3 - Examining the Causal Mechanism across Donors

Summary

Chapter 3 elucidates the link between national structures and foreign aid delivery. To that end, the chapter traces how national aid organizations vary in their bureaucratic structures and practices and how this variation maps onto my binary donor typology of neoliberal and traditional public sector donors. By tracing the link between particular institutional environments and aid delivery decisions, the chapter shows how bureaucratic structures and practices influence priorities of aid officials and authorize, enable, and justify particular delivery tactics and donor–recipient interactions, while precluding others. That is, I lay out why and how institutions of different ideological orientation constrain donor officials differently, and how they influence aid officials' decision-making.