Semester of Graduation

Fall 2018

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Political Science

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Is foreign aid helpful or harmful in African countries? Even though scholars have tried to answer this question for decades, it is still unclear if foreign aid has efficiently helped the African continent to overcome the challenges that arose with the end of Colonization. A priority for the African countries was to reorganize the institutions in order to reestablish autonomous and stable system of governance. An important amount of help for this reconstruction has come from external actors, that have been referred to in the literature as foreign aid. In this paper, I seek to test the relationship between the foreign aid mentioned above, and political stability. Some scholars argue that African countries receiving an important amount of foreign aid are more likely to be governed by a corrupted government and therefore will be politically unstable, while others believe that foreign aid is positively related to the quality of governance and to the political stability of the recipient country.

Does Foreign aid lead to political stability or does it fuel instability and violence in order for western countries to keep a certain form of control over their former colonies?

Throughout this case study, I will test the foreign aid and political instability theory and determine whether the results support the theory.

Date

10-17-2018

Committee Chair

Sobek, David

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.4813

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