domestic politics and foreign aid

Domestic Politics and Foreign AidThe Politics of American Foreign Aid by Michael Kent O'LearyReview by: Robert S. WaltersThe Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Sep., 1969), pp. 394-397Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/173504 .

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Domestic politics and foreign aid:

a review Michael Kent O'Leary, The Politics of American Foreign Aid

New York: Atherton Press, 1967. Pp. 172. $5.95.

ROBERT S. WALTERS Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

The vast majority of the books published on American foreign aid focus primarily, if not exclusively, on aid as an instrument of foreign policy. What are the motivations and goals which prompt the United States to extend aid? What is the nature and extent of the political influence which the US can derive by distributing aid through various bilateral and multilateral channels? To what extent and with what predictability can American aid be used to alter the development paths (economic, political, social, cultural) of recipient nations? What form should the American aid program take to cope best with the international problems the program was designed to meet?

These are the types of questions which have preoccupied most students of aid over the past two decades. Viewing aid as an instrument of foreign policy, one is not sur- prised that the program has been discussed primarily in terms of an American response to the needs of countries in an international environment critically affecting the economic and political well being of the United States. We have learned a great deal from such inquiry. But the closer one gets to the American aid program, and to American foreign policy in general, the less satisfying this predominantly environmental focus be- comes.

There is a rapidly increasing body of literature emphasizing the need for the study of comparative foreign policy (Waltz, 1967; Farrell, 1966) and the impact of domestic factors on the international behavior of states (Snyder et al., 1962; Rosenau, 1967). The thrust of this literature can be fruitfully em- ployed in the analysis of American aid. It suggests that the American aid experience can best be examined when compared and contrasted to the experience of other aid donors. Only then can we really determine which types of aid problems, successes, and failures are peculiar to the United States, and which types are characteristic of most aid programs. It also suggests that the shape of the aid program and decisions on aid policy are as likely to be determined by domestic politics as by the international environment the US is trying to affect through aid.

In this context, especially, O'Leary's work is a welcome addition to the literature on American aid. Other scholars have certainly dealt with the domestic politics of foreign aid (Haviland, 1958; Montgomery, 1962; Baldwin, 1966; Robinson, 1967), but O'Leary has given us the first book-length study of American aid focusing exclusively on its domestic politics. The title of the volume, The Politics of American Foreign Aid, and cer-

CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUME XIII NUMBER 3



DISCUSSIONS AND REVIEWS 395

tain statements about the purpose of the study-"this book will give ... an examina- tion of the domestic political process which helps shape American aid policy" (p. 9)- lead one to expect a discussion of domestic political processes as they affect aid policy. We are given instead a discussion of public, congressional, and Presidential attitudes toward the American aid program. In other words, O'Leary examines the attitudinal context within which the aid program exists rather than the impact of domestic politics on US aid policy. The former is a part of the latter, to be sure, but they are not the same thing.

O'Leary relies on existing poll data gathered throughout the 1950s and 1960s to give us a comprehensive picture of general public opinion toward American aid efforts and its distribution by region, socioeconomic status, party affiliation, etc. Much in this discussion will be known to students of aid and of American public opinion. For example, a high level of education predicts to favorable opinion on foreign aid (p. 33); of the various regions, opinion in the South is least supportive of foreign aid as a general policy (p. 31); while a majority of Ameri- cans favor aid as a general policy, specific aspects of the program are much more popu- lar than others (pp. 20, 112, 113); and in open-ended questions foreign aid is cited first more often than any other government program on lists of items on which respon- dents would like to see the government de- crease spending (pp. 24, 25; Hero, 1965, pp. 78-80).

On the other hand, O'Leary's discussion is well presented and he consistently goes beyond the mere recitation of poll data. He develops, for example, an interesting method for the ranking of values with respect to aid (pp. 136-41) and employs it to explain, in the order of their importance, those types of

aid which are likely to provoke positive and negative responses from the American public (chapter 2, especially pp. 27-28).

The most important question, however, is not the nature of public opinion toward aid. It is how these opinions affect decisions on the aid program. From O'Leary's discussion we must conclude that public opinion has little real effect on aid policy.

Public opinion itself is< "distributed throughout the population in such a way that almost equal weight is given to pro- ponents and opponents of American aid policy" (pp. 29-30). Moreover, "there are no easily identifiable segments of the population which feel strongly either for or against foreign aid" (pp. 47-48). The struc- ture and low intensity of attitudes on aid suggest that decision-makers will get little policy guidance from public opinion except, perhaps, to minimize expenditures. These facts also suggest, however, that attitudes in general do not impose severe constraints on most policy options facing aid decision- makers.

O'Leary goes beyond the nature of gen- erally held attitudes and deals with pressure groups, parties, elections, Congress, and the Executive as they affect and/or reflect public opinion on aid. How do these institutions bring public opinion to bear on aid policy? O'Leary concludes that "partisan electoral activities and pressure groups-the standard political links between the governed and the government-fail, in the case of foreign aid, to have great influence on policy-making" (p. 53). In his discussion of Congress and the Presidency as they affect aid, O'Leary is primarily interested in how well the former reflects public opinion and how the latter tries to shape it.1 In neither case are we

1 For a more thorough treatment of presidential efforts to mobilize opinion in support of foreign aid, see Rosenau ( 1963).



396 ROBERT S. WALTERS

shown how these two branches of government shape actual aid policy. We are told, however, that in spite of an approximate balance in favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward aid among the general public, both Congressmen and executive branch officials normally perceive public opinion as working against aid (pp. 77, 112).

O'Leary's study conveys the clear impres- sion that analyzing general public opinion tells us very little about how domestic political factors shape aid policy. This is not to suggest that the work was ill-conceived or that it tells us nothing. Indeed, it is a care- ful study which constitutes an important step in the right direction of examining the domestic politics of aid. Also, I would argue that the information O'Leary gives us on the low salience of public opinion in determining specific aid policies is of value in itself. It suggests that there is much room for bold leadership in the aid program, and that as scholars we must look elsewhere for decisive domestic determinants of foreign aid and foreign policy.

Public opinion provides us with the attitudinal context within which the domestic politics of aid take place. If we look directly at the domestic politics of aid, two processes suggest themselves immediately as sources of aid policy making-relations between Congress and the executive branch and relations among various agencies within the executive branch.

A considerable amount of attention has been devoted to the influence of Congress in determining aid policy through amend- ments to foreign assistance legislation and other means (Haviland, 1958; Montgomery, 1962; Baldwin, 1966; Robinson, 1967). O'Leary, it should be noted, addresses this point briefly in presenting an interesting and informative summary of the types of amend- ments to aid legislation and the percent of

each type approved (p. 83). As important a determinant of aid policy as Congress- Executive relations are, the scope of this paper does not allow us to examine the literature covering it. In understanding how domestic politics affects the aid program, however, this type of inquiry is likely to yield more payoff than discussions of public opinion.

The gaping hole in our knowledge of the domestic politics of foreign aid is the extent to which policy is influenced or determined by department and subdepartment interests, and conflicts between them, within the executive branch of the government. Many scholars have touched upon the problem of implementing a coherent aid program when so many agencies in the executive branch are involved in making aid policy (Kaplan, 1967, p. 386ff). But to understand how and why certain aid policies are decided upon, we must examine in detail the extent to which the narrow bureaucratic interests of particular departments, agencies, etc., actu- ally shape the aid program which is ostensi- bly designed to serve the needs of recipient nations and of US policy abroad.

Illustrative of this type of political process is the problem of determining whether military assistance grants or economic assistance grants should be phased out first when the determination has been made that the recipient's economy has progressed to the point where an aid reduction is feasible.

Harry Shaw (1967), in a very interesting study of military assistance, addresses this

and other problems in the context of

competitive interests within the executive

bureaucracy. Quite aside from the condi-

tions within the recipient country which

might affect that decision (the balance be-

tween its military and civilian sectors, for

example), there are institutional biases

within agencies of the executive branch of

CONFLICT RESOLUTION VOLUM E XIII NUMBER 3 This content downloaded from 194.29.185.180 on Fri, 9 May 2014 12:17:30 PM

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DISCUSSIONS AND REVIEWS 397

the American government which play a large role in the policy adopted.

The administrator of AID is at once the spokesman for economic assistance and the coordinator of military and economic aid. When faced with the dilemma outlined above, he is prone on essentially domestic political grounds to opt for a phase-out of economic aid first. Evidence of successfully completed economic aid programs is crucial in AID's attempts to convince Congress that economic aid is not an interminable phe- nomenon, and to mobilize domestic political support for the program. Shaw feels that this understandable bureaucratic interest, combined with the propensity of the State Department to fear political repercussions from reductions in military assistance grants, has been an important factor in maintaining higher levels of grant military aid than is defensible on military and economic grounds. He suggests that there are certain types of situations in which it may make much more sense to terminate grant military assistance prior to economic aid (Shaw, 1967, pp. 385ff). Shaw also examines difficulties in the transition from military grant assistance to sales in terms of intra-Department of Defense politics and relations between the Defense and State departments.

Barber and Ronning provide us with other examples of bureaucratic interests affecting aid policy (1966, ch. 3). They suggest

that among other things constituting the

rationale for civic-action military assistance to Latin America, the Navy has expressed enthusiasm for the program in terms of its

contribution enabling that service to "retain

some senior Petty Officers that would [other-

wise] have gone out of service" (p. 79).

These examples are by way of suggesting

that the politics of maximizing various bu-

reaucratic interests plays an important part

in determining aid policies. If we want to

examine the domestic politics of aid we must learn much more about executive branch decision-making. The examples just cited also point out an important reason for wish- ing to comprehend more fully the domestic politics of foreign aid: aid policies maximizing the interests of various political actors (public and private) within the United States may be antithetical to the overall purposes of US foreign aid policy and to the needs of recipient nations.

REFERENCES

BALDWIN, DAVID A. Economic Development and American Foreign Policy, 1943-1962. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.

BARBER, WILLARD F., and C. NEAL RONNING.

Internal Security and Military Power. Colum- bus: Ohio State University Press, 1966.

FARRELL, R. BARRY, (ed.). Approaches to Com- parative and International Politics. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1966.

HAVILAND, H. FIELD, JR. "Foreign Aid and the Policy Process: 1957," American Political Sci- ence Review, 52 (1958), 689-724.

HERO, ALFRED 0. "Foreign Aid and the Ameri- can Public," Public Policy, 14 (1965), 71-116.

KAPLAN, JACOB J. The Challenge of Foreign Aid. New York: Praeger, 1967.

MONTGOMERY, JOHN D. The Politics of Foreign Aid. New York: Praeger, 1962.

ROBINSON, JAMES A. Congress and Foreign Policy Making. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1967.

ROSENAU, JAMES N. (ed.). Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy. New York: Free Press, 1967.

. National Leadership and Foreign Pol- icy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963.

SHAW, HARRY J. The Military Assistance Pro- gram: A Study of Interdepartmental Rela- tionships and Influences. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Virginia,

1967. SNYDER, RICHARD C., H. W. BRUCK, and BURTON

SAPIN. Foreign Policy Decision Making: An Approach to the Study of International Poli- tics. New York: Free Press, 1962.

WALTZ, KENNETH N. Foreign Policy and Demo- cratic Politics. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967.



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