[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-600594-105":59,"doc-detail-600594-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","paradoxes-and-prospects-moving-beyond-the-study-of-foreign-aid","Paradoxes and Prospects: Moving Beyond the Study of Foreign Aid","","Paradoxes and Prospects examines foreign aid as a mechanism shaped by geopolitics, self-interest, and post–World War II Western power, while also acknowledging progressive and potentially transformative elements within reform proposals. The discussion challenges critical scholars to reconcile aid as both an instrument of unequal social relations and a vehicle for progressive change. It argues that understanding aid requires a richer theory of world politics, including how welfare-state social contracts and global norms influence aid allocation and education priorities, and it asks what institutional reforms and social forces could enable improvement.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/paradoxes-and-prospects-moving-beyond-the-study-of-foreign-aid/600594/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/paradoxes-and-prospects-moving-beyond-the-study-of-foreign-aid/600594.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"OmBimo","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":39},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why does the article argue that foreign aid is often ineffective against world poverty?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It presents foreign aid as frequently driven by self-interest and geopolitics rather than the stated goal of alleviating poverty, quoting the view that aid maintains a global economy of inequality.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What reform measures does the article associate with making aid more progressive?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It highlights proposals such as providing more money directly to the poor, reforming the World Bank’s role, focusing on key priorities, reshaping research in the aid regime, and expanding democratic participation and collective agenda setting.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the article say is missing from Klees’ diagnosis and prescriptions?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It argues that the explanation needs a more complete theory of world politics and world order that accounts for actors’ motives and values and recognizes agency, rather than relying on a primarily static account.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},600594,1792230820,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":39,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":24,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},962090893581,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Paradoxes and Prospects: Moving Beyond the Study of Foreign Aid  \nKaren Mundy  \nOntario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto  \nIn his article,“Aid, Development, and Education,” Steve Klees (2010) tells us two stories about  \nforeign aid. The first is that foreign aid does not “work” to alleviate world poverty, no matter whether one takes a neo-Marxist or liberal approach to understanding it. Aid is more about selfinterest and geopolitics than anything else – at best it is a form of compensatory legitimation practiced by the world’s richest governmentstoput a band-aid on inequality. Quoting Joel Samoff, Klees tells us that aid’s “…essential role is not to achieve publicly stated objectives, but rather to maintain a global political economy of inequality”(p. 16) .  \nAt the same time, Klees tells us that aid is not “all bad.” It has a progressive and transformative component. If reformed, and revamped, it can serve the common good. More money, provided directly to the poor, getting rid of the World Bank, focusing on key priorities, changing the role of research in the aid regime, and increasing forms of democratic participation and collective agenda setting are all parts of Klees’ remedy.  \nI want to raise two questions in this response. First, how can we (critical scholars) have it both ways? That is to say, how can development assistance be both a key instrument of unequal social relations and part of a progressive solution? Second, what is missing from Klees’ diagnosis of the aid regime and his prescriptions for aid reform?  \nWhat Is Aid Really About?  \nIn the field of comparative education, I would argue that we have (for a very long time) been dominated by a relatively thin description of international political economy when it comes to foreign aid. To unpack foreign aid we need a much more complete theory of world politics and world order, including a basic explanation for the behaviors, motives, and values of key actors within our changing world order that recognizes agency.  \nHere is what we know. First, foreign aid itself is a phenomenon of the post-World War II era, dominated by the activities of a small number of Western states. In origins and organization, it owes a great deal to the power politics of a bipolar world order that emerged during the Cold War.  \nAt the same time, we would be amiss if we imagined that aid has not also been a product of the evolution of the Western capitalist welfare state and the evolution of a social compact or compromise within those states. Thus while geopolitics and self-interest have been very important in shaping the thematic and geographic allocation of aid, at the same time, certain trends suggest that aid has also reflected the broader process through which capitalist nation states adopted compensatory, Keynesian, or redistributive public policies at home. For example, over time (and with one short period of regression) aid has become more pooled and multilateral, and it has slowly moved towards the provision of enlarged shares to the poorest countries and their poorest populations. Aid to education has also, over the last decade, come to focus more on basic education and on financing the recurrent costs of basic education.  \n© 2010 Current Issues in Comparative Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Current Issues in Comparative Education 13(1), 51-55.  \nK. Mundy  \nKlees suggests that one way of understanding aid policies is as a mechanism through which powerful states offset the problems of inequality and legitimate their own power. This is a relatively static and fixed argument; in the end, aid is structurally reduced to motives and incentives that mean it can never rise above being a bandage on human misery.  \nA second view of the political economy of aid might be to see it as the product of real historical contests among both states and wider social forces in the construction of world order. Such a view might draw upon the a","cbCaiscIa1MpRzmd","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiscIa1MpRzmd","pdf",148559,"English","# Paradoxes and Prospects: Moving Beyond the Study of Foreign Aid\n## What Is Aid Really About?\n## New Features Require New Thinking","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article argue that foreign aid is often ineffective against world poverty?\",\"answer\":\"It presents foreign aid as frequently driven by self-interest and geopolitics rather than the stated goal of alleviating poverty, quoting the view that aid maintains a global economy of inequality.\"},{\"question\":\"What reform measures does the article associate with making aid more progressive?\",\"answer\":\"It highlights proposals such as providing more money directly to the poor, reforming the World Bank’s role, focusing on key priorities, reshaping research in the aid regime, and expanding democratic participation and collective agenda setting.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the article say is missing from Klees’ diagnosis and prescriptions?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that the explanation needs a more complete theory of world politics and world order that accounts for actors’ motives and values and recognizes agency, rather than relying on a primarily static account.\"}]","Paradoxes and Prospects: Moving Beyond the Study of Foreign Aid | PDF",1792091007,13]