Challenging the myth of non-return, this chapter shows that, by the 1970s, many guest workers did want to return to Turkey. But instead of support, they encountered opposition from the Turkish government. In the 1970s, the link between return migration and financial investments dominated bilateral discussions between Turkey and West Germany. After the Oil Crisis, West Germany devised bilateral policies to promote remigration. Turkey, then mired in unemployment, hyperinflation, and debt, actively resisted those efforts. The Turkish government realized that guest workers played a significant role in mitigating the country’s economic crisis. To repay its foreign debt, Turkey needed guest workers’ remittance payments in high-performing Deutschmarks. If guest workers returned to Turkey, then that stream would dry up. Turkish officials thus strove to prevent mass return migration at all costs – even when it contradicted guest workers’ interests. These tensions also manifested in Turkey’s charging of exorbitant fees for citizens abroad who sought exemptions from mandatory military service, prompting young migrants to create an activist organization that critiqued this policy. The knowledge that they were unwanted in both countries widened the rift between the migrants and their home country, which disparaged them as “Germanized” yet relied on them as “remittance machines.”

Turning to the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, Chapter 10 explores the challenges Bonn faced amidst the turmoil of the early 1970s. Tightened budgets, occasioned by worries about inflation, hampered efforts by aid minister Erhard Eppler to follow through on Brandt’s promises of expanding development aid to the Global South. Karl Schiller insisted that trade, not aid, was the better path forward. Bonn’s liberal, free-trade approach drew criticism from African leaders, as West Germany invested heavily in apartheid South Africa; Brandt’s government did, however, enact tighter restrictions on weapons exports outside NATO. German officials frowned upon Global South demands for a more balanced world trading order, but they played a mediating role at UNCTAD III, a global trade and development conference in Santiago, Chile. Confronted with a rash of kidnappings in Latin America and Palestinian terrorism on German soil, Brandt’s government opted repeatedly to appease the hostage-takers rather than prosecute them. This passive response contributed to the disaster at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when Israeli athletes were captured and murdered.

This chapter unpacks the critical relationship between African peacekeeping and the continent’s international relations, tracing peacekeeping’s evolution from the periphery to the heart of many bilateral and multilateral relationships. In the aftermath of the failed 1993 UN/US-led intervention in Somalia and 1994 Rwandan genocide, the authors argue, Western powers sought to disengage from direct military involvement on the continent, increasingly relying on African states and militaries to provide ‘African solutions to African problems’. This dynamic has evolved into Western (and, increasingly, Chinese and Russian) underwriting of African peacekeeping missions, from Somalia to the DRC, and the growing subsidising of African security states by international partners. The chapter examines this development and how it has enabled a range of African governments, from Chad to Ethiopia, to carve out greater room for manoeuvre in their (often aid-dependent) relations with international actors. This has, the authors argue, had profound implications for domestic politics in a number of instances.

This chapter explores the ideological roots of the non-governmental aid. It does so by framing the NGO sector’s attitude to poverty in terms of a worldview that developed in the late nineteenth century – rooted in the concepts of universalism, rational authority, progress and world citizenship. The core narrative element of this chapter focuses on the influence of ‘basic needs’, the highly influential model of rural development adopted by the World Bank in the 1970s, that facilitated the sector’s integration into the international development and emergency relief industries over the following decade. Basic needs was in many ways the perfect catalyst for NGOs. Its focus on ‘absolute poverty’ and on village-level interventions in health, education and economic development – precisely the areas where NGOs operated – transformed the territory of intervention in the Third World. But its influence can only be fully understood by reading the sector’s rapid integration into the development industry in terms of the ideological convergence that underpinned that process. This helps to explain why those organisations and their supporters were simultaneously committed to development and highly critical of the inequalities that underpinned global poverty; their criticisms were born from a genuine belief in those values, and in the need for reform, rather than in the desire for their replacement.

This chapter explores the ideological roots of the non-governmental aid. It does so by framing the NGO sector’s attitude to poverty in terms of a worldview that developed in the late nineteenth century – rooted in the concepts of universalism, rational authority, progress and world citizenship. The core narrative element of this chapter focuses on the influence of ‘basic needs’, the highly influential model of rural development adopted by the World Bank in the 1970s, that facilitated the sector’s integration into the international development and emergency relief industries over the following decade. Basic needs was in many ways the perfect catalyst for NGOs. Its focus on ‘absolute poverty’ and on village-level interventions in health, education and economic development – precisely the areas where NGOs operated – transformed the territory of intervention in the Third World. But its influence can only be fully understood by reading the sector’s rapid integration into the development industry in terms of the ideological convergence that underpinned that process. This helps to explain why those organisations and their supporters were simultaneously committed to development and highly critical of the inequalities that underpinned global poverty; their criticisms were born from a genuine belief in those values, and in the need for reform, rather than in the desire for their replacement.

This chapter examines the lessons of the NGO moment for how we write the history of globalisation. It suggests that we need to think more deeply about the boundaries of the ‘global’, and of where and how ‘global’ narratives are constructed. By looking beyond states and international organisations to NGOs, churches and civil society groups – and, indeed, to the Third World and the experiences of small and middling powers in the West – we can render visible the world system on which ideals such as humanitarianism, human rights, justice and development rested. That process, like the story of post-war globalisation, has three layers. First, the NGO moment helps to illuminate the places (physical, intellectual, and ideological) where globalising ideals were made. Second, it allows us to explore the patterns that underpinned those relationships: the connections between individuals, groups and institutions through which global compassion was constituted. Finally, by tracing how and where NGOs operated, this chapter argues, we gain a much fuller appreciation of how power was distributed in purportedly ‘global’ movements. Taken together, these elements allow us to paint a more nuanced picture of how outwardly ‘global’ ideas were understood, assimilated, rebuffe, and reframed in a variety of social and political contexts.

This chapter describes how NGOs adapted the language of scientific rationality – here labelled ‘humanitarian modernity’ – to construct a sustainable model of intervention based on the idea of universal needs. It does so by examining the sector’s response to the conflict that created independent Bangladesh in the early 1970s and the refugee crisis that it created. In South Asia, the need to negotiate access, first to refugees, then to the welfare systems of the new state, created the conditions of what this chapter terms a ‘compassionate space’ that would have long-term consequences for how NGOs were embedded in Third World contexts. This was a unique type of association, which could not be shoehorned into conventional categories of Western domination or neocolonial influence. As this chapter shows, collaboration with Third World authorities became a vital currency in convincing supporters of the NGO sector’s legitimacy, based on its ability to reach those in need, while in the field it paved the way for long-term engagement with postcolonial governments. It also became integral to the concept of protection that emerged in this period: the tropes it employed, the problems it faced and the communities of practice that flourished in that context.

This chapter examines the lessons of the NGO moment for how we write the history of globalisation. It suggests that we need to think more deeply about the boundaries of the ‘global’, and of where and how ‘global’ narratives are constructed. By looking beyond states and international organisations to NGOs, churches and civil society groups – and, indeed, to the Third World and the experiences of small and middling powers in the West – we can render visible the world system on which ideals such as humanitarianism, human rights, justice and development rested. That process, like the story of post-war globalisation, has three layers. First, the NGO moment helps to illuminate the places (physical, intellectual, and ideological) where globalising ideals were made. Second, it allows us to explore the patterns that underpinned those relationships: the connections between individuals, groups and institutions through which global compassion was constituted. Finally, by tracing how and where NGOs operated, this chapter argues, we gain a much fuller appreciation of how power was distributed in purportedly ‘global’ movements. Taken together, these elements allow us to paint a more nuanced picture of how outwardly ‘global’ ideas were understood, assimilated, rebuffe, and reframed in a variety of social and political contexts.

This chapter sets out three claims about the NGO moment. First, it argues for viewing the history of non-governmental aid in terms of moments of acceleration: bursts of activity that refreshed the sector while carrying with them the baggage of what had come before. While the specific dynamics of the period between Biafra and Live Aid were vital in facilitating the sector’s emergence, the moral frameworks that guided those organisations were equally the product of a much longer formative process. Second, this chapter explains how those dynamics helped non-governmental aid to supplant other forms of compassion in this period to become the dominant expression of popular benevolence towards the Third World. The broad remit of those organisations’ activities not only subsumed ‘aid’ under a single umbrella; its ideological underpinnings gave it an unprecedented justification to intervene anywhere there was suffering in the world. Finally, this chapter suggests that the story of the NGO moment provides us with several lessons for the writing of global history. It argues for describing globalisation as a constructed, context-contingent process that can only be understood as the product of the interactions between individual, organisational, national and supra-national actors.

This chapter sets out three claims about the NGO moment. First, it argues for viewing the history of non-governmental aid in terms of moments of acceleration: bursts of activity that refreshed the sector while carrying with them the baggage of what had come before. While the specific dynamics of the period between Biafra and Live Aid were vital in facilitating the sector’s emergence, the moral frameworks that guided those organisations were equally the product of a much longer formative process. Second, this chapter explains how those dynamics helped non-governmental aid to supplant other forms of compassion in this period to become the dominant expression of popular benevolence towards the Third World. The broad remit of those organisations’ activities not only subsumed ‘aid’ under a single umbrella; its ideological underpinnings gave it an unprecedented justification to intervene anywhere there was suffering in the world. Finally, this chapter suggests that the story of the NGO moment provides us with several lessons for the writing of global history. It argues for describing globalisation as a constructed, context-contingent process that can only be understood as the product of the interactions between individual, organisational, national and supra-national actors.

This chapter describes how NGOs adapted the language of scientific rationality – here labelled ‘humanitarian modernity’ – to construct a sustainable model of intervention based on the idea of universal needs. It does so by examining the sector’s response to the conflict that created independent Bangladesh in the early 1970s and the refugee crisis that it created. In South Asia, the need to negotiate access, first to refugees, then to the welfare systems of the new state, created the conditions of what this chapter terms a ‘compassionate space’ that would have long-term consequences for how NGOs were embedded in Third World contexts. This was a unique type of association, which could not be shoehorned into conventional categories of Western domination or neocolonial influence. As this chapter shows, collaboration with Third World authorities became a vital currency in convincing supporters of the NGO sector’s legitimacy, based on its ability to reach those in need, while in the field it paved the way for long-term engagement with postcolonial governments. It also became integral to the concept of protection that emerged in this period: the tropes it employed, the problems it faced and the communities of practice that flourished in that context.

This chapter analyzes how competing notions of conditionality – primarily tensions between efficiency and solidarity – have played out in debates and discourses on development aid since the 1960s in one Scandinavian country and a small, yet highly profiled donor – Sweden. Repeated and shifting demands for accountability and transparency serve as a probe into the complex, competing, and often fluctuating aims, goals, and motives of international development aid. The chapter argues that current debates on “the end of aid” are informed by a historical and unresolved tension between “unconditional solidarity” on the one hand and “conditional efficiency” on the other: Demands for openness elucidate competing aims of aid, indicating a paradox in the transparency paradigm in contemporary development aid discourse, whereby efficient aid – as manifested in economic growth – eventually leads to the end of aid while its alleged inefficiency – as evidenced in social inequality – ensures its continued legitimacy.

This chapter analyzes the significant changes that have taken place in Danish aid since the 1990s. The historical analysis shows that Denmark forms an exception to “Scandinavian exceptionalism,” with its approach historically much more characterized by pragmatism, mercantilism and subservience to international trends. Though sometimes presented as such, Danish aid today appears neither altruistic, idealist, nor driven by exceptional motives of humanitarianism. We thus show that Danish aid is less a reflection of a political ambition to brand Denmark internationally as a humanitarian frontrunner, and more a by-product of unfolding domestic political priorities influenced by international events and contingent changes. More so than the end of aid then, today is what we may call a new time of pragmatic ambiguity, drawing on “old” ideas, whether self-interest, tied aid or (domestic) political instrumentalization of aid.

Chapter 12 describes Tinbergen’s transformation from a national economic expert to an international development economist. While involved in domestic matters in the early 1950s, a trip to India affected him deeply. Afterward he reoriented his career, asked permission to leave the CPB, and developed a new research agenda. That new agenda went hand in hand with a redefinition of the role of the Netherlands in the world in the aftermath of colonization. Tinbergen argued that it was the responsibility of the Dutch people to give something back to the world after the country had received Marshall aid and was again a stable economy. The most visible outcome of this was his involvement in the founding of NOVIB. He worried that social democracy in Western Europe was turning into a complacent and materialistic movement and hoped that international goals would give it a new spirit. He drew on his extensive network in Dutch politics and the Royal family to shape development aid policies at home and to transform himself from a national into an international economic expert. This aligned with a reimagination of the economy, which he increasingly viewed as an international interdependent system, under the influence of Colin Clark.

This chapter presents the field of rule of law assistance as it became established in Myanmar after 2011. It introduces common rule of law actors and their technologies and provides a brief background to the political and legal features of the case study. While doing this, the chapter hints at the frictions of foreign-funded rule of law assistance that emerge because international, national, and local understandings and approaches to rule of law development differ and are challenging to align. It shows how intermediaries emerged to mediate between counterparts regarding issues such as monetary compensation; applications for funding; the best approach to achieve rule of law development; donor involvement in local affairs; and institutional constraints.

The OECD has worked with climate finance since the 1990s, addressing it from both a development and an investment perspective. As a knowledge-producing institution, the OECD has produced numerous reports and other publications on climate finance, which can be divided into two strands: A development strand within which the DAC has published statistics on the provision of development aid with climate objectives, and an investment strand producing analyses of how to redirect investment to green purposes. The former perspective led the OECD to frame climate finance as a subtype of development finance while stressing its economic aspects (cost-effectiveness, leveraging private finance). The latter, less important, perspective framed climate finance as an instrument for redirecting investments from 'brown' to 'green' and linked it to fossil fuel subsidy reform, carbon pricing and institutional investment policy. The OECD’s approach had an ideational influence on how both the G20 and the OECD member states addressed climate finance. The OECD’s output on climate finance was shaped by institutional interaction, the OECD worldview and the member states. The chapter finds that the consequences of OECD output at the international was most salient regarding the UNFCCC, and at the domestic levels most salient regarding the development strand.