they variously describe as ‘transnational

apparatuses’ or a ‘new constitutionalism’.8 This ‘internationalization of the state’provides a conceptual counterpart to their other focus in IPE: the complex,

incremental formation of a transnational civil society.9

A group of international organizations that overlaps with, but does not quite fit,

this neo-Gramscian project are those which provide development grants to the

former colonial parts of the world. These include multilateral aid organizations,

such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP), and non-governmental organizations like

CARE, Church World Service, and the Rockefeller Foundation.10 On the one

hand, what these international aid organizations do is entirely consistent with theneo-Gramscian understanding of international organizations as a locus of

transnational hegemony. Their projects and programmes help to develop the

material capabilities, institutional norms and rules, and ideals of capitalist

development.11 They also frequently overlap with, and facilitate the work of, other

international organizations. The UNDP, for example, is formally linked to the

World Bank through the United Nations system and provides both ‘pre-

investment’ studies for the Bank and follow-up ‘post-investment’ technical

assistance, such as training and consultancy. On the other hand, agents with

recognizable ties to a transnationalizing capitalist class are largely absent from thefunding, policy-making, administration, and project implementation of these

organizations.12 The UN Specialized Agencies, such as the Food and Agriculture

Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Labour

Organization (ILO), for example, rely primarily on in-house experts rather than

private contractors to implement their projects. Although there are some private

foundations with recognizable ties to capitalists, the overwhelming majority

are intergovernmental and religious organizations whose funding comes

predominantly from taxpayers and individual donations.13 The puzzle for neo-

Gramscian scholars is the following: what is the process that connects theseinternational aid organizations to the transnationalization of capitalism? More

specifically, how is it possible that a group of international organizations with few

ties to a transnationalizing capitalist class contributes so clearly to its hegemony?

My approach to this question is to examine international aid organizations

(IAOs) through the analytical lens of gift exchange. A fundamental difference

between IAOs and other international organizations is that they engage in a very

specific kind of social practice: they solicit and distribute gifts. According to

anthropologists, the primary purpose of a gift is to initiate or reinforce a social

relationship between donor and recipient. With all other types of internationalorganizations, by contrast, the relation is defined by contractual obligations.

The terms of a loan from the International Monetary Fund, for example, are

carefully spelled out and – unlike a gift – must eventually be paid back. The rules

promulgated by the World Trade Organization define and enforce trade

154 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 17(2)

at UNIV DO EST DO RIO DE JANEIRO on October 13, 2014ire.sagepub.comDownloaded from







agreements. The significance of giving for neo-Gramscian inquiry is that it creates

a very powerful mechanism of consent . The acceptance of a gift that cannot be

reciprocated – as in the case of IAO grants – is a signal of acquiescence in the

terms by which it is given. When the practice is collectivized, as is also the casefor IAOs, it can also become a means of forging common identity among donors.

The institutionalization process is similar in this respect to the process of

transnational class formation described by neo-Gramscians; only in this case, it

involves the identification and promotion not of economic opportunities but of

ethical ideals. Finally, because the social relations of giving are analytically

distinct from the social relations of production, the perspective of gift exchange

provides a conceptual framework for resolving the key puzzle: what is the

connection between IAOs and the transnationalization of capitalism?

The argument unfolds in three parts. In the first part, I review the insights of anthropologists and historical sociologists who have studied the social relations of

giving in detail. Specifically, I identify where and how giving in general and

international aid in particular can be understood as both a mechanism of consent,

compelling acquiescence of recipients to a material order of things, and a means

of forging common identity and ideals among donors. This summarizes arguments

that I have developed elsewhere at length and follows a ‘retroductive’ method of

inquiry that is broadly consistent with a neo-Gramscian approach.14 In the second

part, I apply this conceptual framework to the two major types of IAOs: those with

religious affiliations and those which are membership organizations of states. Thispart focuses on the specific ethical justifications and forms of intermediation that

create incentives for donors to give. It confirms that the origins of these

organizations are not only distinct from, but also substantially pre-date, the current

transnationalizing relations of production. In the third part, I take up the central

question, showing where and how IAOs contribute to the construction of capitalist

hegemony in a neo-Gramscian sense. The extension and acceptance of gifts in this

context, I argue, infuses the basic conditions of capital accumulation with an

ethical meaning and content, allowing donors to judge recipients and compelling

recipients to shoulder responsibility for their own plight. I close with a brief discussion of the implications of this analysis for neo-Gramscian IPE.

The social relations of giving

IAOs engage in a very specific type of practice that shows broad commonalities

across human society: they solicit and distribute gifts. According to anthropologist

Marcel Mauss, giving differs fundamentally from other forms of resource

allocation because its primary focus is not the material resource but the socialrelationship that is created or reinforced.15 With economic exchange, for example,

the focus is primarily on the resources; the relation between parties is narrowly

defined by contractual agreements that are mediated through market or market-

like institutions that define and enforce equivalence (e.g. mechanisms of price and

GIVING AS A MECHANISM OF CONSENT 155








barter). With redistribution, the governing relation is usually between the

individual and the state; resources are appropriated and distributed by centralized

political authorities (in modern welfare states, on the basis of politically achieved

rights). In contrast to these, a gift creates only a social obligation to reciprocate.To put this another way, if a gift is returned, the relationship itself is rejected,

along with any meanings it was intended to convey. If it is accepted, however, the

compulsion to reciprocate can become acute. Mauss went so far as to describe the

obligation to reciprocate a gift as a universal norm in human society.16

Pursuing Mauss’s insight into the social power of giving, Marshall Sahlins

argued that the ability to suppress or suspend the obligation to reciprocate a gift

was a powerful signal of hierarchy between donor and recipient. Because giving

does not involve the use of coercive force, he further argued that such practices

could work to naturalize a hierarchical relationship over time; by extension, itcould also work to naturalize the unequal access to resources that allowed the

donor to give greater gifts in the first place.17 Describing the receiving side of this

kind of social relation, Pierre Bourdieu identified the unreciprocated gift as a form

of ‘symbolic domination’, or a means of transforming the powerful into the

generous and the weak into the grateful.18 The obligation to reciprocate is filled,

instead, he argued, by gestures of gratitude that signal the recipients’ acquiescence

in an otherwise burdensome order of things.19

The bulk of what can be called ‘foreign aid’ falls into this sociological category

of an unreciprocated gift: it is a direct extension of a gift from one country to thenext that indefinitely suspends the obligation to reciprocate. The further

specification of this practice as symbolic domination is consistent with the insight

of neo-Gramscian scholars who describe bilateral foreign aid as a means of

‘supremacy’ that arose during the Cold War to defend the capitalist system as a

whole.20 Both concepts also usefully distinguish foreign aid from another practice

with which it is often confused: the extension of loans from international financial

institutions (IFIs) like the World Bank.21 A loan by the definition above is a form

of economic exchange, not a gift (the interest charged is the contractually agreed-

to price for the use of principal). During the Debt Crisis the loans extended by theIFIs became a means of overt , not symbolic, domination over the poorer parts of

the world: that is, a means of coercion, not consent.22

The concepts of unreciprocated gift and symbolic domination appear to break

down, however, when it comes to the donations of states to IAOs. With the

introduction of an intermediary like the World Food Programme (WFP), donors

lose control over where their gifts are going, and recipients no longer have a

specific donor to thank. These gifts have more in common, in this respect, with the

donations of individuals to non-governmental IAOs, like World Vision Relief and

Development, Christian Children’s Fund, or the Rotary Foundation of RotaryInternational. In both cases, giving has become a collective practice.

Like gifts that are face-to-face, the institutionalization of giving as a collective

practice shows broad commonalities across human society. The difference is best

captured as a shift in the primary focus of the gift from the social relation between









donor and recipient to the social relation among donors. In the archaic societies

that anthropologists study, gifts intermediated by tribal authorities are infused with

discourses of magic and myth that confirm the giver as part of a cosmological

order.23

In the more complex societies that arose in the Ancient world, givingbecomes identified as an expression of virtue, or the qualities of excellence in an

individual’s character. Those historical sociologists who have studied the juncture

between a society’s belief in virtue and the social necessity to encourage its

practice describe a process of institutionalization that effectively externalizes

virtue (an inner disposition) into virtuous practice (an observable act). Unique to

each society, this process involves two basic steps: (1) the identification and

classification of virtues according to their outward signs; and, (2) the emergence

of intermediaries with the authority to authenticate and judge them as such, or

what Jacques Le Goff calls ‘moral bookkeepers’.24

It also produces a commonethical dilemma that Jean Bodin called ‘the sweet bait of honour’: the incentive to

engage in a virtuous act can shift from the inner disposition to the external reward,

or the public recognition or religious sanction that an individual receives.25

Finally, these scholars observe that both the institutionalization process and the

ethical dilemma that it creates are reinforced when it comes to the virtue of giving.

As a material resource, gifts provide not only the most quantifiable measure of an

individual’s virtue but also a source of revenue for the intermediaries that

authenticate and judge them as such; by extension, they provide the opportunity

for individuals to buy social recognition.26

Fitting these observations back into the material and relational conditions of

giving, it is clear that such institutionalization expands the incentives for donors to

give beyond the simple gratitude or acquiescence of recipients in a direct face-to-

face relationship. To put this another way, ethical discourses and forms of public

scrutiny and praise effectively fill the normative gap that is created when a gift is

not reciprocated because they confirm the virtue of the giver in his own society. At

the same time, however, they also weigh the act of receiving with moral

significance: in accepting such a gift, the recipient is acknowledging (by this

action) not just the material hierarchy but also the moral virtue of the donors.Finally, as with gifts that are face-to-face, the institutionalization of giving creates

no incentive to change the underlying material hierarchy that allows donors to

give greater gifts in the first place. On the contrary, precisely because the practice

of unreciprocated giving is limited to those with material means, it can foster a

more insidious effect over time: the institutionalization of giving can work to

ethically legitimize a material order, recasting the material hierarchy between

donor and recipient as a moral order. In neo-Gramscian terms, it can become a

mechanism of ethical hegemony.27









The ethical justifications for international aid

The donations of states and individuals through IAOs can be understood as forms

of institutionalized giving in the sense described above. In both cases, giving isethically justified as a virtuous practice by intermediaries that authenticate and

encourage it as such. The attribution of virtue is reinforced by the anonymity of

the donations in relation to the recipients as well as the nature of the programmes

they fund, which focus overwhelmingly on the needs of the poorest people and

states. A quick survey of the mission statements and objectives of IAOs reveals a

broad adherence to the liberal ideal of ‘development’ and the obligation to help

foster it.28 Outside the consensus that development is good,29 however, there

appears to be widespread confusion and controversy over what ‘development’

actually is and how it is to be achieved. Some IAOs unabashedly celebrate neo-liberal ideals, promoting entrepreneurship and market principles as a general

cure.30 Others just as adamantly promote ‘social justice’ and explore the potential

for counter-hegemonic projects.31 Still others emphasize broadly self-interested

concerns, justifying donations by reference to the longer-term threat that poverty

poses to the well-being of the rest of the world.32

An ethical justification that cuts beneath this confusion identifies international

giving as an expression of ‘charity’, or an obligation to help alleviate the suffering

of the poor. This conception of giving was first articulated by the early Christian

Church and best describes the donations of individuals to religiously affiliatedIAOs, which currently capture the largest share of all individual donations to

overseas work.33 The original meaning of charity – the love of God extended to all

men – still resonates in the mission statement of Catholic Relief Service, which

identifies the ‘fundamental motivating force’ behind its work as the ‘Gospel of

Jesus Christ as it pertains to the alleviation of human suffering, the development

of people, and fostering of charity and justice in the world’.34

As with IAOs that emphasize ‘social justice’, this type of ethical justification

appears more consistent with efforts to resist or counter, than accommodate, the

effects of transnationalizing capitalism. The aid workers funded by religiousorganizations are among the most dedicated in the world, often devoting

themselves for long periods to the people they are charged to help and becoming

involved with local resistance politics as a result.35 With regard to the organiz-

ations themselves, however, the connection is much less clear. On the one hand,

the material basis of these organizations in the donations of individuals allows

them to act as an independent moral authority in public debate.36 Religiously

based IAOs are at the centre of a wide range of advocacy against the excesses of

transnationalizing capitalism, including campaigns to forgive the huge overhang

of debt in the poorest countries and boycott World Bank bonds.

37

On the otherhand, history indicates that religious organizations more often accommodate, than

resist, the secular powers that be. The same medieval Church that institutionalized

the virtue of charity also invented ‘purgatory’, the notorious way station on the

road to heaven or hell, which allowed the wealthy to purchase their way into









paradise.38 Religious missionary work was also involved with the long history of

colonialism, which, from a neo-Gramscian perspective, makes it just as likely to

be used as a means of containing counter-hegemonic forces.39 What has

consistently explained this kind of giving, in other words, is not the troubles of thematerial world but the affirmation of the faithful and the moral authority of the

Church.

Another ethical justification that cuts beneath the confusion of development

objectives identifies international giving as a civic virtue, or an expression of

concern for, and commitment to, the community of which the giver is a part. This

conception of giving was first articulated by Aristotle and best applies to the

donations of states to multilateral aid organizations, which currently account for

the largest share of all IAO grants.40 The mission statement of the United Nations

Development Programme (UNDP), for example, emphasizes peace – or the well-ordering of the community of states – as much as prosperity and includes a copy

of relevant portions of the Charter of the United Nations.41

Like the spiritual ideals that justify religious giving, the civic ideals that justify

the donations of states to IAOs appear to run counter to prevailing political

hierarchies and neo-liberal norms. This is particularly evident in the effort of these

organizations to put the ideal of sovereign equality into practice by giving

recipient states a major voice. The policy-making organ of the UNDP and the UN

Fund for Population (i.e. the Executive Board), for example, consists of 12 donors

and 24 recipient states and bases funding allocations on a formula that incorpor-ates social and economic indicators.42 At the field level, all decisions regarding

implementation and evaluation of projects are formally handled by a committee

that includes representatives from the recipient state, the UNDP, and the

implementing agency (typically a UN Specialized Agency like the International

Civil Aviation Organization).43 These efforts contrast sharply with the governing

practices of international financial institutions (IFIs), which are dominated by the

industrialized states. Voting at the World Bank and the International Monetary

Fund, for example, is based on the share of financial contribution, and project-

level decisions are heavily influenced by the advice of in-house economists andfinancial analysts.44 The governing procedures of non-governmental IAOs tend to

resemble the donor-dominated IFIs but demonstrate even less accountability.45

From a broader perspective, however, multilateral IAOs cannot be understood

outside the practice of foreign aid as a whole. The best indicator of this is a

parallel institutionalization, which has progressively redefined all forms of

‘development assistance’ as a collective endeavour of the former colonizing states

(including bilateral grants, where the donor retains full control).46 The critical

organization here is not a multilateral aid-giving organization but a special

committee of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD): the Development Assistance Committee, or ‘DAC’.47 Created in 1960,

just as decolonization was reaching its peak, the sole purpose of the DAC has been

to monitor and evaluate the foreign aid programmes of its member states.

From the arguments above, the DAC can be understood as a ‘moral book-









keeper’ or the authenticator of foreign aid as a virtuous practice. Its annual reports

contain perhaps the strongest ethical justification of foreign aid as a civic virtue.

As the first DAC report asserted in 1962: ‘[t]here are few issues of such

fundamental importance for world peace and prosperity as that of aid to the lessdeveloped countries’.48 In contrast with religiously based IAOs, the authenti-

fication of virtue here is very public: the DAC systematically ranks donor states

against one another according to various measures of ‘effort’, such as the

percentage of foreign aid in a donor’s GNP and the relative share of grants as

opposed to loans.49 It also subjects each donor to extensive ‘peer review’ by other

donors, the findings of which become the basis for a general review and

evaluation by the entire membership.50 The annual reports, which summarize

these processes, also abound in ethical judgements, praising the Scandinavians as

the standard of excellence and admonishing the United States and Japan for fallingshort.51 In contrast to multilateral IAOs, however, all this monitoring, evaluating,

and ranking is entirely self-referential. Membership on the DAC is even more

restricted than the OECD, which is often criticized as an exclusive club of wealthy

states.52 Given the sharp material divide across which this assistance is given, the

effect is to add a layer of discursive justification to the symbolic and (potentially)

overt domination of bilateral grants and concessional loans.

The significance of multilateral IAOs in this context is that they represent an

actual, not just a discursive, multilateralization of foreign aid. Though accounting

for less than 15 percent of ‘official development assistance’ (as this combinationof multilateral and bilateral grants and concessional loans has been called), these

organizations are the one place where the civic ideals attributed to the whole are

actually put into practice.53 Indeed, the multilateral aspiration for foreign aid was

a key theme of President Truman’s Point Four speech of 1949, which launched the

worldwide practice by extending the Marshall Plan to ‘underdeveloped’ parts of

the world.54 The civic ideals of sovereign equality and inter-state community

operationalized in the governing and field practices of multilateral IAOs has

assumed an even greater rhetorical prominence in recent years. This is indicated

by a growing consensus on the need for a more equal relation between donor andrecipient states in the literature on development practice.55 It is also reflected in

the DAC’s shifting characterization of its work, from a paternalistic ‘development

assistance’ in the 1960s to ‘development co-operation’ in the 1970s and 1980s

and, most recently, ‘development partnership’, a term meant to convey mutuality

and equality with recipient states.56 From the perspective of the social relations of

giving, in short, multilateral IAOs are the ethical core of foreign aid.

International aid and capitalist hegemony

The two types of IAOs emphasized above (encompassing the bulk of the practice)

confirms the lack of a direct connection between the gifts of international aid and

a transnationalizing capitalist class. For both religious and multilateral IAOs, the









ethical justifications that encourage donors to give not only diverge sharply from

neo-liberal ideology but also reinforce identities and legitimize social hierarchies

whose origins substantially pre-date the current period: the authority of religious

organizations and the geopolitical hierarchy between the industrialized states andtheir former colonies. There remains, nonetheless, an unambiguous connection to

the transnationalizing capitalist system: the projects these organizations fund are

providing the basic material conditions of capital accumulation in the poorest

parts of the world. To elaborate, the moral injunction at the core of religious

giving – that is, to alleviate the suffering of the poor – addresses the most basic

condition for the generation of surplus value: a viable labour force. By extension,

the emphasis of multilateral agencies on sovereign equality supports the type of

basic institutions and infrastructures that facilitate capital circulation in recipient

states. In combination, the aid provided by these organizations is second only tobilateral grants as a source of resource transfers to the UN-designated ‘least

developed countries’, or the ‘Fourth World’.57

On the one hand, the fact that these basic conditions of capital accumulation

are being provided by non-capitalist agents confirms the basic insight of Karl

Marx about capitalist ideology: it fundamentally misrecognizes the social

conditions of economic growth.58 On the other hand, the fact that these basic

conditions are being provided as gifts helps to explain their gross inadequacy

relative to any criterion of need.59 The underlying cause of these donations, as I

have emphasized, is neither humanitarian nor civic ideals but the ethical justifi-cation of the donors: that is, the public recognition or religious sanction they

receive for having engaged in a virtuous act. (Note that the same can be said for

donations from individuals with more recognizable ties to a transnationalizing

capitalist class. The annual reports of secular non-governmental IAOs are full of

testimonials to the beneficence of donors.)60

The significance of IAOs for transnationalizing capitalism, I believe, is that

they infuse these basic conditions of capital accumulation with an ethical meaning

and content. This is consistent with the insight of Mauss, Sahlins, and Bourdieu

that the primary purpose of a gift is not the resources extended but the socialrelationship created or reinforced. Given the universal norm of reciprocity,

suspending the obligation to reciprocate here creates the same kind of symbolic

domination found in a direct face-to-face relation: it allows donors to treat

recipients ‘as if’ they could, in fact, reciprocate. Only in this case, it creates an

added fiction of reciprocal moral agency.61 The relevant contrast is the provision

of basic needs not as a gift but as a redistributive right – as is the case within most

industrialized countries – which conveys the opposite social meaning: not the

virtue of the wealthy but the political achievement of the poor based on their real

(political and moral) agency.The effect of all this moralizing on the donor side can be seen in the pervasive

tendency to blame the problems or failures of development on flaws in the

character of the recipients as in the lack of hard work, integrity, and thrift.62 This,

of course, is the prevailing orthodoxy on the neo-liberal right, which views any









material assistance to the poor as compromising individual initiative or interfering

with the market.63 However, it also infuses the discourse and practice of aid

organizations more generally. The same DAC reports that affirm the generosity of

donors also assume a general incompetence or passivity on the part of recipients,which takes the form of frequent references to the need for ‘good governance’ and

the promulgation of rules for dealing with corruption and bribery.64 The effect on

the recipient side is even more significant. In accepting these gifts, recipients are

not only acknowledging the moral virtue of the donors but agreeing (by this act) to

very distinctive terms: to ‘develop’, i.e. to change themselves according to certain

normative standards.65 To put this another way, the gifts of IAOs create a powerful

mechanism of consent that can help to explain the widespread conforming of the

poorest parts of the world to the harsh neo-liberal order.

It is this extension of moral accountability to the recipients, I believe, thatidentifies the gifts of IAOs as a distinctively capitalist form of giving: that is, a

type of virtuous practice specific to the capitalist mode of production. Whereas the

ethical justifications of donors described above have pre-capitalist roots (medieval

charity and Aristotelian virtue ethics, respectively), this kind of ethical judgement

of recipients emerged only with the transition to capitalism in early modern

England. The conditions, then, were, in fact, broadly analogous to the contem-

porary conditions described above. Then as now, the expanding social property

relations of capitalism were drawing in pre-capitalist social classes and producing

widespread social upheaval and disorder as a result.66

Then as now, a new kind of institutionalized giving was on the front line, articulating and fashioning an ethical

response (Wilbur K. Jordan goes so far as to credit early modern philanthropy

with the foundations of the liberal order itself).67 Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer

characterize the critical social transformation of 16th-century England as the

disciplining and reconstitution of the peasants as free labourers in the new

capitalist order, a process they call moral regulation.68 Although they identify the

primary agent of this process as the coercive apparatus of the state, the term

applies equally to the privately funded almshouses, workhouses, and orphanages

that proliferated in England in the early modern era.69

The new philanthropistsresponded to the social disorder by providing the poor with food, shelter, and

discipline without the coercive apparatuses of the state by taking only the

‘deserving’ poor and putting the able-bodied among them to work. For the first

time, in short, the poor had to prove themselves deserving of a gift.70

Though they have shed the dour discourses of early modern philanthropy

distinguishing the ‘deserving’ from the ‘undeserving’ and though applications are

much kinder and gentler, the basic message conveyed by the extension and

acceptance of the gifts of IAOs remains the same: the only way out of the harsh

conditions of the new transnationalizing capitalist order is self-help. The mostcommon type of multilateral grant, for example, is for technical assistance, a

broad category that includes all manner of training, scholarships, and consultancy

designed to help recipients help themselves.71 Indeed, the standard by which all

aid programmes are evaluated – the preoccupation with ‘effectiveness’ across the









development policy field – inexorably resolves into the question: how well have

recipients learned to manage the new project, programme, institution, etc. by

themselves? (Or, to put it more crudely, when will they be able to get off the

dole?)72

The mission and policy statements of these organizations are full of exhortations to ‘hard work’, ‘integrity’, and ‘thrift’ – terms that would not be

unfamiliar to the early modern poor.73

Conclusion: the philanthropy of states

To briefly summarize this inquiry into the role of IAOs in the transnationalization

of capitalism, this article confirms that the social relations of giving embodied in

these organizations are not only distinct from the social property relations of capitalism but reinforce identities, ideologies, and social hierarchies whose origins

substantially pre-date the current period. Their significance for the

transnationalization of capitalism, I argued, is that they infuse the basic material

conditions of capital accumulation – for which these organizations are a major

provider in the poorest parts of the world – with an ethical meaning and content.

The effect can be seen in the tendency of donors to attribute the failures of

capitalist development to flaws in the character of recipients (i.e. the lack of ‘hard

work’, ‘integrity’, and ‘thrift’) as well as the tendency of recipients to accept

responsibility for their development. They are a means, in other words, of whatCorrigan and Sayer call moral regulation, or the disciplining and reconstitution of

the world’s poor to the harsh new transnationalizing capitalist order.

Two basic insights follow from this analysis. First is the general relevance of

theories of gift exchange for neo-Gramscian IPE. The extension and acceptance of

gifts – what I have described as the social relations between donor and recipient –

captures the actual mechanism of consent behind two very different kinds of

hegemony associated with transnationalizing capitalism: the domination of the

United States over the newly decolonized states during the Cold War through

bilateral aid (what Augelli and Murphy call ‘supremacy’ or ‘hegemony by fraud’);and the more subtle and pervasive ‘ethical hegemony’, or the widespread acqui-

escence in the ideals of development among the world’s poor. The latter, which I

specified as a process of moral regulation, identifies IAOs as a critical counterpart

to the international organizations emphasized by neo-Gramscian scholars, which

provide the more commonly understood forms of capitalist regulation in the rules,

norms, and institutional frameworks of transnational production and exchange.

The further insights of historical sociologists into the institutionalization of giving

– what I have described as the social relations among donors – suggest that grant

aid giving and receiving is a mechanism of consent that infuses a sense of self-help among the recipients, while nurturing a sense of community among the

donors. The historical precedent was the emergence and consolidation of religious

communities across political boundaries, of which religiously affiliated IAOs

are only the most recent example. More recently, however, new transnational









communities of donors have emerged, as indicated by the creation of umbrella

organizations of non-governmental IAOs, which establish and promote standards

of good aid practice and provide a forum for co-ordination of policy and

programmes.74

In Jacques Le Goff’s terms, they are a new kind of moral book-keeper on the international stage, identifying, encouraging, and authenticating

international giving as a virtuous practice.

The second insight is that both mechanisms of giving – eliciting consent to the

existing world of self-help and fostering a donor community – apply equally to

states as well as individuals. The DAC is a membership organization of donor

states: all of its monitoring, evaluating, and ranking of aid practice attributes

virtue to states, not individuals. A majority of grants in the category of ‘technical

assistance’ are likewise targeted at the ‘institutional capacities’ of states; that is, to

train government bureaucrats in the type of rational dispositions that donorsbelieve are necessary for good governance.75 In fact the whole logic of these

transnationalizing social relations of giving appear to resolve at the level of states.

States are not only the primary donors and recipients of development assistance in

all of its forms but also non-governmental agents are inexorably drawn into their

orbit. This is especially true for secular IAOs, which derive a large portion of their

funding from subcontracting with the aid programmes of their home states.76

However, all non-government IAOs are compelled to work through recipient

states in the field.77 The encompassing logic of inter-state relations is further

indicated by the encompassing term, ‘development’, which was identified andoperationalized from the start as a specific attribute of states (e.g. ‘less’ and ‘least’

developed, ‘underdeveloped’, ‘developing’, and so on).78 As post-structuralists

have long argued, development is a discourse of social difference, which

articulates the (supposedly) self-achieved status of the industrialized states against

which all other parts of the world must be judged.79 From the argument presented

here, development is a contemporary form of the old moral injunction of self-help:

the implicit terms of a distinctively capitalist social relation of giving aimed at

curing the (supposed) deficiencies of deserving recipient states.80

What this last observation suggests is that the approach to internationalpolitical economy emphasized by neo-Gramscian scholars remains incomplete.

Whereas the thrust of their argument identifies the sovereign state as a transient

political form that is being reconstituted as the internationalized state under

pressures from expanding transnational relations of production, what is being

reconstituted and reinforced in the new social relations of giving described above

is an alienated and individuated sovereignty81 – not unlike the alienated and

individuated property to which the poor are inexorably consigned in their labour

power. As in the original transition to capitalism in the early modern era, the

extension and acceptance of gifts has been working to distinguish two distinctsocial kinds in the post-war system of states: virtuous (and newly communal)

donors, whose power and wealth is ethically justified, and grateful (but newly

alienated) recipients, who attempt to shoulder responsibility for their own plight.









Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the International StudiesAssociation at New Orleans, USA, 26 March 2002. I am grateful for the comments by the panellists

and the anonymous reviewers of this journal.

Notes

1 Although the notion of hegemony contains the dialectic of coercion and consent, neo-Gramscianscholars focus on the emergence of consent in otherwise coercive international relations.According to Stephen Gill (1990), hegemony ‘generally refers to a relation between socialclasses, in which one class fraction or class grouping takes a leading role by the active consent of other classes and groups. Hegemony, therefore, is not a relation of coercive force as such (as it is

viewed in political realist theory), but rather one of consent gained through “intellectual andmoral leadership”. American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, p.42. New York:Cambridge University Press. For a different interpretation, see Perry Anderson (1976/7) ‘TheAntinomies of Antonio Gramsci’, New Left Review 100: 5–78. For the distinction between‘morality’ and ‘ethics’, I follow Geoffrey Harpham’s: ‘Morality is the “rigor” of the ethicalthought, where the rubber of a definite principle meets the road of reality. Ethics constitutes ageneral imperative to “act on principle”; morality constitutes a further imperative nested withinthe ethical that commands us to act now and on the right principle, that is, the one we want tostand as principle’. ‘Ethics’, in Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (eds) (1995) Critical

Terms for Literary Studies, p.397. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.2 Robert W. Cox (1983) ‘Gramsci, Hegemony and International Relations: An Essay in Method’,

Millennium 12: 162–75, especially p.172 on international organizations as mechanisms of

hegemony. Key international organizations include a group of creditors, an investor, and aninvestment guarantor known as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), whichstabilizes capital circulation, the World Trade Organization (WTO), which facilitates trade, theWorld Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which advances property rights, andinternational public utilities such as the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization(Intelsat).

3 Robert W. Cox (1981) ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International RelationsTheory’, Millennium 10: 139.

4 Murphy uses the French regulationists’ term, ‘modes of regulation’. Craig Murphy (1994) International Organisation and Industrial Change, pp.9, 34. New York: Oxford University Press;Alain Lipietz (1987) Mirages and Miracles: The Crises of Global Fordism, pp.33–4. New York:Verso. Murphy traces the origins of the first international organizations to the efforts of wealthy

industrialists and aristocrats in 19th-century Europe in response to the rapidly consolidatingcontinent-wide market of the United States. Like Robert Cox, Murphy (p.9) also uses DavidGordon’s term, ‘social structures of accumulation’, to refer to these institutions. Robert W. Cox(1987) Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History, pp.159,309–53. New York: Columbia University Press. David M. Gordon, ‘Stages of Accumulation andLong Economic Cycles’, in Terrence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein (eds) (1980) Stages of

Accumulation Processes of the World System, pp.9–45. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.5 Gill (1990) (see note 1). See also Kees van der Pijl (1984) The Making of an Atlantic Ruling

Class. London: Verso.6 Mark Rupert (2000) Ideologies of Globalization: Contending Visions of a New World Order ,

pp.54–64. New York: Routledge.7 Jim Glassman (1999) ‘State Power beyond the “Territorial Trap”: the Internationalization of the

State’, Political Geography 18: 669–96.8 On the emergence of transnational apparatuses, see William I. Robinson (2001) ‘Social Theory

and Globalization: the Rise of a Transnational State’, Theory and Society 30: 157–200; andGlassman (see note 7). Stephen Gill (2001) describes this process as a ‘new constitutionalism’.‘Constitutionalising Inequality and the Clash of Globalisations’, a Paper Presented at the AnnualMeeting of the International Studies Association in Chicago, 21–24 February 2001.









9 On transnational civil society, see, for example, Cox (1983), p.171 (see note 2).10 I define non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as an inclusive category of donation-dependent

organizations that are neither governmental nor profit-seeking. For alternative definitions, seeTerje Tvedt (1998) Angels of Mercy or Development Diplomats: NGOs and Foreign Aid ,

pp.11–40. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.11 See, for example, the mission statements of the following: InterAction (1993) ‘InterAction’sPrivate Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards’. Washington, DC: InterAction; the ExecutiveBoard of United Nations Development Programme and of the United Nations Population Fund(1996) ‘Decisions adopted by the Executive Board during 1996’, pp.36–40. New York: UNDP,DP/1997/1, dated 17 October 1996 (96/28 and 96/29).

12 For an argument that suggests indirect ties between IAO professionals and corporate executives,see Kees van der Pijl (1998) Transnational Classes and International Relations, pp.137–65. NewYork: Routledge. He argues that ties between the IAOs and capital become apparent through thesocialization of ‘cadres’, such as professional international civil servants working for inter-governmental IAOs and professionals working for non-governmental IAOs (sometimes calledphilanthropoids). However, the cadres of non-governmental and intergovernmental IAOs are

quite different from for-profit corporate cadres despite similarities in their class origins, trainingin planning and systems analysis, a rational disposition, and a belief in meritocracy. Their relativeautonomy from capital depends on a variety of factors including struggles among classes andclass fractions. See Nicos Poulantzas (1980) State, Power, Socialism, pp.45, 49, 119, 128.London: Verso. On similarities and differences in the dispositions of a variety of cadres in aFrench case study, see Pierre Bourdieu (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of

Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.13 The aid provided by intergovernmental IAOs comes almost entirely from OECD states though

the United Nations Children’s Fund. UNICEF (and the UNDP since 1999) also solicit funds fromindividual donors. In 2000, their total amounted to 7.7 billion dollars (current US dollars).Development Assistance Committee [DAC] (annual) Development Co-operation, 2001,pp.230–5. Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). [also

known as Development Assistance between 1962 and 1971 and DAC Journal since 1999]. Theprivate foreign aid provided by non-governmental IAOs amounted to 6.9 billion dollars in 2000(DAC 2001, p.231). In estimating the share of individual donations, I used figures from theUnited States, which represented about 55 percent of all private foreign aid by non-governmentalIAOs in the late 1990s. The share of direct contributions from individuals and their bequests tothese organizations was 51 percent in 1998. AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy (2002) Giving USA2002, p.151. Indianapolis, IN: AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy.

14 Hattori (2001) ‘Reconceptualizing Foreign Aid’, Review of International Political Economy 8(4):633–660; Hattori (2003) ‘The Moral Politics of Foreign Aid’, Review of International Studies

29(2): 231–49. On a retroductive method of inquiry, see Derek Sayer (1979) Marx’s Method: Ideology, Science and Critique in Capital, pp.105–47. Hassocks, Sussex, UK: Harvester; AndrewSayer (1992) Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, 2nd edn, pp.158–9. New York:Routledge. For a similar but more teleological method, see Bertell Ollman (1993) Dialectical

Investigations. New York: Routledge. This method of inquiry is consistent with a critical realistphilosophy of social science, which assumes a layered social reality that is constituted by socialrelations. See Roy Bhaskar (1989) The Possibility of Naturalism, 2nd edn. London: HarvesterWheatsheaf; Andrew Collier (1994) Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar’s

Philosophy. New York: Verso. While Mark Rupert (see my note 6; his claim in his note 8 onp.156) regards the philosophical basis of neo-Gramscianism as consistent with critical realism,Stephen Gill regards Gramsci not just as a dialectically oriented philosophical realist but astranscending both the dualism between subject and object and the language of cause and effect.See Gill (1993) ‘Epistemology, Ontology and the “Italian School”’ in Stephen Gill (ed.) (1993)Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations, pp.22–3. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press. On Gill’s claim, see Randall D. Germain and Michael Kenny (1998) ‘EngagingGramsci: International Theory and the New Gramscians’, Review of International Studies 24:3–21.

15 Marcel Mauss (1967) The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. NewYork: Norton; Marshall Sahlins (1972) Stone Age Economics, pp.185–230. Chicago: Aldine,following Karl Polanyi (1944) The Great Transformation, pp.43–55. New York: Farrar andPinehart.

16 Mauss, pp.10–12 (see note 15). This insight has been widely accepted in sociological and









anthropological theory. For methodological individualist applications, see Karen S. Cook (ed.)(1989) Social Exchange Theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. For applications in internationalrelations theory, see David A. Baldwin (1989) Paradoxes of Power . Cambridge, MA: Blackwell;(1985) Economic Statecraft , especially pp.290–335 on foreign aid. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press. For methodological collectivist applications, see Claude Levi-Strauss (1969)The Elementary Structures of Kinship, revised edn. Boston: Beacon.17 Sahlins, pp.195–6, 171–83, 204–15 (see note 15). Sahlins went on to differentiate giving

practices by the underlying power relation between donor and recipient. In the basic form,reciprocation signals a ‘balanced’ social relationship between equals. In ‘generalizedreciprocity’, reciprocity is temporarily suspended to acknowledge a temporary inequality, asbetween parents and children. The ability to indefinitely suppress or suspend the obligation toreciprocate indicated a durable social hierarchy.

18 Symbolic domination misrecognizes underlying power relations through practices that allowrelations of domination to be maintained through strategies which are ‘euphemized’ and‘disguised’. Pierre Bourdieu (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, p.191. New York:Cambridge University Press; pp.183–97 on his original analysis of symbolic domination through

gifts.19 Bourdieu (1977), pp.4–6 (see note 18); (1990) The Logic of Practice, pp.98–111. Cambridge,UK: Polity. Scholars engaging with Bourdieu’s work from a historical materialist perspectivehave interpreted the concept ‘symbolic domination’ as elaborating the conditioned or structuralnature of consent. According to Terry Eagleton, for example, symbolic domination is Bourdieu’sway of rethinking and elaborating the Gramscian concept of hegemony. Terry Eagleton (1991)

Ideology, p.159. New York: Verso. For a similar neo-Gramscian application, see Van der Pijl,pp.137–43 (see note 12).

20 Therefore, not true hegemony but ‘hegemony by fraud’. Enrico Augelli and Craig Murphy(1988) America’s Quest for Supremacy and the Third World: a Gramscian Analysis, pp.75–96.London: Pinter; and Craig Murphy (1993) ‘International Institutions, Decolonization, andDevelopment’, International Political Science Review 14: 71–85. Note that this argument

assumes that the interests of a transnationalizing capitalist class were largely coincident withnational security interests during that period.21 World-system theorists tend to make this mistake. See, for example, Robert E. Wood (1986)

From Marshall Plan to Debt Crisis: Foreign Aid and Development Choices in the World Economy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

22 From among a large literature, see Patricia Adams (1997) ‘The World Bank Finances andInternational Debt Crisis’, in Caroline Thomas and Peter Wilkins (eds) Globalization and the

South, pp.163–85. New York: St. Martin’s Press.23 See especially, Annette B. Weiner (1992) Inalienable Possessions: the Paradox of Keeping While

Giving, especially pp.4, 43, 100. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.24 See especially, Michel Mollat (1986) The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; Paul Veyne (1990) Bread and Circuses: HistoricalSociology and Political Pluralism. New York: Penguin; Jacques Le Goff (1984) The Birth of

Purgatory, pp.173, 189–90, 228–9, 240, 292, 302–5, 322. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.25 Michael Walzer (1983) Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality, pp.249–68. New

York: Basic Books.26 ‘Without the means to be corrupt, people cannot corrupt themselves.’ Sebastian de Grazia (1990)

Machiavelli in Hell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p.106. Frankena identifies thisheightened ethical concern in the careful terminology that arose in the West to distinguish theinner disposition to give, benevolence, from its external practice: beneficence. William Frankena(1987) ‘Beneficence/Benevolence’, Social Philosophy and Policy 4: 1–20.

27 According to Augelli and Murphy, p.125, ‘hegemony can be ethical insofar as a social grouprules with the “voluntarily given” consent of the ruled, and as long as the hegemonic groupperforms an “educative and formative role” in respect to the subaltern groups and the popularmasses, both indirectly through the state, and directly through private organizations in civilsociety’. (see note 20; also see pp.124–6, 200).

28 For a brief overview of these organizations, see OECD (1990) Directory of Non-Governmental Development Organisations in OECD Member Countries. Paris: Development Centre of theOECD; (1992) Directory of Non-Governmental Environment and Development Organisations inOECD Member Countries. Paris: Development Centre of the OECD; (1993) Human Rights,

Refugees, Migrants and Development: Directory of NGOs in OECD Countries. Paris:









Development Centre of the OECD; (1997) International Co-operation for Habitat and Urban

Development: Directory of Non-Governmental Organisations in OECD Countries. Paris:Development Centre of the OECD. For full mission statements, see the website of InterAction, anassociation of international development non-governmental organizations in the United States,

which has links to most of its 160 member organizations: [http://www.interaction.org] (19 July2002). For the objectives of United Nations affiliated intergovernmental IAOs, see UnitedNations (2001) Basic Facts about the United Nations. New York: UN Department of PublicInformation.

29 On this consensus within shifting ideals of development assistance, see Lester Pearson et al.(1969) Partners in Development: The Report of the Commission on International Development .New York: Praeger; Willy Brandt et al. (1980) North-South: A Program for Survival (The Report

of the Independent Commission on International Development Issues). Cambridge, MA: MITPress; Gro Harlem Brundtland et al (1987) Our Common Future: The Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development . New York: Oxford University Press;Commission on Global Governance (1995) Our Global Neighbourhood . New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

30 See, for example, Trickleup, a non-governmental organization based in New York City thatprovides seed capital for small business start-ups. They give US$100 and expect each recipient towork more than 250 hours on the new venture in the first three months and save or reinvest atleast 20 percent of the profit. [http://www.trickleup.org/00mediakit_factsheet.htm] (8 July 2002).

31 See, for example, Advocacy Institute, a non-governmental organization based in Washington,DC, which ‘works to make social justice leadership strategic, effective, and sustainable in pursuitof a just world’. [http://www.advocacy.org/about.htm] (8 July 2002). See also The InternationalDevelopment Exchange (IDEX), which identifies itself as ‘a social change organization thatchallenges social and economic injustices faced by marginalized groups in Asia, Africa, andLatin America’. International Development Exchange (1999) IDEX Update (Spring 1999), p.2.San Francisco: IDEX. For a recent example of counter-hegemonic work, see Oxfam America(2002) ‘Global Finance Hurts the Poor: Analysis of the Impact of North-South Private Capital

Flows on Growth, Inequality and Poverty’. Boston: Oxfam America, dated 2 June 2002.[http://www.oxfamamerica.org/pdfs/global_finance.pdf] (19 July 2002).32 See, for example, Zero Population Growth, a US-based non-governmental IAO whose mission

statement aims ‘to slow population growth and achieve a sustainable balance between the Earth’speople and its resources’. The statement adds ‘the fate of the people of the United States cannotbe separated from the fate of the other peoples of the world’. This organization changed its nameto Population Connection in 2002. [http://www.populatinconnection.org/About_Us/policies.html](19 July 2002).

33 L.W. Countryman (1980) The Rich Christians in the Church of the Early Empire: Contradictions

and Accommodations. New York: Edwin Mellen. According to St Thomas Aquinas (1960),giving was not only a virtue in itself (pp.17–25) but also served as a base for all virtues(pp.33–9). On Charity. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press. See also Walter M. Abbott(ed.) (1966) The Document of Vatican II , pp.272–5 on economic development, 300–3 on aid, and584–630 on missionary activities. New York: America Press. There are no exact figures on theportion of individual donations that goes to the overseas work of religious organizations. Myestimate for the United States, however, is at least one half. This is based on data showing thatmore than half of all individual donations – $68 billion in 1998 (current US dollars) – goes toreligious organizations generally and that about three quarters of these organizations engage inoverseas work. AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy (2002) pp.10–11, 59, 75, 84, 94, 171 (see note13); Independent Sector (1996) The Nonprofit Almanac, p.209. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Thus,it is reasonable to assume that a significant portion of the $9 billion they are estimated to havedonated to outside organizations in 1998 went to non-governmental IAOs. Independent Sector(Ibid., pp.211). Just 8 percent of this ($725 million), for example, would constitute a majorityshare of all individual donations to USA-based non-governmental IAOs ($1.45 billion). Inaddition, the Independent Sector (Ibid., pp.210–11) estimates that the international activities of religious organizations included some 1.9 million hours of volunteer work and almost onemillion hours of administrative work in 1991. For an analysis of the work of religious IAOs, see,especially, Brian Smith (1990) More Than Altruism: The Politics of Private Foreign Aid .Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

34 Catholic Relief Services (1998) ‘Catholic Call to Justice: Catholic Campaign for HumanDevelopment’, p.12. Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference. See also Fred Kniss









and David Todd Campbell (1997) ‘The Effect of Religious Orientation on International Relief and Development Organizations’, Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 36: 93–103.

35 The most famous among them are Jose Ramos-Horta and Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, who wereawarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for their work for East Timor. [http://www.wikipedia.com/

w/wiki/phtml?title+East_Timor&printable=yes] (22 July 2002). More generally, see Ian Patick (2001) ‘East Timor Emerging from Conflict: The Role of Local NGOs and InternationalAssistance’, Disasters 25: 48–56. Among numerous examples, see Dana Sawchuk (1997) ‘TheCatholic Church in the Nicaraguan Revolution: A Gramscian Analysis’, Sociology of Religion

58: 39–51. Raymond Luc Levasseur (not dated) ‘Matanza! [Bloodshed]’ [http://home.earthlink.net/ ~neoludd/MATANZA.htm] (22 July 2002). Sam Sloan (not dated) ‘Why Three American NunsWere Killed in El Salvador in 1980’. [http://www.ishipress.com/kellnuns.htm] (22 July 2002).

36 Based on data compiled in AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy (2002) Giving USA 2002, p.151 (seenote 13), over 95 percent of the revenues of USA-based religious organizations is estimated tocome from individual donations.

37 Church World Service, an agency that co-ordinates a wide array of Protestant aid organizations,describes this campaign as modelled after the South African anti-apartheid divestment

movement. [http://www.churchworldservice.org/Educ_Advo/jubilee.html] (21 July 2002). On theconnection among the anti-slavery, anti-Apartheid, and anti-globalization social movements, seeAudie Klotz (2002) ‘Transnational Activism and Global Transformation: The Anti-Apartheid andAbolitionist Experiences’, European Journal of International Relations 8: 49–76.

38 Jacques Le Goff (see note 24); and its effect on charity, see, for example, Joel T. Rosenthal(1972) The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307 –1485. London:Routledge and Kegan Paul.

39 Deborah Gaitskell, ‘At Home with Hegemony? Coercion and Consent in the Education of African Girls for Domesticity in South Africa before 1910’, in Shula Marks and Dagmar Engels(eds) (1994) Contesting Colonial Hegemony: Gramsci and Hegemony, pp.110–28. London:British Academic Press; Kathryn Burns (1999) Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual

Economy of Cuzco, Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

40 Aristotle (1962) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Martin Ostwald, especially Book 4 and p.306 inthe glossary. New York: Macmillan. The average share of multilateral IAOs out of all IAO grantsbetween 1997 and 2000 was 56 percent (this falls to 32 percent if the European DevelopmentFund is reclassified as a bilateral aid organization). DAC (2001) pp.196, 230–1, 237 (see note 13).

41 Executive Board of the UNDP and UNFP (see note 11).42 UNDP, ‘Membership of the Executive Board’ [http://www.undp.org.execbrd/memberseng.htm]

(27 April 2002). Executive Board of the UNDP (1999) ‘Additional Information Relating to theReview of the Successor Programming Arrangements’. New York: UNDP, DP/1999/CPR.3,dated 14 December. Executive Board of the UNDP (1999) ‘The Successor ProgrammingArrangements: Preliminary Earmarkings for the Target for Resource Assignment from the Corefrom the Period 2001–3. New York: UNDP, DP/1999/27, dated 16 March.

43 United Nations (1970) UN General Assembly Resolution 2688 (XXV). New York: UN, passed11 December, commonly known as ‘The Consensus: The Capacity of the United NationsDevelopment System’.

44 For the voting status of the International Monetary Fund and the two key organizations within theWorld Bank Group, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and theInternational Development Association, see [www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/eds.htm] (26July 2002), [http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK:20046155~menuPK:43912~piPK:44037~44037~theSitePK:29708,00.htm] (26 July 2002), and[http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK:20046158~menuPK:34612~pagePK:43912~piPK:44037~theSitePK:29708,00.htm] (26 July 2002). Forcomparisons of policy-making procedures among international financial institutions, see NgaireWoods (1999) ‘Good Governance in International Organizations’, Global Governance 5: 39–61.

45 Recipients are rarely included on non-governmental IAO decision-making boards. On efforts toincrease transparency and accountability of non-governmental IAOs, see InterAction (2002,originally 1993) ‘InterAction’s Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards’, especially onprogrammes, pp.8–12 (see also note 11). [http://www.interaction.org/load.php] (10 July 2002).On efforts to improve the partnership between donor and recipient IAOs at the project level, seeJulie Fisher (1993) The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and Nongovernmental

Movement in the Third World . Westport, CT: Greenwood; (1998) Nongovernments: NGOs and

the Political Development of the Third World . West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.









46 DAC (1967), pp.77, 177; (2001), p.292 (see note 13). The official tally of development assistancealso includes the category ‘concessional loans’, or loans that are partially redefined as gifts. A‘grant element’ is calculated for each loan based on the difference between the interest charged andthe ‘market’ rate. The DAC (see below) defines official development assistance or ODA as having

a grant element of at least 25 percent (Ibid., 2001), pp.292, 294; originally (Ibid., 1967), pp.77, 177.47 Originally called the ‘Development Assistance Group’, the DAC was formally incorporated intothe OECD in September 1961. See Ryouhei Murata (2000) OECD [The Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development: The Largest Think-Tank in the World], pp.7–12,80–102. Tokyo: Chuukou Shinsho. See also OECD (1963) Organisation for Economic Co-

operation and Development , pp.21–2, 30–1. Paris: OECD.48 DAC (1962), p.7 (see note 13). The 1968 report elaborated: ‘[c]reating modern societies which

will become more like-minded as development proceeds should facilitate the building of a worldcommunity, with institutions which can reduce the dangers of global war’. (Ibid., 1968), p.17.This ethical justification is periodically re-emphasized. The 1996 report, for example, asserted‘an enlightened self-interest in a stable world community is regarded as a key motivation fordonors as aid is deemed to reduce migration pressures, environmental degradation, and war risks

and enhance the solidarity for all people with one another’. (Ibid., 1996), pp.15–16.49 Development Assistance, 1961–1972; Development Co-operation, 1973-present. [since 1999,also known as DAC Journal] (see note 13).

50 See Murata, pp.63–5, 82–3. (see note 47). DAC (1962), pp.9–10; (1996), pp.63–65, 123–7 (seenote 13). The full ‘peer review’ evaluations have been published since 1994.

51 DAC (1999), pp.52–4; (1998), pp.93–127 for more details on the evaluation of member countries(see note 13).

52 None of the new members of the OECD – Mexico, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and SouthKorea – have joined the DAC. See Murata, pp.50–2, on the ‘clubby atmosphere’, and pp.18–19,34–6, on the difficulty of joining the ‘club’ in the case of South Korea (see note 47). An originalmember of the OECD, Turkey, has not joined the DAC, and Greece joined only recently. SeeDAC (1992), p.22 on membership invitations to Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, and Turkey;

(2000), p.1 on current membership (see note 13).53 Multilateral grants have fluctuated between 13 and 16 percent of ODA over the last 25 years,which amounts to between 0.03 and 0.04 percent of donor GNP (if grants by the EuropeanCommunity are regarded as bilateral since the Maastricht Treaty, the overall share declines toabout five to six percent). DAC (1967), p.91; (1968), p.75; (1969), pp.304–5; (1974), p.261;(1978), pp.216, 228–9; (1979), pp.238–9; (1985), p.335; (1986), p.238; (1987), p.256; (1989),p.230; (1990), p.188; (1992), pp.A8, A38; (1994), pp.A3-A4, A9-A10, D4; (1999), pp.164–5,168–9; (2001), pp.231, 237 (see note 13). Donations to non-governmental IAOs also haveremained fairly constant between 8 and 11 percent of total ODA and NGOs’ private aid andaveraged about 0.03 percent of donor GNP since the early 1970s. (Ibid.,1974), p.233; (1975),p.230; (1978), p.230; (1981), p.196; (1982), p.179; (1985), p.335; (1987), p.198; (1988), p.187;(1990), p.188; (1991), pp.230–1; (1992), p.A8; (1994), pp.A3-A4, A9-A10; (1999), pp.164–5,168–9; (2001), pp.231, 237, 242, 284 (see note 13).

54 US Department of State (1949) ‘Point Four: Cooperative Program for Aid in the Development of Economically Underdeveloped Areas’, pp.78–9. Washington, DC: Department of State (datedDecember 1949). On the multilateralist design of the post-war order, see Michael Hogan (1987)The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947 –1952,pp.127–88. New York: Cambridge University Press; DAC (1985), pp.65–83; (1990), pp.167–72(see note 13). Note that the predecessor of the OECD, the Organization for European EconomicCo-operation (OEEC), was itself a multilateral agency created by the Marshall Plan to distributeUS bilateral aid to war-torn Europe.

55 See especially, Kempe R. Hope (2002) ‘From Crisis to Renewal: Towards a SuccessfulImplementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development’, African Affairs 101: 387–402;L. Angeles and P. Gurstein (2000) ‘Planning for Participatory Capacity Development: TheChallenges of Participation and North-South Partnership in Capacity Building Projects’, Canadian

Journal of Development Studies 21: 447–78; Henock Kifle, Adebayo Olukoshi and OennartWohlgemuth (eds) (1997) A New Partnership for African Development: Issues and Parameters.Uppsala, Sweden: Africainstitutet; Commission on Global Governance (see note 29).

56 The title of DAC’s annual reports reflect this shift: Development Assistance (1962–1971) to Development Co-operation (1972–1998). For the most recent shift to a discourse of partnership,see OECD (1996) Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of Development Co-operation.









Paris: OECD; also available in DAC (1996), pp.12–28; for its implementation, DAC (1998),pp.23–44; (2001), pp.11–22 (see note 13).

57 Between 1990 and 1998, 63 percent of all long-term net capital inflows to the UN-designatedleast developed countries was in the form of official bilateral and multilateral grants with another

25 percent in official (largely ‘concessional’) loans, indicating almost no foreign directinvestment or private loans (almost the only foreign direct investment in these countries is naturalresource exploration). In contrast, official grants and loans account for only 23 percent of netcapital inflows to other Third World countries. United Nations Conference on Trade andDevelopment (2000) The Least Developed Countries: 2000 Report , pp.56–9. New York andGeneva: UNCTAD. The largest category of transfers to the Fourth World was bilateral grants(about 52 percent in 1998). Ibid., p.237, based on the assumption that 90 percent of bilateralODA was grants.

58 For a good discussion of this point, see David Harvey (1982) The Limits to Capital, pp.14–20.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

59 UNCTAD, pp.81–99 (see note 57).60 The African Medical and Research Foundation based in Kenya, for example, recognizes a

‘pivotal’ contribution of the Hewlett Foundation. For the annual reports of non-governmentalIAOs in the United States, see [http://www.interaction.org/cgi-bin/texis/webinator/iamemsearch?query=annual+report&search=members&x12&y=17] (27 July 2002).

61 Bourdieu (1977), pp.4–6 (see note 18).62 On the failure of the developmental state, see Robert A. Jackson (1990) Quasi-States:

Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World . New York: Cambridge UniversityPress; Ali Mazrui (1995) ‘Blood of Experience: The Failed State and Political Collapse inAfrica’, World Policy Journal 9: 28–34; Jean-Francois Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Beatrice Hiban(1999) The Criminalisation of the State in Africa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

63 P.T. Bauer (1981) Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press; Stephen Moore (1997) ‘Foreign Aid: End It, Don’t Mend It’, dated 17 March1997. [www.cato.org/dailys/3–17–97.html] (17 July 2002). Doug Bandow (1997) ‘Foreign Aid

Simply Won’t Reform Dictators’ [http://www.cato.org/dailys/7–11–97.html.] (17 July 2002).64 See DAC (1991), p.33; (1992), p.8; on governance (1994), pp.10–13; (1995), pp.25–33; (1996),p.23; (1999), p.153; (2000), pp.19–22 (see note 13). For DAC efforts to reduce corruption inprocurement practices, see (Ibid., 1986), pp.195–201; (1992), p.7. For standards and sanctions onbribery, see ‘OECD Convention on Combating Bribery to Foreign Public Officials inInternational Business’. OECD (1999) ‘Fighting Corruption in Developing Countries andEmerging Economies: The Role of the Private Sector’, Washington Conference on Corruption,

22–23 February 1999, pp.6–7. Paris: Development Centre of the OECD. For similar efforts of anon-governmental organization, see Hongying Wang and James Rosenau (2001) ‘TransparencyInternational and Corruption as an Issue of Global Governance’, Global Governance 7: 25–49.On the need for good governance, see UNDP (1998) Governance for Sustainable Growth and

Equity: Report of International Conference at the United Nations, 28–30 July 1997 . New York:UNDP. See also Interaction’s ‘PVO Standards’, especially Governance Section on corruption(see notes 11 and 45).

65 For a critique of the application of concepts of evolution to economic development, see RobertNisbet (1969) Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of History, pp.252–3.New York: Oxford University Press.

66 At the centre of these social transformations was the attempt of the gentry to improve agriculturalyields, which forced thousands of peasants off the land. See, especially, Robert Brenner‘Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development’, T.H. Ashton and C.H.E. Philpin (eds)(1985) The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Struggle and Economic Development , pp.49, 58–9.New York: Cambridge University Press; ‘The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’, in thesame volume, p.324. For an alternative explanation of increasing enclosures in the late 16th-century, see R.W. Hoyle (1990) ‘Tenure and the Land Market in Early Modern England: or a LateContribution to the Brenner Debate’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, 43: 1–20.

67 Wilbur K. Jordon (1959) Philanthropy in England, 1480–1660: A Study of the Changing Pattern

of English Social Aspirations, p.143. London: Allen and Unwin. See also Paul Slack (1999) From Reformation to Improvement . New York: Oxford University Press.

68 Corrigan and Sayer (1985) The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution,pp.187–8. New York: Basil Blackwell. Corrigan and Sayer describe two distinct stages in thisprocess of moral regulation: (1) an initial ‘individuation’ or ‘alienation’ of people from their









traditional social relations; and (2) their reconstitution as independent citizens and ‘free’labourers who possess modern, rational dispositions towards hard work and thrift, the type of instrumental and self-interested view of the world required for capitalist relations of productionand citizen obligations of taxation and conscription. The specificity of the concept of moral

regulation in the context of state formation is especially relevant to neo-Gramscian IPE scholarswho have not fully elaborated the process of state formation and the role of civil society in it. Fora good Gramscian attempt, see Jean-Francois Bayart (1993) The State in Africa: The Politics of

the Belly. New York: Longman.69 Corrigan and Sayer, pp.186–7 (see note 68). On the contribution of philanthropy to the regulation

of the poor, see Gareth Jones (1969) History of the Law of Charity, 1532–1827 , pp.11–26. NewYork: Cambridge University Press. The actual process of moral regulation was a noxious divisionof labour between the philanthropists and the state. A spate of poor laws and laws of charitableuses in the 16th century gave the most dangerous poor to the state for incarceration (e.g.vagabonds, rogues and vagrants) and left the rest to private almshouses and workhouses. SeePaul Slack (1990) The English Poor Law, 1531–1782. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan Education.

70 According to Slack, the workhouse was an English innovation dating back to 1552, and the

primary standard by which the poor were judged ‘deserving’ was the ability to work. Paul Slack (1988) Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England , pp.21–3, 61–90, 91–112. New York:Longman. Although the distinction between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ poor can betraced to the post-plague chaos of the 14th century, the belief that education and discipline couldtransform the poor into productive and orderly members of society originated with Protestantmerchants in the 16th century. Jordan, p.121 (see note 67).

71 For a critical evaluation of technical assistance, see UNDP (1994) Human Development Report ,pp.79–80. New York: Oxford University Press.

72 InterAction’s ‘PVO Standards’ (2002) in its programme section emphasizes ‘fostering self-reliance and avoiding the creation of dependence’ (see notes 11 and 45). World Bank (1998)

Assessing Aid . New York: Oxford University Press. Robert Cassen and Associates (1986/1994) Does Aid Work? New York: Oxford University Press.

73 For a good example of such exhortations to hard work, integrity (e.g. no corruption or bribery),and thrift (e.g., successful austerity programmes to reduce consumption), see DAC (1962), p.42;(1963), p.72; (1964), p.99; (1974), p.32; (1975), p.27; (1977), pp.29–30; (1985), pp.61–2; (1992),pp.6–7; (1994), pp.10–3; (1998), pp.41–2, 52 (see note 13). A non-governmental IAO, OverseasDevelopment Network, asserts, for example: ‘People can meet their basic needs, strengthencommunities, and contribute to global welfare through grassroots action’. Overseas DevelopmentNetwork (ODN), ‘Who We Are . . . What We’ve Done’ (San Francisco, CA: ODN, not dated).See also Slack (1988, 1990, 1999) and Jordan (1959), (notes 70, 69, 67, and 67, respectively, forearly modern descriptions).

74 The most significant of these, InterAction, created a specific set of standards to harmonize thepractice of US non-governmental IAOs. It currently has 160 members in the United States, andits ‘Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) Standards’ has provided a model for the standards of aid practice for similar umbrella organizations in Canada, Japan, and Central and Eastern Europe.InterAction (2002), p.21 (see note 45).

75 UNDP (2000) Compendium of Ongoing Projects as of 31 December 2000. New York: UNDP.The UNDP, for example, has targeted fully one-third of its resources on ‘good governance’,which they define as ‘participatory, transparent, and accountable’ exercise of ‘economic,political, and administrative authority to manage a country’s affairs at all levels’. UNDP (1997)‘Good Governance and Sustainable Human Development’, in Governance for Sustainable

Human Development: A UNDP Policy Document , pp.2–3, 10. [http://magnet.undp.org/ chapter1/summary.htm] (17 July 2002); ‘Executive Summary’ in the same volume, p.1[http://magnet.undp.org/policy/summary.htm] (17 July 2002). For a critical examination of ‘global governance’, see Jim Whitman (2002) ‘Global Governance as the Friendly Face of Unaccountable Power’, Security Dialogue 33:45–57. On the socialization and rationaldispositions of state bureaucrats, see Van der Pijl (1998), pp.135–52 (see note 12).

76 According to DAC (2001), pp.230–1 (see note 13), this figure was 18.5 percent for all non-governmental IAOs in 1998. According to AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy (2002), p.151 (seenote 13), the figure was 20 percent for US organizations. For the large secular non-governmentalIAOs based in the United States, the figure is higher. See United States General AccountingOffice [USGAO] (1995) ‘Foreign Assistance: Private Voluntary Organizations; Contributionsand Limitations – Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on International









Relations, House of Representatives’, pp.45–60. Washington, DC: USGAO, GAO/NSIAD-96–34, dated November 1995. Since many religiously affiliated IAOs receive little or no federalfunding, the figure for secular non-governmental IAOs could be almost double the net figure of 18.5 percent. On the increasing influence of state agencies on non-governmental IAOs, see

Michael Edwards and David Hullme (1996) ‘Too Close for Comfort? The Impact of Official Aidon Nongovernmental Organizations’, World Development 24: 961–73; Tvedt (see note 10); Smith(see note 33); Peter Burnell (1991) Charity, Politics, and the Third World . New York: St. Martin’sPress.

77 For the relation between recipient states and non-governmental IAOs, see John Farrington andDavid J. Lewis (eds) (1993) Non-Governmental Organisations and the State in Asia. New York:Routledge; Anthony Bebbington and Graham Thiele (eds) (1993) Non-Governmental

Organisations and the State in Latin America. New York: Routledge; Kate Wellard and James G.Copestake (eds) (1993) Non-Governmental Organisations and the State in Africa. New York:Routledge.

78 The UN, for example, began categorizing poorer states around the same time economists beganelaborating a ‘normal’ path of economic and social development. Twenty-five countries were

designated as ‘the least developed countries’ by the General Assembly of the United Nations inNovember 1971, based on low per capita income (US$100 or less) and literacy rates (20 percentor less for people over the age of 15). DAC (1972), p.103 (see note 13).

79 See, for example, Arturo Escobar (1995) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking

of the Third World , pp.3–16, 44–54. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Timothy Luke(1991) ‘The Discourse of Development: A Genealogy of “Developing Nations” and theDiscipline of Modernity’, in Ben Agger (ed.) Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 11,pp.271–93. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

80 A recent initiative that is especially reminiscent of the early modern distinction between the‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’, in this regard, is the proposal by President Bush of the UnitedStates for a conditional grant window at the World Bank, which would reward states thatdemonstrate a certain level of compliance or conformity by providing more grants while

withholding grants from states that do not. ‘Bush Urges Shift to Direct Grants to Poor Nations’, New York Times, 18 July 2001, p.A1. See also United States General Accounting Office (2002)‘Developing Countries: Switching Some Multilateral Loans to Grants Lessens Poor CountryDebt Burdens – A Report to the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee and the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy andTrade, Committee on Financial Services’. Washington, DC: U.S.G.A.O., dated April 2002, GAO-02–593.

81 A similar point is made by Germain and Kenny, who argue that transnational civil society doesnot make sense unless it is in relation to the internationalized state (see note 14, pp.15–17). Foran elaboration of the nature of civil society in the absence of a global state with Marxism, seeJustin Rosenberg (1994) The Empire of Civil Society. New York: Verso. For a critical response toit, see Robert Cox (1999) ‘Civil Society at the Turn of the Millennium: Prospects for anAlternative World Order’, Review of International Studies 25: 3–28, especially footnote 7 onpage 8. Among neo-Gramscians, Mark Rupert has conceptualized the state and the states systembased on relations of alienation. See Rupert (1993) ‘Alienation, Capitalism and Inter-StateSystem: Towards a Marxian/Gramscian Critique’, in Gill (ed), pp.67–92 (see note 14); see note 6,pp.3–6, 153; (1995) Producing Hegemony: The Politics of Mass Production and American

Global Power , pp.15–16, 23–4, 32–6. New York: Cambridge University Press.


Giving as a Mechanism of Consent: International Aid Organizations and the Ethical Hegemony of...

Documents

Transcript of Giving as a Mechanism of Consent: International Aid Organizations and the Ethical Hegemony of...