Aid and Technological Cooperation as a Foreign Policy Tool for Emerging Donors: The Case of Brazil.

• Author: Akinci, Basri Alp

Aid and Technological Cooperation as a Foreign Policy Tool for Emerging Donors: The Case of Brazil

Deborah Barros Leal FARRIAS

Routledge, 2018, 200 pages, ISBN: 9780367666545

There is a high concern that development assistance can be seen as national interest from the donor's perspective. The book dwells on the specific case of Brazil and tackles the question of how a country like Brazil seeks power and influence by providing no-strings-attached foreign technical assistance. In the book, there are also some similarities and differences among Southern emerging donors like China, India and South Africa, concerning their take on foreign assistance.

The book, as Farrias puts it, is mainly about foreign policy motivations and development assistance. In the particular case of Brazil, author asks what the foreign policy logic behind the no-strings-attached development assistance is. While answering the question, she gets help from a theoretical perspective, which is a combination of realism and constructivism. According to Farrias, development partnership between developing countries is understudied; and she wants to clear this gap with a specific case study. According to her, most studies deal with money-based cooperation, but from a developing country's perspective, knowledge sharing is common. Hence, technical cooperation is ought to be explored, Farrias claims. According to Farrias, technical cooperation is mostly on non-controversial topics. She advocates that despite the weakness of development assistance, it is one of the most common foreign policy tools for developing countries.

Farrias states that there are four main reasons to perceive development assistance for a policy tool, but in the book, she centers her argument on gaining something in return. Apart from Farrias' main argument, donors give foreign aid because firstly, it has become something they all do. Secondly, for a developing country, foreign assistance stands as the only option for development. Thirdly, technical cooperation comes across as beneficial. As Farrias points out, gaining something in return for foreign aid is not a new phenomenon. She categorizes two types of gain: commercial and diplomatic. While commercial gains are more straightforward, diplomatic gain is harder to be secured and related to soft power. The book assumed that all donors would like to achieve both some commercial and diplomatic gains. Furthermore, in each agreement, the donor only gives priority...