Xu Jiajun (徐佳君), Master student, Tsinghua University.

Seminar topic: Development Assistance as Institutional Transfer: A New Research Agenda towards Foreign Aid

Abstract

The present research aims to investigate how aid relationship has shaped the aid delivery mechanisms and influenced the adaptive capacity of recipient countries’ domestic institutions and outcome of institutional transfer. Here "aid" is not merely viewed as inflow of foreign resources but also as transfer of international ideas, practices and institutions. With a comparative case study between China and Africa, we come to the conclusion that equal and mutual trust aid relationship is inclined to “internally-initiated institutional transfer” with high institutional adaptive capacity, bringing about genuine institutional innovation through ‘synergistic interaction’, while unequal and confrontational aid relationship is inclined to “externally-driven institutional transfer” with low institutional adaptive capacity, resulting in bogus institutional transplantation.