Selected bibliography
3 The origins of development aid: a historical perspective
3.2 Creating the building blocks of a development aid agenda
3.2.1 Towards a new narrative of international relations
The transition from an imperial to a developmental-neo-imperial31 pattern of relations between independent strong and independent weak states required two types of normative change: first, the strong had to respect formally the sovereignty and the rights of the weak and, second, they had to assume responsibility for aiding them. Admittedly, there is a tension between these two processes, since aid can clearly become an instrument of pressure that undermines the sovereignty of the weak. By accepting aid, the weak risk surrendering some of their hard-won sovereignty and respect, but as we shall see, they have generally preferred to manage such risk rather than forgo development aid. There is thus a non-resolved tension or trade-off between sovereignty and aid, which has been part and parcel of the development aid agenda since its very beginning.
31 I use this admittedly awkward label to refer to a pattern of relations between countries in which “developmental aid” comes into the picture, although power relations clearly remain in a post-colonial context.
The first firm step in the transition from imperial to developmental-neo-imperial relations took place in the context of WWI and its aftermath, when US President Woodrow Wilson, catching up with Russian leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, advocated for a new diplomacy which, among other things, sought to give weak states and territories a better deal (Mayer, 1970;
Lenin, 1972a; Kissinger, 1994). This Wilsonian deal, embodied in the League of Nations, came in three variants: a) recognition of and respect for the sovereignty and rights of independent states (e.g. Latin American countries); b) the right to self-determination for those deemed capable (e.g.
certain European states under the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires);
and c) a system of tutelage and aid (the so-called mandate system) for the African colonies of the defeated German and Turkish empires, which were considered not yet ready for self-governance and which were assigned to supervision by advanced nations (MacMillan, 2002).32
The new diplomacy, thus, advanced the right of self-determination and sovereignty, but did so only for two groups of weak territories: the independent ones and the ones deemed capable. It also introduced the right to development aid but again only for a third group of weak states:
the colonies. Most importantly, it set forth the conceptual underpinning of that right: the idea of the strong assuming responsibility for dependent and incapable weak states. It is crucial to underscore that aid to independent weak states was not part of the new diplomacy package. Indeed, aid was what differentiated dependent from independent nations. As the Covenant of the League of Nations put it, those countries able to stand by themselves had, by definition, no need of aid and were deemed, as the word itself implies, independent; that is not dependent on aid. To ask for aid was to recognise that independence was not deserved. For a modern development cooperation agenda to emerge, the conceptual opposition between aid and independence had to be broken. This would not happen until after WWII when the great majority of weak states, now considered developing countries, acquired both the right to self-determination and the right to receive development aid.
32 The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 that regulated inter-imperialist relations in Africa advanced the narrative of “colonial responsibilities” institutionalised by the League of Nations. When the Bolsheviks took power in November 1917, their very first decree
“On Peace” condemned all “annexation or seizure of foreign lands” (…) irrespective of the time when such incorporation took place” (Lenin, 1969, p. 8). In the (rarely quoted) preamble of his “fourteen points” that he pronounced a few weeks later, President Wilson made a tribute to the revolutionary Russians, though he did not go as far as they did. We shall come back later to the Soviet stance on this issue.
The new diplomacy failed in its main purpose – eradicating war – and never fulfilled its promise of a better deal for weak states, but it did introduce important conceptual and normative breakthroughs and led to a number of positive changes during the interwar years. First, the new diplomacy gave an impetus to weak states and colonies in their struggle for sovereignty.
At Versailles, where the peace treaty ending WWI was signed, Wilson had raised hopes throughout the colonial world with his support for self-determination. However, when it became clear that this right was meant only for European countries, some territories/countries, including China and Korea, reacted with violence and revolts in an international movement that has been labelled “the Wilsonian Moment” (Manela, 2007). Second, the new diplomacy influenced the behaviour of metropoles toward their colonies.
The League of Nations’ mandate system was technically limited to the former possessions of the German and Turkish empires, but it set forth a series of expectations regarding the conduct and responsibilities of imperial countries.33 Some improvements did take place, such as Britain’s adoption of the Colonial and Development Act (1928), which was replaced 11 years later by a Colonial and Welfare Act (Arndt, 1987, p. 28; Morgan, 1980).
Finally, through the formation of the League of Nations, the new diplomacy put into place a trained secretariat and left an important legacy of multilateral cooperation (Clavin, 2013).
In sum, by establishing the right to self-determination, institutionalising a responsibilities/rights framework through the mandate system between strong and weak entities, putting pressure on colonial powers to pursue development policies and erecting multilateral machinery for international cooperation, the new diplomacy that emerged at Versailles paved the way for a development aid agenda.
33 According to the formal rationale of the mandate system, Germany and Turkey had lost their colonies not because they had lost the war but because they had proven to be bad masters. In this spurious way, Versailles sought to align itself with progressive Wilsonian thinking. In fact, Germany and Turkey had not been worse masters than the Belgians and the Portuguese, but as the latter had sided with the winners, their colonies were not affected (MacMillan, 2002).