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Mixed Motives Revisited: Canada's Interest in Development Assistance*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Kim Richard Nossal
Kim Richard Nossal
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Abstract

The heuristic model commonly used to explain Canada's interests in development assistance is the mixed-motives approach. These motives are assumed to be philanthropic, economic, and politico-strategic, though there is little agreement among students of Canadian development assistance about which of the three is the most important. The purpose of this article is to examine the orthodox model; it concludes that these motives have little utility in accounting for contemporary aid policies. Instead, drawing on realist and statist theory, this study advances an alternative set of motives that it is argued more accurately accounts for the level and nature of Canada's development assistance policies. Elaborating on “politico-strategic” motives, the article suggests that the Canadian state's interests in prestige, organizational maintenance and limiting real expenditures provide a more proximate explanation of aid policy.

Résumé

Le mode d'analyse le plus utilisé en ce qui concerne l'aide canadienne au développement est celui de la motivation multiple de cette politique. Il est ordinairement admis que la politique en voie de développement dérive de trois grands types d'intérêt: philanthropique, économique et stratégique (bien qu'il n'y ait peu or pas d'accord sur l'importance relative de ces motifs). L'auteur évalue ce mode orthodoxe d'analyse et conclut qu'il ne peut pas bien expliquer la rationalité de cette politique. Comme alternative, il propose l'utilisation de théories réalistes et étatistes plus appropriées à rendre compte du niveau et de la nature de I'aide canadienne. En rendant plus explicites les motifs politico-stratégiques, l'auteur prétend que I'aide exterieure du gouvernement canadien est motivée par les intérê:ts suivants, à savoir soutenir et accroître le prestige international du Canada; maintenir les institutions de l'état; et limiter les dépenses réelles du gouvernement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 1988 , pp. 35 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1988

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References

1 Indicative of the use of this approach in the literature would be: Anglin, D. G., “Canada's External Assistance Programme,” International Journal 9 (1954), 193–207CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reuber, G. L., “Why Canadian Foreign Aid?” International Journal 14 (1958–1959), 11–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Spicer, Keith, A Samaritan State? External Aid in Canada's Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Reuber, Grant L., “The Trade-offs Among the Objectives of Canadian Foreign Aid,” International Journal 25 (1969–1970), 129–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Triantis, S. G., “Canada's Interest in Foreign Aid,” World Politics 24 (1971), 1–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lyon, Peyton V., “Introduction,” in Lyon, Peyton V. and Ismael, Tareq Y. (eds.), Canada and the Third World (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), x-1Google Scholar; Dudley, Leonard and Montmarquette, Claude, The Supply of Canadian Foreign Aid: Explanation and Evaluation (Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada, 1978)Google Scholar, chap. 3 Economic Council of Canada, For a Common Future: A Study of Canada's Relations with Developing Countries (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 1978)Google Scholar; Morrison, David R., “Canada and International Development,” Journal of Canadian Studies 4 (1979-1980), 133–44; North-South InstituteGoogle Scholar, In the Canadian Interest? Third World Development in the 1980s (Ottawa: North-South Institute, 1980)Google Scholar; Carty, Robert and Smith, Virginia, Perpetuating Poverty: The Political Economy of Canadian Foreign Aid (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1981), chap. 2; Réal P. Lavergne, “The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” paper prepared for the Western Middle Powers and Global Poverty Project, Ottawa, 1986.Google Scholar

2 Indicative would be: Dickinson, Harley D., “Canadian Foreign Aid,” in Fry, John Allan (ed.), Economy, Class and Social Reality (Toronto: Butterworths, 1979), 97–149Google Scholar; Pratt, Cranford, “Canadian Policy Towards the Third World: Basis for an Explanation,” Studies in Political Economy 13 (1984), 27–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Freeman, Linda, “The Effect of the World Crisis on Canada's Involvement in Africa,” Studies in Political Economy 17 (1985), 107–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For the public objectives of Canada's foreign aid programme during the 1950s, see the discussion in Spicer, Samaritan State? 252–53.

4 For example, the Canadian International Image study, conducted in the mid-1970s, asked bureaucrats to rank-order the objectives of Canadian development assistance. Their responses revealed that promoting “stability in recipient countries” topped the list of 11 objectives with a score of 167; following narrowly behind, with a score of 156, was the objective of assisting “those recipient countries whose need is greatest” (Lyon, Peyton and Tomlin, Brian, Canada as an International Actor [Toronto: Macmillan, 1979], 158–59, Table 8.2).Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Louis Sabourin, “Canada and Francophone Africa,” in Lyon and Ismael (eds.), Canada and the Third World, 140–46.

6 For example, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Canadian government used aid sanctions against India, Vietnam, Cuba and Sri Lanka to achieve “political” objectives.

7 Canada, Secretary of State for External Affairs, Foreign Policy for Canadians, International Development booklet (Ottawa: Information Canada, 1970)Google Scholar; Canada, Canadian International Development Agency, Strategy for International Development Cooperation, 1975–80 (Ottawa: CIDA, 1975); see also the official objectives and sub-objectives outlined in North-South Institute, In the Canadian Interest? 53.Google Scholar

8 It can be argued that what propels policy may indeed shift over time, and therefore it is not inappropriate to differentiate between the motives evident at the outset of a programme and the motives that keep that programme running over an extended period–in the case of development assistance, nearly four decades.

9 Cranford Pratt, “Dominant Class Theory and Canadian Foreign Policy: The Case of the Counter-Consensus,” Development Studies Programme, University of Toronto, Working Paper A.6 (November 1983), 22.

10 These are most clearly laid out in Nordlinger, Eric A., On the Autonomy of the Democratic State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; see also Krasner, Stephen D., Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), esp. chap. 1Google Scholar; and Skocpol, Theda, “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis: Neo-Marxist Theories of the State and the Case of the New Deal,” Politics and Society 10 (1981), 155–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Primarily, in this context, that foreign policy makers act in a self-interested fashion in international politics to maximize their conceptions of the “national interests”-defined as the material, or “real,” interests of the state.

12 In 1984–1985, Canadian official development assistance amounted to $875 million in government-to-government bilateral assistance; $691 million in multilateral disbursements to international organizations; $186 million to NGOs, all but $18 million to Canadian organizations; $99 million to administration; and $249 million to other expenditures such as the International Development Research Centre, humanitarian assistance and industrial co-operation. See Canada, Canadian International Development Agency, Annual Report, 1984–85.

13 See, for example, Carty and Smith, Perpetuating Poverty, 94–112, esp. Table 4-XI.

14 Quoted in Jeffrey S. Steeves, “The Canadian International Development Agency: The Political Process and the Third World, 1968–1979,” paper presented to the Workshop on Development Policy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, March 1980, 23.

15 See Pratt, “Canadian Policy Towards the Third World: Basis for an Explanation,” note 4.

16 “[T]ied to the Canadian state's leash, CIDA remains most loyal to its big business master,” Carty and Smith assert. “And the master knows that CIDA's business is not so much 'development,' as the development of business” (Perpetuating Poverty, 112). A similar, if less shrill, perspective underlies Pratt's “Canadian Policy Towards the Third World: Basis for an Explanation.”

17 Lavergne notes that even though the government has channelled progressively more of its ODA to Canadian NGOs since the early 1970s, such allocations, in so far as they tend to be spent either within Canada, or on the employment of Canadians abroad, represent a form of tied aid. See “The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” 26–27.

18 Cranford Pratt, “Canadian Foreign Policy: Bias to Business,” International Perspectives (November-December 1982), 3–6.

19 Indeed, the work of Dudley and Montmarquette is informed explicitly by the notion of development assistance as a “public good.” See The Supply of Canadian Foreign Aid: Explanation and Evaluation, 30–38.

20 Triantis, “Canada's Interest in Foreign Aid,” 2; Lyon, “Introduction,” xliii-xliv; see also Lyon and Tomlin, Canada as an International Actor, 155–56.

21 Lavergne cites a 1980 public opinion poll which revealed that those expressing support for development assistance did so overwhelmingly for “humanitarian” reasons; by contrast, other “motives” were conspicuously absent in the multiple responses: only 4 per cent claimed “trade benefits for Canada"; 2 per cent claimed “prestige for Canada”; 2 percent claimed “promotion of peace"; and I percent marked “blocking communism.” See “The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” 6–7. See also Lyon and Tomlin, Canada as an International Actor, 157, for additional polling data that confirm this assertion.

22 Triantis, for example, denies that Canadians have any sense of “solidarity” with others (“Canada's Interest in Foreign Aid,” 2). Likewise, Martin Rudner claims that “It would be difficult, if not politically impossible … to sustain the present national consensus on aid levels without a general perception of the benefits of ODA to the domestic economy” (“The Evolving Framework of Canadian Development Assistance Policy,” in Brian W. Tomlin and Maureen Molot [eds.], Canada Among Nations–1984: A Time of Transition [Toronto: James Lorimer, 1985], 128). No evidence is offered to support this assertion.Google Scholar

23 For example, see Triantis, “Canada's Interest in Foreign Aid,” 10–14; Lyon, “Introduction,” xxx-xlvi; and Dickinson, “Canadian Foreign Aid,” 145–48.

24 Freeman, “The Effect of the World Crisis on Canada's Involvement in Africa,” 108–09.

25 Ibid.

26 See the North-South Institute's “report card” (In the Canadian Interest? 6–18, esp. 10). Virtually all studies find common ground in their criticisms of Canada's development assistance policies, particularly the level and nature of ODA outlays.

27 The debate over whether tying ODA to domestic procurement is “good” or “bad” for development continues unresolved. To pose the question here is not meant to imply that tying is therefore a “bad” policy, but rather to note that providing assistance on such conditions is not necessarily as beneficial for the recipient as a straight transfer of wealth, with or without conditions attached as to its use, would be.

28 Keenleyside, Terence A., “Foreign Aid and Human Rights,” International Perspectives (March/April 1987), 17.Google Scholar

29 Lavergne's examination of opinion polls (“The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” 6–9) suggests that there exists a substantial public preference (39–50%) for “increasing” aid levels. By contrast, Tomlin, and Lyon, (Canada as an International Actor, 157)Google Scholar found that 50 per cent of their bureaucratic elite agreed with the statement that Canadian ODA should be doubled.

30 Freeman, “The Effect of the World Crisis on Canada's Involvement in Africa,” 134.

31 Wall, David, The Charity of Nations (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 48–49.Google Scholar

32 Triantis, “Canada's Interest in Foreign Aid,” 7–10; the same point is made by both Reuber (“The Trade-offs Among the Objectives of Canadian Foreign Aid,” 130–35) and Lavergne (“The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” 46–48).

33 See the arguments and figures advanced by Carty, and Smith, , Perpetuating Poverty, 94–112.Google Scholar

34 North-South Institute, North-South Encounter: The Third World and Canadian Performance (Ottawa: North-South Institute, 1977), 102.Google Scholar

35 “[I]n the long run,” Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau declared in 1968, “the overwhelming threat to Canada... will come instead from the two-thirds of the people of the world who are steadily falling farther and farther behind in their search for a decent standard of living.” Quoted in Sanger, Clyde, Half a Loaf: Canada's Semi-Role among Developing Countries (Toronto: Ryerson, 1969), 203.Google Scholar Also, see above, note 4.

36 See above, notes 3 and 4.

37 “To resist the spread of Communism” received, at -114, the second lowest score in the image study. See Lyon, and Tomlin, , Canada as an International Actor, 158–59,Google Scholar and Table 8.2; also see above, note 4.

38 “To promote Canadian influence with recipient countries” ranked fourth (with a score of 80) in the image study. See ibid.

39 Carty, and Smith, , Perpetuating Poverty, 39;Google Scholar emphasis in original.

40 Pratt, “Canadian Policy Towards the Third World,” 49; Rudner, “The Evolving Framework of Canadian Development Assistance Policy,” 128; Triantis, “Canada's Interest in Foreign Aid,” 2.

41 See, for example, the view expressed in the Economic Council's For a Common Future (31).

42 Azar, Nadia, “Le dialogue Nord-Sud: Pierre Elliott Trudeau parle-t-il sérieusement?” Le Devoir, July 14, 1981.Google Scholar

43 To be sure, critics are swift to cite the derogatory comments about aid made in 1973 by an official of the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, James Whiteside, to a group of Toronto business executives. First reported in The Last Post (“See you in Bongo Bongo: Trade Versus Aid” [September 1973], 50), Whiteside's crassness is usually presented as evidence of the “real” views of the foreign affairs bureaucracy towards development assistance.

44 Morgenthau, Hans J., Politics Among Nations (5th ed.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), chap. 6.Google Scholar

45 Wall, , The Charily of Nations, 48.Google Scholar

46 Carty, “Foreign Aid and CIDA,” 165. The idea that “the international equivalent of peer pressure” underlies Canadian desires to maintain a respectable foreign aid programme is mentioned in Spicer, A Samaritan State?, Sanger, Half a Loaf, Lyon, “Introduction,” Carty and Smith, Perpetuating Poverty, and Lavergne, “The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy.”

47 Such discourse is left to the politically marginal right-wing fringe; see, for example, Fromm, Paul and Hull, James P., Down the Drain? A Critical Re-examination of Canadian Foreign Aid (Toronto: Griffin House, 1981).Google Scholar

48 Lavergne, “The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” 4. It should be noted that Lavergne's discussion of the prestige value of aid occurs in the context of the importance of internationalist values to Canadian foreign policy makers, where “an international public good (international redistribution) [is] converted, at least in part, into a national public good (prestige).”

49 A brief but competent survey of the growth of Canada's development assistance apparatus is to be found in Carty, and Smith, , Perpetuating Poverty, 28–35;Google Scholar for the earlier period, the best treatment is still Spicer, A Samaritan State?

50 For example, the North-South Institute (In the Canadian Interest? 17) called for an increase in personnel. Mark W. Charlton (“The Dynamics of Aid-Giving: Canadian Food Aid and the Issue of Donor Control,” paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Winnipeg, 1986, 17 and 19) notes the impact of staff shortages on food aid programmes.

51 The value-added requirements of Canadian ODA mean that approximately 60 per cent of all Canadian ODA–bilateral and multilateral–is tied. “Of the seventeen donor states in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC),” Freeman notes, “only Austria had a worse record, and Canada's tying record was much higher than the OECD norm” (“The Effect of the World Crisis on Canada's Involvement in Africa,” 120).

52 For discussions of the effects of bureaucratic politics on CIDA's status within the federal bureaucracy, see Thomas C. Bruneau, Jan J. Jorgensen and J. O. Ramsay, “CIDA: The Organization of Canadian Overseas Assistance,” McGill Centre for Developing Area Studies Working Paper 24, October 1978; and Lavergne, “The Determinants of Canadian Aid Policy,” 42–45.