Theorizing Power, Agents, Structures, and Aid Relationships

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter discusses relationships among stakeholders in development aid by expanding on the concepts of power, actors, and the types of relationships formed between them. It suggests the presence of conventional and alternative perspectives on power in the literature and provides an analytical framework intended to examine interdependence, the changing nature of power, and stakeholders’ roles in development assistance. This framework commences with a reflection on the meaning of power, its types, and the terms associated with it. Building on the features of the agent-structure approach, the following step discusses the possibilities for stakeholder analysis and outlines the structures pertinent to aid relationships. The third step introduces a project-level analysis as essential to understanding stakeholders’ roles in different phases of aid and examining their potential interdependence as well as the changing nature of power. The final step overviews Haugaard’s (European Journal of Social Theory, 6, 87–113, 2003) seven ways of creating power and how this approach, in combination with the first three steps, may help understand the power dynamics in individual projects. By presenting the types of aid relationships defined by the author of this book, the final step also links the discussion of power dynamics to understanding aid relationships in a broader sense.