DEVELOPMENT AID BENEFITS FOR DONOR COUNTRIES

HUNJAK ŠTULA Vladimir (Fakulteta političkih znanosti Sveučilišta u Zagrebu), vstula@gmail.com

The article is based on the doctoral dissertation: “International Development Aid as an Instrument for Achieving the Foreign Policy Objectives of France and Germany”. The main hypothesis of this article is that development aid is being used as an instrument for achieving foreign policy objectives and that it is, in this sense, primarily beneficial for donor countries. The article analyses the developmental inequality in the modern global capitalist order and the impact of corporations and development aid on the maintenance of such a system. The article focuses on two main EU member states: the Republic of France and the Federal Republic of Germany. By shifting the paradigm from the one in which less developed countries benefit the most from development aid policies to the one in which, in the long run, the countries that initiate these policies benefit the most, the article shows that larger and politically and economically more powerful countries use development aid policies to promote their own interests and achieve their foreign policy goals.

Keywords: development aid, donor countries, initiator countries, recipient countries, foreign policy goals, growth, inequality, power, France, Germany