A Foreign Policy Model of U.S. Bilateral Aid Allocation

Two views, founded on divergent rationales, have been used to explain the allocation of official bilateral aid. One view explains the allocation of aid in terms of the humanitarian needs of the recipient, the other in terms of the foreign policy interests of the donor. Although the foreign policy view is now clearly dominant, it has not been developed systematically. This paper initially develops an analytic foreign policy model of aid allocation. The model suggests that the provision of aid leads to the establishment of commitment and dependency, enabling the donor to realize certain foreign policy utilities. These utilities in turn allow the donor to pursue its interests. These interests may be ordered into five substantive foreign policy models. The main research objective of the paper is to test these models in the context of U.S. aid by making a cross-national, longitudinal study of the distribution of U.S. aid over the years 1960- 1970. We find that the foreign policy model which best explains the allocation of U.S. aid is one that is consonant with the political interpretation of imperialism.