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A Fragile Balance: Re-examining the History of Foreign Aid, Security, and Diplomacy

Louis A. Picard and Terry F. Buss
A Fragile Balance: Re-examining the History of Foreign Aid, Security, and Diplomacy
ISBN: 978-1-56549-296-7
$75.00
ISBN: 978-1-56549-295-0
$28.50
ISBN: 978-1-62637-202-3
$28.50
2009/317 pages/LC: 2009010986
A Kumarian Press Book
"A must-read for undergraduate-level courses in foreign aid and foreign policy, [and] valuable to specialists in international relations."—Kai Chen, Journal of Third World Studies

"The most complete historical overview on US foreign aid in the literature."—Revista de Ciencia Política

"A Fragile Balance provides historic context to the evolution of US foreign aid policy as a servant of strategic goals, and also an efficient review of the dynamics of aid policymaking as strategic goals changed over time. Its particular strength is to illuminate the many current institutional 'debates' about US foreign aid created by the strategic watersheds of 1991 and 2001."—E. Philip Morgan, Monterey Institute

"The authors could not be more correct.... Foreign aid implementation is a management problem and the authors are correctly critical of the short-term 'bridging training' preferred by donor agencies."—Governance

DESCRIPTION

Louis Picard and Terry Buss trace the history of US foreign aid from the earliest assumptions of manifest destiny to the present, placing their discussion within the context of broader foreign policy and security goals. Effectively combining policy and normative perspectives, their book serves as a provocative introduction to the subject.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Louis A. Picard is director of the Ford Institute for Human Security at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Terry F. Buss is distinguished professor of public policy at the Heinz College of Carnegie Mellon University.

CONTENTS

  • BACKGROUND.
  • Foreign Aid Policy in the Twenty-First Century.
  • International Assistance, Foreign Policy, and Security Policy.
  • Historical Antecedents.
  • EPOCHS OF AID, DIPLOMACY, AND SECURITY POLICY.
  • Manifest Destiny and American Expansionism.
  • The Impact of Two World Wars.
  • Point Four, USAID, and the Cold War.
  • The Vietnam War.
  • Basic Needs, Structural Adjustment, and the Cold War's End.
  • September 11 and the Iraq War.
  • Reconstruction, Civic Action, and AFRICOM.
  • CONTEMPORARY AID IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.
  • From Policy to Process.
  • Donors and Clients.
  • Debates into the Twenty-First Century.
  • Challenges for the Future.