Geopolitics of foreign aid: Evidence from South Asian economies.

  • Syed Ali Abbas

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

This empirical study constructs a new instrument for measuring the geopolitical potential of South Asian countries, and investigates its role in influencing the bilateral aid and multilateral aid decisions directed to the South Asian region during the post-Cold War period (1991-2013). The study observes a polynomial relationship between the geopolitical potential and bilateral aid from DAC donors. Moreover, the strategic or geopolitical interests of main DAC donors have been found significant not only during the War on Terror period, but over
the entire period. Therefore, the bilateral aid especially from DAC donors has never been disassociated from geopolitics during the post-Cold War period, either; it was strongly influenced by recipients’ geopolitical potential or donors’ geopolitical interests. Similarly,the bilateral aid from Non-DAC donors and multilateral aid have also been found to be significantly influenced by the geopolitical potential of South Asian recipients. Furthermore, evidence is found to support the contention that the lending decisions by multilateral bodies
are influenced by the main DAC donors
Date of Award11 Feb 2017
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorNeil Campbell (Supervisor) & Kuldeep Kumar (Supervisor)

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