Read more
As industrialized countries find it increasingly difficult to insulate themselves from residual impacts associated with underdevelopment abroad, they now pursue a strategy of "targeted development," in which they fund and advocate for development projects when and where it serves their own self-interests. Targeted Development examines this strategy in areas such as foreign aid, trade agreements, and climate finance.
About the author
Sarah Bermeo (PhD, Princeton) is a political economist whose work focuses on understanding relations between industrialized and developing countries. Bermeo is currently Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at the Sanford School at Duke University. Her published work on foreign aid and trade institutions has appeared in International Organization, Journal of Politics, and World Development.
Summary
In a globalizing world, the world's wealthiest nations have found it increasingly difficult to insulate themselves from the residual impacts associated with underdevelopment abroad. Many of the ills associated with, and exacerbated by, underdevelopment-illegal migration, political instability, refugee flows, illicit trafficking, disease outbreaks, terrorism, pollution, and others-cannot be confined within national borders. In Targeted Development, Sarah Bermeo shows how wealthy states have responded to this problem by transforming the very nature of development policy. Instead of funding development projects that enhance human well-being in the most general sense, they now pursue a 'targeted' strategy: advocating development abroad when and where it serves their own interests. In an era in which the ideology of 'globalism' is in decline, targeted development represents a fundamental shift toward a realpolitik approach toward foreign aid. Devising development plans that ultimately protect and benefit industrialized donor states now drives the agenda, while crafting effective solutions for deep-seated problems in the the neediest nations is increasingly an afterthought.
Additional text
Targeted Development should be widely read by IR scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as members of the policy-making community. Bermeo's new framework takes us beyond the donor interest versus recipient need debate and will likely shape international development discourse for years to come.
