Abstract:

At the intersection of aid, governance, and policy-making lies the prospect of better development outcomes. How these influence one another at the global, national, and sectoral levels in the case of Cambodia is the focus of this dissertation. Good governance is essential for good development outcomes, yet this study finds that aid---an instrument of development---can be linked with worsening quality of governance. Of Kaufmann et al.'s six dimensions of governance Rule of Law is worsened by aid while the effects on the other five (Voice and Accountability, Political Stability, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, and Control of Corruption) are very weak.

Components of aid such as technical cooperation and average grant element are also explored. Aid can play a positive role when component impacts are considered, but how this happens and under what conditions is unclear from the global perspective. Thus, process tracing is undertaken to examine the case of Cambodia at national and sectoral levels. Donor success in effecting governance varies greatly across dimensions of governance. Poor governance circumscribes the effectiveness of aid and policy-making, as is seen in a case study of livestock policy as it affects the poor.

Methodologically, the dissertation augments quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis drawn from two years of fieldwork in Cambodia, during which time more than 100 interviews and encounters with stakeholders (government, donor, and civil society) took place. Finally, an anonymous online elite survey asked development professionals to rate donor success in effecting change in governance. Nearly 45 individuals responded, averaging almost eight years of development experience in Cambodia.

Overall, the findings cast doubt on the wholly negative impact of aid on various dimensions of governance as the latter term is a blunt concept. At the global level, after instrumenting aid with infant mortality, only the Rule of Law is actually worsened. In Cambodia's case, it is the Rule of Law and Control of Corruption that enjoyed the least donor success, while Political Stability showed the best prospects. However, while stability is necessary for policy-making to work in a post-conflict context, Cambodia's development experience suggests that this is far from sufficient.