The False Promise of Aid for Trade
The False Promise of Aid for Trade
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贸易援助的虚假承诺
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.1983209
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发表时间：
2011
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
James Scott
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Langan;James Scott
在“后”华盛顿共识时代，贸易援助（AfT）作为一种创新的援助形式获得了突出的地位。世界贸易组织（WTO）、美国国际开发署（USAID）、欧盟委员会（European Commission）和英国国际发展部（DfID）等机构都宣称，AfT的让步是在工业化国家和发展中国家之间创造公平经济竞争环境的一种手段。具体来说，AfT机制被称赞为使贸易自由化协议（无论是在多哈回合还是在双边协议中）与减贫目标保持一致的一种手段。捐助者对低收入国家贸易能力的援助——包括对政府部门、私营部门发展和地方基础设施的支持——被认为是为了构建一个更平衡的、有利于“穷人”需求的全球贸易体系。然而，本文通过对多边WTO和双边EU-ACP（非洲、加勒比和太平洋）谈判中的“道德经济”中的AfT话语进行批判性分析，指出了捐助国语言在使不对称南北贸易体系合理化方面的战略目的。此外，考虑到与西方海外干预有关的具有战略意义的中等收入国家的资金支付，对假定受益者产生可疑后果的私营部门活动，以及将资金支付与不适当政策的实施联系起来，它质疑了AfT援助的“发展”资格。
Abstract Aid for Trade (AfT) has gained prominence as an innovative form of donor support in the era of the ‘post’-Washington Consensus. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the European Commission, and the UK Department for International Development (DfID) have heralded AfT concessions as a means of creating a level economic playing field between industrialised nations and countries in the global South. Specifically, AfT mechanisms have been praised as a means of aligning trade liberalisation deals (whether in the Doha Round or within bilaterals) to poverty reduction objectives. Donor AfT assistance to low-income states’ trade capacity – including support to government ministries, private sector development, and local infrastructure – are understood to construct a more balanced global trade system conducive to the needs of ‘the poor’. This article, however, through critical analysis of AfT discourse within the ‘moral economies’ of multilateral WTO and bilateral EU-ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) negotiations, points to the strategic purposes of donor language in rationalising asymmetric North- South trade systems. Moreover, it questions the ‘development’ credentials of AfT assistance, given its disbursement to strategically significant middle-income states in relation to Western overseas interventions, private sector activities that have dubious consequences for supposed beneficiaries, and the tying of AfT disbursements to the implementation of inappropriate policies.