| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Budget Support (bs) has been considered the aid modality that best realises the Paris Declaration principles of alignment, harmonisation and respect for recipient ownership. In design the modality has a very strong technocratic focus, and the oecd/dac has endorsed the idea that bs should be delinked from broader political concerns. In reality, however, donors do use bs to leverage more and better democratic governance. This political use of bs is not limited to exceptional moments when the political situation seriously deteriorates in certain countries. This article shows that such use is grounded in fundamentally different visions and policies that donors hold regarding the scope of leverage for bs. Such starkly diverging interpretations of which reforms bs can 'buy' undermine the objectives the modality was designed to achieve.
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