Middle Powers and Development Assistance: Cases of Australia, Canada and Sweden

Abstract

<p>The foreign policy of a state accounts for its activities, attitudes and behaviour toward other sovereign political units existing in the international community. Historically the pinnacle of responsibility for the formation of foreign policy has varied. With the advent of democratically elected governments in the western world, this responsibility has befallen on the elected governing party. In the democratic west a newly elected government can theoretically alter the foreign policy program inherited from previous administrations. In actual practice a governing party operates in an environment of constraining forces which limit the ability of an administration to substantially deviate from existing foreign policy. This thesis by addressing the formulation of foreign policy, will attempt to accomplish two primary objectives. The first is to illustrate many of the instrumental forces that play a significant role in the formulation of foreign policy. The other is to examine how the official development assistance (aDA) programs of three middle powers have undergone structural changes in order to reflect the respective donor's foreign policy. This thesis will concentrate its examination of aDA resource transfers during two historical periods. The first stage will consist of the years of the First Development Decade 1960-1969, the second the years of the Second Development Decade 1970-1979. These stages were selected because they signify the first concerted attempt by the nations of the advanced world to transfer development resources to states of the emerging world.</p>