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The Post-cold War U.s. Aid Policy In Central Asia Studies

Posted on:2013-01-01Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:B MaFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116330371965634Subject:International relations
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The emergence of foreign assistance is a great change of international relations after the Second World War and an important reform of America's foreign policy as well. It could protect and promote America's oversea interests through many ways. After the end of the Cold-War, the United States involved in Central Asia affairs gradually and has become one of the key players which play important role in Central Asia finally. Foreign assistance functioned as a constrained U.S. policy tool in this process. This dissertation would discuss the motives, designing, implementing, structures and influences of America's aid policy to Central Asian states, and its focus is the analysis of aid effect limitation from the aspect of aid competing.Firstly, this study expatiates foreign aid's basic meaning with the research upon its concept, kind and nature, then carries out a discussion about aid motivation, operation and influence as the principal agenda of foreign assistance. These recapitulation and comparison of theacademic work made by other scholars have two purposes:on the first hand, it is to clarify the major topics of this study; on the other, it aims to constructthe research approaches. As for the aid motivation, those egocentric and altruistic purposes existing in the economic, political and humanitarian fields drive nation states to engage in aid affairs. As for the aid operations, aid reward and aid amerceare the main patterns of nation states conducted to pursue their interests. As for the efficacity, the evaluation of foreign assistance is a controversial topic. The efficacity of foreign aid is affected by systematic, national and sub-national factors. This study constructs its theory consensus by sorting out the basic meaning of foreign assistance and abstracting its academic points.The U.S. foreign assistance to Central Asian in the post-Cold War era is driven by economic, political and humanitarian purposes, too. The political motivations rest upon promoting Central Asian states'political transformation, dealing with security challenges from Central Asia and exploring the strategic values of this region. The economic motivations consist in accelerating the construction of free-market economy in Central Asia, promoting economic and social development of Central Asian states, and obtaining economic interests from this area. The humanitarian motivations consist of alleviating Central Asia's social difficulties, environmental crises and so on. Compared with each other, the pursuit of political and economic interests performs as the essential impetus for the U.S. to provide assistance to these Central Asian states;while on the contrary, the humanitarian motivation falls as the minor impetus despite its role. The aforementioned motivations constitute a multi-motivation system for the U.S. to provide assistance to these states.The U.S. has set up its aid policy toward the Central Asian states and carried it into execution impelled by the multi-motivation system. Economic assistance and military assistance constitute the main parts of the U.S. aid policy, which also comprises the "others". When providing economic assistance and military assistance to the Central Asian states, the U.S encounters the aid competition. The internal aid competition occurs among different administrative offices, and between administrative and legislative branches as well. The external aid competition arises between the U.S and the Central Asian states, and between the U.S. and other donors. The aid competition at these four levels, which affects all of the U.S. assistances provided to the Central Asia region, composes the primary background of the U.S. aid policy to the Central Asian states. The economic and military assistances the U.S. provided to the Central Asian states were utilized as its foreign policy tool for itself to involve into the affairs in this region in the post-Cold-War era. It's inevitable for the priorities and changes of the U.S aid policy to experience the constraint from the aid competition.The U.S. economic and military assistances to the Central Asian states projected their influences mainly upon the economic and political transformation, social and economic development, regional security and stability, geopolitical competition, the U.S economic gains, and so on. From the perspective of the interaction between donors and recipients, the assistance of the U.S. influences not only the American interests but also the interests of the Central Asian states. However, the U.S aid exerts both positive and negative effects. Generally speaking, the U.S. takes the dominant position in the interaction process between the U.S. and the aid recipients in Central Asia because of its greater power, and therefore, it might get more interests than the Central Asian states. Nevertheless, conflicts in terms of aid purposes, competitions with regard to aid operations, different desires of donors and recipients, substitutions as for different donors, all of these place many constraints on the U.S. assistance. As a result, the role of the U.S. aid as a policy tool in Central Asia would be limited.
Keywords/Search Tags:foreign assistance, America's Central Asia policy, aid competition, aid efficacy, limitation
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