| Since 1954 the United States has administered an international food aid program dependent on domestically grown agriculture shipped aboard US-flagged merchant marine vessels. As such, US food aid has been closely tied to the interests of the US government, rather than the needs of developing or crisis-ridden countries. As a norm entrepreneur, the US actively advocated for the creation of similar in-kind aid program in other countries throughout the 1960s and 70s. However, as the Cold War came to an end, newly empowered actors, such as the European Union, International Organizations, NGOs and Multinational Corporations began to question in-kind aid and propose new methods for dealing with global hunger and food crises. This paper will consider whether new food aid policies point to the rise of the EU as a new potential norm entrepreneur and why the US is rejecting or resisting these new norms. |
