Continuities and Discontinuities in Foreign Assistance

Abstract

Assessing foreign assistance to Arab states sheds important light on how Western and regional donors have responded to the dramatic changes set in motion by the wave of mass protests that swept across the Middle East in 2011 and beyond. The papers presented in this special issue highlight two essential fingings. First, Western patterns of foreign assistance exhibit remarkable continuity, despite the scale of the uprisings and their effects, and despite the commitment of Western governments to expand assistance in support of the aspirations of Arab protestors. Second, patterns of foreign assistance from the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries reflect the deepening politicization of Arab foreign assistance, the ongoing shift in regional influence from the Arab East to the Gulf, and the extent to which foreign assistance has become instrumentalized in regional balance of power politics.