U.s. Foreign Economic Assistance

This research takes U.S. foreign economic aid as the object, and analyzes the characteristics, the objective and the changing pattern of U.S. foreign economic aid from the perspectives of hegemony, international system and public goods. U.S. foreign economic aid, both as an important tool for the hegemonic policy and a channel of supplying public goods to the international community, unquestionably serve U.S. overall and long-term national interests in international economic and political order. As the international political and economic situation underwent changes, although U.S. foreign economic aid remained the same in general features and goals, the specific policy content and the focus have changed a lot.Foreign economic aid is an important part of contemporary international relations, and the United States was the first to initiate foreign economic aid and then continued to carry it out. So the theoretical significance of the present thesis is that it takes the Marxian basic principle as the guidance, links the Hegemonic Stability Theory, a main theory of western International Political Economy, with U.S. foreign economic aid, and constructs the theoretical model of hegemonic foreign economic aid; Its practical significance is that under the background of accelerating globalization and the gradually increasing international influence of China, it can provide ideas on how China insists peaceful development strategy, better introduces foreign economic aid, and actively carry out foreign economic aid ourselves.This research interprets the U.S. foreign economic aid on two levels, the unit and the system, from the perspective of interaction between the hegemon and the international system.The first chapter is the basis for this research. It defines the connotation and denotation of foreign economic aid through definition and differentiation; It introduces the agencies and mechanism of U.S. foreign economic aid; It introduces and critically analyses the Hegemonic Stability Theory by analyzing the phenomenon of hegemony in international relations; It absorbs some opinions of Hegemonic Stability Theory about hegemons supplying public goods to the international system, the association between the state power and the world market and hegemons promoting and supporting international mechanism. It establishes the link from Hegemonic Stability Theory and U.S. foreign economic aid, and initially builds up the theoretical model of hegemon's foreign economic aid.The second chapter and the third chapter are the first analysis unit. From the perspective of international system, the thesis investigates the characteristics of the U.S.-dominated international economic and political system, the interests of U.S. hegemony in the two international systems, and the political and economic considerations of U.S. foreign economic aid. As to the international economic system, the paper chiefly discusses the assistance development, the optimization of and participation in international economic aid mechanism, and the encouragement of private capital flow; As to the international politic system, it discusses ascending political security and enhancing American-style democracy and human rights through international economic aid. It analyzes the foreign economic aid impact on international economic and political system, and illustrates the close relation between the two systems.The fourth chapter and the fifth chapter are the second analysis unit. From the time dimension, the paper analyzes the formation and development course of U.S. foreign economic aid policy during and after the Cold War. And it suggests that since the end of the Second World War, the goal of U.S. foreign economic aid to maintain stable the international economic and political system has not changed. After the end of the Cold War, the international situation has undergone great changes. Since the strategic confrontation disappeared, the United States expanded democratic political system and the market economy system by Washington consensus, and emphasized global issues as well.According to the foregoing analysis, the sixth chapter deduces that the essence of U.S. foreign economic aid is to serve the U.S. national interest. Considering the hegemon's multiple interests in the global scope, this thesis analyzes some features of the U.S. foreign economic aid: multiple objectives, a variety of ways to implement, multiple benefit channels and changeable process in history. This thesis also conducts the preliminary evaluation, and determines the trend of its development.