Themes and Issues in the ‘New Policy Agenda’

Abstract

The linkage of development aid to the promotion of human rights, democracy and good governance in recipient countries stimulated a range of responses from numerous analysts and commentators during the first half of the 1990s. Dubbed the ‘new policy agenda’ (M. Robinson 1994), a variety of issues and questions were raised in the literature. In this chapter, the following themes are identified, with differing perspectives are then explored: the origins of the policy; problems of policy (in)coherence and the lack of conceptual clarity; normative issues concerning policy legitimacy; instrumental questions of policy implementation and likely impact. These are examined, in turn, through a survey of the relevant literature. While there exists a more extensive literature on international aspects of democratisation, this book will confine itself to a review of the narrower set of literature on political conditionality and the promotion of democratisation through development aid.³ One intention of this chapter is to raise research questions that are addressed in the course of the book. Such questions are outlined at the end of each section.