Branding Foreign Aid: Soft Power and Popular Attitudes in International Development

Summary

Why do international donors brand foreign aid? And what impact does it have on popular attitudes towards them? Join Matthew Winters and Petra Alderman as they talk about soft power, foreign aid branding, and popular attitudes towards USAID and Japan in India, Bangladesh, and Uganda. They discuss whether foreign aid branding works and address several tensions linked to this practice, including branding in the context of unequal North-South power relations and colonial legacies.

Matthew Winters is Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois and a recent holder of the Fulbright-University of Birmingham Distinguished Scholar Award at the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham.

Petra Alderman is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Leadership for Inclusive and Democratic Politics at the University of Birmingham and Research Fellow at CEDAR.

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Petra Alderman

Petra Alderman (prev. Desatova) is an associate researcher at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a post-doctoral research fellow at the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests lie in the area of authoritarian legitimation, electoral studies and promotional politics. Her regional focus is on Southeast Asia and has a particular expertise on Thailand.

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