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Teoman Gönen, political scientist, doctoral student, Sciences Po Aix - Mesopolhis
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Lucas Faure, political scientist, post-doctoral fellow at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Germe laboratory
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Nathalie Ferrière, economist, lecturer, Sciences Po Aix - AMSE
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Simon Mangon, political scientist, Doctor ATER, Sciences Po Aix - Mesopolhis
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Dilek Yankaya, political scientist, Associate Professor, Sciences Po Aix - Mesopolhis
Texte stylé en Normal. Could Donald Trump's second mandate spell the end of international aid? In February 2025, President Trump announced a freeze on U.S. development programs and the closure, first temporary and then permanently, of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This decision has shaken the humanitarian and development sector, especially as it follows previous announcements of cuts to development aid budgets in several European countries—Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and especially France, which stands out with a record 34% drop forecast for 2025. The new U.S. administration justified this decision with a repertoire of political, economic and ideological arguments: a strategy of drastically reducing public spending— questioning the effectiveness, usefulness and transparency of a type of public policy oriented towards foreign countries—and a desire to regain control over organizations accused of “wokism”.
The suspension of American programmes has reactivated recurring debates on international aid policies. In the United States, the decision has prompted rallies in support of the development agency, under the slogan ‘USAID Saves Lives, Save USAID’. On the other hand, political figures from authoritarian regimes that are sometimes recipients of US aid—notably El Salvador, Belarus and Azerbaijan—welcomed the decision, seeing it as the dismantling of an instrument of US imperialism. However, these controversies surrounding international aid are not new: the budgets allocated to the USAID agency and its aid programmes have regularly given rise to intense debates between Republicans and Democrats since the end of the Cold War (Fleck & Kilby, 2001).
The aim of this special issue of the Revue internationale des études du développement is to take seriously the discourse on the end of international aid in order to study the controversies, conflicts and political struggles, both past and contemporary, that contribute to its development. International aid, the volume of which has increased almost constantly since the beginning of the twenty-first century (OECD, 2024), is inherent in the governance of the contemporary world. It plays an important role in the development of modern states, not only those that are “aid-reliant”, but also their donors. A well-established body of literature shows how the conflictual relationships inherited from colonisation have persisted through aid policies. While former colonial governors have held political, technical and administrative positions in Northern states and multilateral organisations, notably the European Union (Dimier, 2014; Dimier & Stockwell, 2020; Atlani-Duault & Dozon, 2011), states without a colonial past, such as the Scandinavian states, have invented other narratives of legitimisation to gain recognition as donors from Southern countries (Motte, 2010). It therefore seems appropriate to examine the practical effects of changes in aid policies on contemporary recipient and donor states, on international hierarchies and on the effects of the latter on the way intergovernmental institutions operate.
The current “crisis” in the international aid sector mainly concerns donors in the North, while so-called “emerging” donors (China, Turkey, Qatar and others) are positioning themselves as the new financiers and operators of development projects (Carbonnier, 2012; Dreher et al., 2022), while promoting a “South-South” dynamic that is intended to be more horizontal and equitable. These dynamics reflect the relational configurations of international aid in which the rationales of national governments and global policies conflict - or complement each other. Numerous studies have shown that the design and implementation of these mechanisms are the subject of local struggles, in both “donor” and “recipient” countries (Appe & Pallas, 2018; Busnel, 2022).
The criticisms levelled at international aid therefore need to be reinscribed in the long term, taking account of intersectoral and transnational configurations, in order to gain a better understanding of the contemporary transformations of a sector that is in the throes of change, the debates that govern it and the struggles that drive it. To do this, we are adopting an approach based on the “developmental configuration”, as Olivier de Sardan (2001) puts it, in other words taking into account all those involved in aid: those who live off it, finance it, implement it, benefit from it or challenge it. Observing the varied forms of struggle in this transnational social world calls for a multi-sited and symmetrical approach to research, looking at both donor and recipient countries (Atlani-Duault, 2005), analysing the various arenas in which aid is discussed, disputed and decided: donors, international organisations, aid intermediaries and operators, NGOs, local associations, etc.
Following on from recent initiatives to study aid as a political object (Grajales & Saiget, 2022; Al Dabaghy et al., 2024), this thematic issue is open to proposals for papers that take a multidisciplinary approach, favouring an empirical approach to international aid and using the analytical tools of political science, economics, history, sociology, anthropology, geography and so on. We propose to examine international aid from three main angles: the controversies surrounding international aid, international aid as a transnational space of struggle, and the reconfigurations of the aid field.
The first thematic area focuses on the processes that give rise to controversy surrounding international aid policies. As old as aid itself, these controversies involve a wide range of actors—aid professionals, experts, elites, activists, political actors—and concern both the objectives of aid and the ways in which it is deployed. Historically, international aid was initially the subject of international power struggles between donors in the North to perpetuate the economic and political relations of the colonial past (Atlani-Duault & Dozon, 2011; Dimier, 2014). Emerging countries, known as the ‘South’, have come to compete with traditional donors by presenting a new discourse of solidarity-based development, oriented towards other sectoral specialities and driven by ambitions for geographical expansion (Bergamaschi et al., 2017; Dreher et al., 2022).
Thus, the debate regularly focuses on the fact that aid is ‘politicised’. Indeed, international aid is eminently political, but it is accused of being ‘politicised’ particularly when it does not suit those who engage in this debate. According to Donald Trump and other representatives of right-wing and far-right European governments, aid is now a vehicle for ‘woke’ ideology. These attacks are in line with historical criticisms (Taffet, 2021): aid as an instrument of a ‘Western agenda’, a ‘human rights ideology’, a ‘gender theory’, or even the promotion of a certain ‘truth’ about the world. We can revisit the ambivalence of criticism levelled at international aid, which is sometimes accused of being the armed wing of Western governments, an imperialist tool designed to prolong global hegemony, or, conversely, perceived as a sector beyond the control of national governments, led by organisations deemed too independent. These debates provide an opportunity to rethink the paradoxical but often synchronous dynamics of politicisation and depoliticisation that govern international aid processes (Ferguson, 1990; Marieke & Martens, 2020; Grajales & Saiget, 2022).
Among the most frequent controversies are also questions relating to the effectiveness of aid and its effects. Debates surrounding the lack of transparency and accountability in development programmes have led to the emergence of new standards and practices among aid actors. As a result, NGOs are subject to constant demands to evaluate their activities, to “capitalise” on their experiences (Enten et al., 2020), to implement 'quality tools ‘ (Núñez Regueiro, 2020) and measuring their ’impact" on society—with statistics playing a central role here (Cusso, 2012; Parizet, 2015; Samuel & Nubukpo, 2020). These dynamics reveal the increasing managerialisation of NGOs (Le Naëlou, 2004), with the aid sector not escaping the logic of New Public Management (Doligez, 2020). Like other public administrations, international aid is accused of bureaucratic red tape, institutional inertia and an inability to reform (Easterly, 2002). According to the currently dominant neoliberal discourse, it should be made more flexible, agile and efficient. Furthermore, several studies have demonstrated the ability of international organisations to transform themselves in order to survive (Nay & Petiteville, 2011), to engage in self-criticism in order to rethink their practices (Rambaud, 2009), and to initiate a participatory shift in order to open up to ‘civil societies’ (Lagrange et al., 2022; Guilbaud, 2022).
The first axis seeks answers to these questions in light of the conflicts and divisions in aid, whether they come from donor or recipient countries, from outside or from actors in the sector, from academia or from the political sphere. How do these challenges, and the adjustments they prompt, circulate between social spaces and transform representations of aid? We will therefore examine the degree of autonomy and heteronomy of international aid, observe its interactions with the political sphere and the different uses made of it according to historical and national contexts.
The second axis proposes to study the struggles related to the institutional, material and symbolic recompositions of international aid. Here, we invite you to take a step back from the discourse surrounding the current ‘crisis’ in the field of international aid, as well as its possible end, and consider it as the product of struggles by actors directly or indirectly involved in aid policies.
Development aid is a category of international action that is itself conceived as a policy of struggle(s): against poverty, disasters, famine, epidemics, inequalities, instability—in short, all the ‘good’ causes that should be championed by the international community. However, beyond the moral foundations of these universalising discourses, the origins of international aid are rooted in social inequalities structured by the maintenance of international hierarchies. In line with other work, it therefore seems interesting to analyse the world of international aid as a fragmented space traversed by local and transnational power relations, multifaceted conflicts and interdependence (Hibou & Bono, 2017; Lavigne Delville & Fresia, 2018).
One of the major sources of conflict is access to funding, which has resurfaced following the announcement of a freeze on aid from the world's leading donor and budget cuts in many European countries. While aid policies also involve threats to cut funding, these attempts to bring international aid actors into line are accompanied by more direct methods of controlling aid and criminalising the voluntary sector. Conversely, militant struggles are emerging to support or denounce aid policies, which are encouraging articles to focus more broadly on local mobilisations around aid (Saiget, forthcoming 2025). The decline in funding is leading to an adjustment in fundraising strategies and a shift in the balance of power within the sector. Will this leave more room for so-called ‘emerging’ actors (which can no longer really be considered ‘emerging’ today), such as China, Turkey, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates? Will such a dynamic also accelerate the process of privatisation of international aid, or even its commodification, thereby strengthening private actors?
The articles will therefore seek to show how international aid is caught up in political and partisan struggles. On the side of the so-called ‘beneficiary’ countries, several governments in the Global South now reject assistance offered by other states, as illustrated by the Moroccan authorities' refusal of French aid after the earthquake in September 2023. On the donor side, more and more liberal, right-wing or far-right governments are explicitly questioning the validity of international aid, particularly in its egalitarian, ecological and humanitarian dimensions, often in order to promote other norms, such as security (Brown & Grävingholt, 2016). These criticisms are coupled with more violent and direct attacks on the organisation of aid, with national and transnational institutions becoming the spaces where these political struggles are produced, expressed and circulated. The most recent and explicit case is certainly that of the Israeli government, which has stepped up its accusations against UN agencies, particularly UNRWA, going so far as to accuse the organisation of being complicit with Hamas. In addition to international organisations, two fundamental components of aid – humanitarian personnel and humanitarian law – are the target of physical and symbolic attacks, as illustrated by the blockade of aid in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli army strikes that have killed more than 300 humanitarian workers. This controversial case, which reflects the history of international aid in the Palestinian territories, is of particular heuristic interest in that it prompts us to question the formal and informal roots of global international aid actors and the potential political roles they are gradually assuming in local institutional socio-political configurations in situations of entrenched political violence.
Aid also becomes central to national political struggles, for example within the bureaucratic apparatus of countries ‘under aid regimes’. The receipt of foreign aid thus becomes a power issue, pitting different ministries or groups of senior civil servants and brokers against each other as they compete within a national field of international aid (Diallo, 2022; Groc, 2025). These conflicts over the capture, allocation and implementation of aid sometimes escape state channels, giving rise to the emergence of autonomous spaces that are formed in parallel with, or even in competition with, public authorities. For example, several natural disasters have seen the emergence of protest solidarity networks – sometimes supported by international aid – to compensate for the shortcomings of the state.
Finally, we also wish to explore the concrete impact of these struggles on the governance of ‘vulnerable’ populations (Faure & Parizet, 2024). These challenges contribute to new public debates about populations dependent on aid, who often find themselves in situations of great social precariousness. This stigmatisation seems to operate globally: through these criticisms of the aid system, it is in fact public and social policies that are being called into question, whether for disadvantaged populations abroad or within the country (Fassin, 2010). What do the struggles surrounding international aid tell us about the treatment of real or potential vulnerabilities in our societies?
These current questions encourage us to explore new areas and to revisit traditional areas of international aid ethnography. Among other things, contributions may focus on the relationship between partisan politics, public policy and international aid policy; the modalities and effects of interdependence between international aid actors (NGOs, international organisations, associations) and categories of national elites (political, economic, experts); the power relations that structure the concrete practices of international aid (large/small and old/new donors, intermediaries, beneficiaries, etc.).
This third axis re-examines the study of reconfigurations in the field of international aid over the long term, by placing recent upheavals in perspective with other historical events that have affected the sector, particularly from the point of view of socio-institutional reconfigurations in the Global South. Going beyond the discourse on the current ‘crisis’ allows for a more nuanced understanding of the transformations in international aid in light of historical political dynamics (Al Dabaghy et al., 2024). Contributions may therefore focus on episodes that have constituted ‘ruptures’ at the national or international level for the sector, such as the outbreak (or end) of a conflict, a change of political regime, a large-scale social movement, a natural disaster or an international epidemic. To what extent have these events transformed (or not) the field of aid, the power relations that shape it, the professional standards and practices that drive it, and the organisations that structure it?
Far from a mechanical and homogenising reading of the ‘crisis’ in international aid, we encourage instead an observation of the transformations at work, anchoring the analysis in local configurations (Olivier de Sardan, 2014). The thematic focus of this third axis is coupled with a methodological bias in favour of a localised and comparative analysis of aid reconfigurations: from both donor and recipient countries, the administrations that implement it and those that receive it, the associations that depend on it, and the professional communities that live off – and sustain – aid. Contributions will therefore seek to reflect the multiple ways in which actors within these public administrations, NGOs, associations and others are responding to sectoral developments in aid.
The reconfigurations of international aid are manifold and affect beneficiaries as much as professionals in the sector and donors. In this regard, the freezing of US aid seems to be causing a number of reconfigurations at different levels. Non-state organisations dependent on international aid are obviously particularly affected, as this decision has led to the cessation of programmes, job cuts and even the disappearance of certain structures. At the same time, other organisations have had to reorganise their activities and rethink their economic model. While the freeze on US aid is causing serious concern in the voluntary sector and among NGOs on the beneficiary side, it is being downplayed within certain multilateral organisations, such as the OECD in particular.
Direct or indirect attacks on official development assistance are not without effect on the implementing administrations, which are trying, through their agents, to justify their activities and maintain their position in a context of growing hostility towards them. To this end, they are adopting new forms of legitimisation and action that no longer aim solely to demonstrate their impact on so-called ‘beneficiary’ populations abroad, but rather to make aid a tool for stabilisation, maintaining security, and even reducing migration flows (Dreher et al., 2019). Recent developments suggest a gradual ‘nationalisation’ of aid, in the sense of a reorganisation of this public policy according to national, or even nationalist, political interests – security or economic – rather than according to a transnational or international logic. At the same time, and possibly contradictorily, the withdrawal of US public aid is prompting the emergence of regional initiatives aimed at offering alternatives, for example in announcements of an ambitious European policy on official development assistance. Political authorities (in donor and ‘recipient’ countries) are therefore using different strategies to adapt to these times of upheaval and attempt to guide the reconfiguration of the sector.
Finally, contributions may examine the geographical dimension of aid reconfigurations by analysing the effects of recent decisions on the distribution of aid by country (Ferrière, 2024). While some regions have seen their funding cut, others still receive a large share of aid. The cyclical emergence of international aid hubs is a response to changes in the sector and to certain events (such as natural disasters, wars or population displacement), or to the strategies of national political authorities to attract or, conversely, curb international mechanisms.
The authors must submit an abstract in French, English, or Spanish, presenting their proposal in approximately 4,000 characters (with spaces), i.e. about 500 words or one page.
The Word file for the abstract must be entitled “AUTHOR’S SURNAME-Proposal-262,” and must include:
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the title: short and precise, 70 characters maximum (with the possibility of adding a subtitle);
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the research question, the theoretical framework, the fieldwork, and the main results;
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the bibliographical references (not included in the character count).
For each author, a second file entitled “AUTHOR’S SURNAME-info” must include their first name and last name, their discipline, status, institutional affiliation, email address, and the name of the corresponding author.
For the proposals to be examined, it is essential that they follow these guidelines. Their suitability to the call for papers will be determined by the guest editors and the journal’s editorial board.
The authors whose proposals have been selected will be invited to send a first draft of their article, which must absolutely follow the Guidelines for Authors. The articles will then be submitted to a double-blind peer review by two external reviewers who are experts on the topic.
The articles (45,000 characters with spaces, excluding the abstract and references) may be written in French, English, or Spanish. They must be original work. They may however have been presented at a conference (with proceedings), as long as they have been adapted to the format required by the Revue internationale des études du développement, but the author must not submit their paper to another journal simultaneously.
The references cited must be presented in APA format.
The authors agree to comply with the calendar.
The proposals must be submitted by September 19, 2025 to:
graideinter@gmail.com
revdev@univ-paris1.fr
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The authors preselected by the editors and the editorial committee will be notified by the editorial team the week of September 25, 2025.
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The first version of the article, following the journal’s guidelines for authors, must be submitted by the authors to the aforementioned email addresses by November 14, 2025.
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The evaluation process will take a few months; each – anonymous – article will be submitted to a double blind peer review by two external reviewers who are experts on the topic. Requesting a first version of the article does not constitute a commitment from the journal to publish the aforementioned article, which must be approved by the editorial committee, following the different steps in the evaluation process. No 262 2026-3 is expected to be published in November 2026.
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