Charity Work Abroad and the Unintended Democratic Deficit

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: Ethical debates suggest that aid, overall, has contributed to a democratic deficit. This thesis explores how modes of charitable giving affect the democratic deficit created by NGO aid in developing countries. Democratic deficit is defined by shifting the dependency of local individuals, communities, and governments towards outside organizations, and in the process diminishes the need for local political systems. This thesis provides an analytical framework that will consider two different forms of aid investments--human skills and physical capital--and assess which one leads to the lesser democratic deficit at the village level. Modes of giving which lead to a lesser democratic deficit include higher levels of local interaction, local independence, and collective benefits. This thesis concludes that human skills, as a mode of charitable giving, are inherently more effective at achieving a more democratic approach than physical capital.

Type of resource	text
Date created	May 28, 2015

Author	Thakur, Natalya
Primary advisor	Reich, Rob
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Program in International Relations

Subject	charity work
Subject	democratic deficit
Subject	Program in International Relations
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/hm618rz0627

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Preferred Citation: Thakur, Natalya. (2015). Charity Work Abroad and the Unintended Democratic Deficit. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/hm618rz0627

Stanford University, Program in International Relations, Honors Theses

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