Would revising the ‘Make Poverty History’ slogan to ‘Make Poverty Slightly Less’ reduce public cynicism about development aid? At a recent London conference on ‘Giving for Development’, held at Cass Business School, City University, it was argued that the current development narrative is too ambitious. Qualitative research presented at the conference showed many Britons believe the government’s development efforts are largely driven by celebrity activists like Bono and Bob Geldof. Thus, it was suggested that a more modest development narrative could assist in lowering public expectations about what the government is able to achieve with regards to poverty alleviation in Third World countries.
However, most political scientists no longer accept the elite theory of democracy which maintains that the general public are too ill-informed and cognitively limited to make rational foreign policy pronouncements. Indeed it was four decades ago that V. O. Key articulated the role of democratic citizens as ‘manageable fools’. Since then a wealth of literature has shown that while the public might not be capable of discussing foreign affairs in great detail, all humans (both the public and political elites) use heuristics to make a variety of complex policy decisions and these decisions are both ideologically cohesive and stable.
In the current age of information, the public are well positioned to independently vet (with their vote and their wallet) poverty-reduction initiatives and development actors. Perhaps then the reason Britons are cynical about the UK government’s commitment to international development is because they are aware that development requires more than just aid. Indeed it is probable that the public recognise that without action on climate change, weapons disarmament and trade justice, the government’s pledge to end Third World poverty with tax-payer funds is disingenuous and potentially driven by political agendas.
Today the biggest threats to global peace, security and prosperity are not states but non-state actors such as religious fundamentalists (highlighted by the recent Mumbai attacks), transnational criminals, multinational corporations and merchant bankers. Some might argue philanthropists such as Bill Gates should be added to this list (refer to Global Health Watch 2, Zed Books, 2008). A recent publication by the UK Commission on National Security in the 21st Century asserts weak or failed states present more of a threat to British security than strong states because they are a potential breeding ground or ‘jumping-off point’ for terrorism and transnational crime. The authors contend massive global poverty is contributing to the problem and therefore Britain should join with the new Obama administration in better coordinating government policies so that national security is achieved through ‘non-military preventative action’.
However, if the government is in fact concerned with public cynicism about development aid, it would be wise not to confuse poverty-reduction initiatives with national security issues. The experience of the previous Australian government, led by John Howard for eleven years, should serve as a lesson to New Labour about the problems associated with creating a multi-departmental security strategy focused on ‘good governance’ in fragile states.
Using disturbingly parallel language to that used by the Australian Department of Defence, the UK Commission’s report emphasises the importance of poverty reduction across an ‘arc of instability stretching from the coast of west Africa, right across the continent and up through the Persian Gulf region and into central Asia’. Indeed after 9/11 and the 2002 Bali bombings, the Howard government began referring to the struggling island nations to Australia’s north and east as an ‘arc of instability’, suggesting weak state institutions in these countries posed a security threat to the entire Asia-Pacific region. Howard then encouraged different public service departments to co-ordinate their work in line with the government’s overall foreign policy and security objectives.
Because Australia’s aid agency is controlled by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia’s aid programme became dominated by a law and order agenda which the OECD heavily criticised in 2005 for undermining both poverty-reduction outputs and local ownership. In fact in the Asia-Pacific region (where 90% of Australia’s official aid is absorbed), the number of people living without basic sanitation and clean water escalated under Howard’s leadership despite a steady increase in aid spending.
An important distinction between the UK and Australia is that the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) is run independently of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. However, the UK is a key US coalition partner in the ‘War on Terror’ and Barack Obama’s newly named national security team have already shown keen interest in using economic aid as a soft power weapon to fight terrorism. Gordon Brown should not be misled into believing that tax-payers would be reassured of the government’s fiscal responsibility if the same foreign policy strategy were adopted on this side of the Atlantic. Research has shown Britons overwhelmingly believe poverty in developing countries is a moral issue. Therefore, Brown should reassert his seriousness about ending global poverty by encouraging both the EU and the next US administration to reform the key multilateral institutions so that they better reflect the re-emergence of a multi-polar world. This would send a clear signal to voters that the government is committed to global cooperation across a range of issues imperative to international peace, development and sustainability.
We no longer live in a uni-polar world with one hegemonic nation, the United States. As Coral Bell argues in her Lowy Institute paper The end of the Vasco da Gama era, there has recently been a redistribution of power to six great powers (the US, EU, China, India, Russia, and Japan) as well as a number of emerging powers (Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and possibly also Vietnam, South Africa and Korea). Furthermore, while this balance of powers could potentially lead to a concert of powers (whereby states would work together to address climate change, poverty and nuclear weapons proliferation); it could also lead to a Cold War-like situation of powerful states using economic aid to fight a proxy ‘clash of civilisations’.
In other words, abating both global poverty (through internationally coordinated efforts) and public cynicism about development aid would best be achieved if the UK pushed for increased participation and representation by the new powers within the Bretton Woods institutions. Importantly, this will require convincing Europe and the US to be more accommodating of non-Western values and norms, and to end the notion of a war between Christianity and Islam.
Coral Bell asserts that the closest approximation to the current balance of powers was the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars until the beginning of WWI. During this time hegemonic war was avoided for ninety-nine years. The world therefore has for the first time in almost a century, the best chance of coming together to promote the conditions necessary for peace and sustainable development. It seems the public realise this requires at the very least the completion of the Doha Development Round of WTO trade negotiations, the sharing of technology to reduce atmospheric carbon, and the reinvigoration of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The question is does our leadership realise it?
