Example international relations dissertation topic 4:

A reappraisal of foreign aid in the age of Austerity Britain.

Undertaking an audit of existing programmes supported and funded by the UK’s Department for International Development, this dissertation questions the ongoing need for Britain to give aid to India. Informed through interviews with senior politicians and bureaucrats in both Whitehall and New Delhi, this study questions the appropriateness of such aid and the political motivation behind it. In so doing it questions the extent to which the giving of aid can not only be seen as both patronising and imperialistic but also the extent to which, rather than improving relations between the two countries, it actually worsens them. For as India’s Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee notes, India ‘[does] not require the aid… it is a peanut in our total development exercises [expenditure]’ (Gilligan, 2012).

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Dunne, M., Hall-Matthews, D. and Lightfoot, S. (2011). ‘Our aid’: UK international development policy under the Coalition’, Political Insight, Vol. 2, pp. 29-31.
• Gilligan, A. (2012). ‘India tells Britain: We don’t want your aid’, Daily Telegraph, February 4th 2012. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/9061844/India-tells-Britain-We-dont-want-your-aid.html .
• Kimura, H. and Todo, Y. (2010). ‘Is foreign aid a vanguard of foreign direct investment? A gravity-equation approach’, World Development, Vol 38(4), pp. 482-497.