| In response to legitimate concerns about the ineffectiveness of foreign aid, my doctoral thesis critically examines assistance programs designed to build civil society in former socialist countries, particularly Ukraine. The project focuses on the intersubjective dimension of institution building in the area, i.e. on the effects of aid discourses, which often involve the transfer of images and interpretive schemata, and the role of local mentalities and behavioural practices in shaping the visions among the citizenry and in determining the nature and substance of democracy in the former socialist world.; A key argument of this study is that by concentrating narrowly on the economic dimension of transition and formal institution building, Western donors almost completely disregarded civil society as a domain of cultural frames and codes. As a consequence, aid programs in support of civil society proved incapable of performing many of the objectives they were intended to achieve.; My interpretivist understanding of social change and development aid departs significantly from the determinism of earlier prescriptive concepts that were centered on the material growth factor and were depreciative of cultural variables. I argue that no meaningful change of social institutions, or of the entire social order can be accomplished through a simple transfer of technology, know-how, cognitive structures and improved practices. I advance strategic social constructivism as an approach to international development assistance which is concerned with purposeful and guided innovations that have the capacity of becoming self-sustainable in any recipient society. |
