Human nature and development aid: IR and the biology of altruism

Abstract

Research in evolutionary biology and neuroscience has recently entered a domain previously the preserve of philosophers: human morality and altruism. Save for a niche in empirical economics, such research has been widely neglected by social scientists. This article examines recent advances in life sciences to reconsider traditional explanations regarding donors’ motives in granting official development assistance (ODA). Foreign aid has been remarkably persistent over the past four decades among industrialised countries and it is expanding in emerging economies, despite significant criticism surrounding its underlying motives and somewhat disappointing return on investment. Traditional international relations (IR) and economic models fall short of explaining the emergence, persistence and extension of ODA. Drawing on research on altruism in other disciplines, we build an empirical model and test the nature-vs-nurture arguments with a view to explaining ODA levels and variation over time. The results lend slightly clearer support to the nature than the nurture argument — or to altruism as hardwired rather than the product of cultural traits — and call for further interdisciplinary research including evolutionary biology and neurology to examine typical issues of interest in IR and development studies such as the determinants of ODA levels and variation.