Suchergebnisse

What is the connection between international aid organizations (IAOs) and the transnationalization of capitalism? This article diverges from neo-Gramscian accounts of international organizations by focusing on the distinctive material and relational aspects of the practice in which IAOs engage: the solicitation and extension of gifts. This perspective opens the inquiry to insights from theories of gift exchange and virtue ethics, which allow further specification of IAOs as a means of what Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer call moral regulation, or the disciplining and conforming of recipients to the new transnational capitalist order. More specifically, this article argues that the extension and acceptance of the gifts of multilateral and non-governmental IAOs is a mechanism of consent to the capitalist order. That amounts to what neo-Gramscians call ethical hegemony because it allows donors to ethically judge recipients and compels recipients to accept responsibility for their own plight.

In what sense can foreign aid be understood as a moral practice? Is there any empirical substance to this claim? This article reconceptualises a type of foreign aid in which this claim is most plausible – grants by multilateral aid agencies – as a contemporary form of beneficence, a trans-historical phenomenon. Drawing on Aristotelian virtue ethics, it identifies such donations as a moral practice with deep roots in Western history. This analysis substantiates a view of the relations between states that goes beyond the simple notion of reciprocity emphasised by neoliberals. It concludes with the political implications of identifying donor states with moral distinction.

What is the connection between international aid organizations (IAOs) & the transnationalization of capitalism? This article diverges from neo-Gramscian accounts of international organizations by focusing on the distinctive material & relational aspects of the practice in which IAOs engage: the solicitation & extension of gifts. This perspective opens the inquiry to insights from theories of gift exchange & virtue ethics, which allow further specification of IAOs as a means of what Philip Corrigan & Derek Sayer call moral regulation, or the disciplining & conforming of recipients to the new transnational capitalist order. More specifically, this article argues that the extension & acceptance of the gifts of multilateral & non-governmental IAOs is a mechanism of consent to the capitalist order. That amounts to what neo-Gramscians call ethical hegemony because it allows donors to ethically judge recipients & compels recipients to accept responsibility for their own plight. [Copyright 2003 Sage Publications Ltd.]