LD Nov/Dec 2017 - Development Assistance - Negative Position

Resolved: Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations.

Negative Position

This topic holds the Affirmative to the burden of proving that nations are obligated to provide development assistance to other nations. Immediately the Lincoln Douglas debater should lock on the language of the resolution and note the use of the obligation. The Affirmative will see the obligation as a duty, a kind of requirement in keeping with the idea that such assistance is a kind of "good neighbor" policy. The Negative should immediately look at the word obligation as a burden, a restriction of liberty, imposed by a higher authority. This is particularly problematic for a nation like the United States, which recognizes no higher authority in the context of international law. Thus far the U.S. has refused to submit to any norm which overrides the U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

From the beginning, the Neg can acknowledge the fact that economic disparity and severe poverty are major world problems. Neg can even acknowledge these problems cause the premature deaths of millions and can agree that development assistance may indeed provide a solvency mechanism. Even if development does not eradicate poverty it can certainly create conditions which are, in the long term, mutually beneficial to both the giver and the receiver. Thus, it is the use of the term, obligation, which becomes the major issue separating the two sides of this debate.

For the novice debater, be sure you understand the distinctions between negative and positive rights since it may aid understanding some of the positions of the sources used by the Neg. A negative right is one which restricts others from taking actions which deny the right. For example, the first amendment codifies certain negative rights such as freedom of expression, or religion, by restricting the government from passing any law which denies those rights. Governments and others can uphold those rights by simply doing nothing to prevent the free exercise of the rights. On the other hand, a positive right is one which requires others to take some action in order to guarantee the right. For example, if one has a positive right to education, it imposes a duty on some entity to provide what the right guarantees. Usually rights are granted or denied by a state entity, namely a government, which enacts laws to enable the rights guarantees. In terms of this resolution, if one espouses a positive right to development then others would be obligated to provide development assistance.

The Hidden Price of Development

Development assistance is usually never free. It usually comes with strings attached; a quid pro quo, meaning I will do something for you and you do something for me. It is not uncommon, that loans or direct assistance are conditioned upon the recipient accepting certain norms or values of the donor. For example, a donor may provide assistance on condition the recipient regime end apartheid or discrimination against women. Perhaps one can make the case, these values are universal and should not be perceived as unreasonable. However, often the donations are conditionally attached to values unfavorable to the other nation.

Rich 2004:

The process of values transfer is based on an assumption that the values being promoted are best for the recipients. Many of the values being promoted are indeed often beneficial. No society is static, and all societies develop by learning from others; values transfer is as natural as the transfer of technology. The important point about values transfer in the ODA [official development assistance] process, however, is that the values come attached to, or embedded in, the aid. Poor recipient countries wish to attract financial and technical assistance from rich powerful donors, and thus have little option but to accept the accompanying values, often in spite of doubts as to their suitability. These values may not necessarily fit well into the recipient societies, and the social or cultural costs of achieving ‘success’, as perceived by the donor, may not be apparent to, or may even be masked from, the recipient. [323]

Besides, the transfer of cultural values, donors often provide aid with conditions which require massive changes to state governance and administrative policies.

Eurodad 2006:

On average poor countries face as many as 67 conditions per World Bank loan. However, some of the countries faced a far higher number of conditions. Uganda, for example, where 23% of the all children under 5 are malnourished, faced a staggering 197 conditions attached to its World Bank development finance grant in 2005.
In addition to imposing a massive administrative burden on already over-stretched developing governments, the proliferation of IMF and World Bank conditions often push highly controversial economic policy reforms on poor countries, like trade liberalisation and privatisation of essential services. These reforms frequently contravene developing countries’ wishes, an acknowledged prerequisite for successful development. They can also have a harmful impact on poor people, increasing their poverty not reducing it, by denying them access to vital services. This harmful impact has been recognised by the British government and Norwegian government, both of which have formally rejected tying their development aid to privatisation and trade liberalisation conditions. The G8 leaders also last year highlighted the importance of national governments’ sovereign right to determine their own national economic policies, revealing the inappropriateness of tying development finance to these types of reforms. [3]

The burdens imposed upon state recipients of aid infringe upon their state sovereignty often forcing them to accept unwanted ideological concepts or even worse, to radically alter their financial and government institutions to comply with donor mandates.

A Source of Conflict

Having looked at the impact of distribution of aid with conditions attached, one may be inclined to suggest it ought to be obligatory to distribute aid unconditionally. However, this also is problematic in many circumstances due to lack of critical understanding of the political and social dynamics occurring within a targeted nation. Often, internal conflicts and unrest are exacerbated by development assistance.

Branczik 2004:

Development assistance can promote conflict when it is administered without considering social and political conditions. It is very difficult to ensure that the effects of 'apolitical' aid are politically or ethnically neutral.
Problems arise primarily due to the institutional cultures and organizational dynamics of donor agencies, which are not geared to dealing with the needs of deeply divided societies. Success is often measured in terms of the amount of money disbursed, rather than the outcome of programs. The mandate of these donor agencies is to promote economic growth and development "without regard to political or other non-economic influences or considerations." Policies are aimed at improving overall macroeconomic stability and economic growth, irrespective of potential income-distribution effects. However, as James Boyce writes, to concentrate solely on increasing the size of the economic pie, without considering how that pie is divided, is an approach "singularly ill-suited to war-torn societies." As all peace settlements are based on a balance of power between warring sides, any measure that disproportionately benefits or hurts one side can make both sides reassess their positions, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the peace.

Given a world where development assistance is obligatory, the recipient nation divided by internal conflict becomes a particular problem. Either assistance is distributed selectively, thus avoiding those kinds of nations, conditions are applied which potentially harms national sovereignty, or aid is given unconditionally possibility resulting in expanded conflict. Boyce comments on the empirical evidence of aid conditioned upon peace.

Boyce

In principle, conditionality can also be harnessed directly to the objective of promoting peace. Where there is a risk of violent conflict, the aid ‘carrot’ can be designed to provide incentives for steps to reduce social tensions. In war-torn societies, aid can serve as an inducement for conflict resolution. And where a negotiated settlement has been achieved, donors can use ‘peace conditionality’ to encourage the implementation of peace accords and consolidation of peace.
In practice, such efforts have been the exception rather than the rule, and where attempted, the results have been mixed. Three constraints have contributed to this spotty record. First, domestic parties may not wield sufficient authority, or enjoy sufficient legitimacy, to strike and implement aid-for-peace bargains. Second, the amount of aid on offer may be inadequate to provide a compelling incentive for the adoption of pro-peace policies. And finally, donor governments and agencies themselves may not put peace at the top of their agendas, ahead of other geopolitical, commercial, and institutional objectives.[2]

Solvency Deficit

The Affirmative positions demands that wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations. However, a compelling body of literature suggests it is the wealthy nations which created conditions for disparity in the first place. How can one expect solvency for disparity through the system which was setup to perpetuate the disproportional distribution of wealth? In many cases there is a commonly held belief that poor nations are poor because it is their own fault. This notion is vigorously disputed.

Pogge 2003:

By discussing several global systemic factors in some detail, I hope to have undermined a view that, encouraged by libertarian and more leftist economists alike, most people in the developed world are all too ready to believe: The persistence of severe poverty is due to causes that are indigenous to the countries in which it occurs and thus unrelated to the affluent societies and their governments. This view is dramatically mistaken. Yes, domestic factors contribute to the persistence of severe poverty in many countries. But these contributions often depend on features of the global institutional order, which sustain some of those factors and exacerbate the impact of others. In these ways, the non-indigenous factors I have discussed play a major causal role in the evolution of severe poverty worldwide. They are crucial for explaining the inability and especially the unwillingness of the poor countries’ leaders to pursue more effective strategies of poverty eradication. And they are crucial therefore for explaining why global inequality is increasing so rapidly that substantial global economic growth since the end of the Cold War has not reduced income poverty and malnutrition — despite substantial technological progress, despite a huge poverty reduction in China, despite the post-Cold-War “peace dividend,” despite a 32-percent drop in real food prices since 1985, despite official development assistance, and despite the efforts of international humanitarian and development organizations. If we are serious about eradicating severe poverty worldwide, we must understand the causal role of such non-indigenous factors and be willing to consider ways of modifying them or of reducing their impact [13-14]

Pogge would offer a counter-plan: Wealthy nations ought to tear down the systems which perpetuate economic suppression of developing nations. 

Barugahare & Lie 2014:

On the other hand, in his 2008 World Poverty and Human Rights Thomas Pogge portrays global justice predominantly in terms of the negative duties of affluent countries in ensuring global justice. He argues that:

[…] we [the rich] share responsibility not only for the damage authoritarian rulers [in poor countries] can do to the interests of ‘their’ people, […] our governments have instigated violent installation of many oppressive rulers in poor countries [...] and have fostered a culture of corruption […] (2008: 29).
[Note: ellipses in original text]

In Pogge’s view, “it is quite possible that within a different global order national factors [in poor countries] that tend to undermine the fulfillment of human rights would occur much less often or not at all” (2005: 22). Like Singer, Pogge hints at the obligations of poor countries, in particular the duty of governments in poor countries to oppose the global institutional order that is sustained by powerful governments in the North and global organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, he does not dedicate sufficient space to this subject.[83][Note: ellipses in original]

Unfortunately in this case, in traditional NSDA Lincoln Douglas debate, counter-plans are not permitted. Nevertheless, the point is made that the solution is the source of the problem.

True Morality

Peter Singer, the well-known altruistic philosopher is often quoted in defense of the moral value of assisting those in need. Indeed, it may have been him who originally proposed that a person has an obligation to save a drowning child if the only inconvenience would be soiled clothes. Extrapolating Singer's views, a nation that has the ability to help another, is morally obligated to assist. Here's a reasonable question: How did the child get in the water in the first place?

Corbett 1995:

While Singer does not do morality from the point of view of rights, but from utility, he none the less allows that for the sake of the argument at hand, his position holds for a theory of positive rights just as well as it does for a theory of utility. Thus what is said below applies equally to his argument. As I indicated at the outset, I am persuaded that there is a strong case in the name of justice that we often have moral obligations to distant others in the name of negative rights. There is a great deal of evidence that strong and powerful nations like the United States interfere in the internal doings of weaker and poorer nations, and in so doing, often take or make use of the land, labor and natural resources of the poorer and weaker nation for the benefit of citizens of the richer and stronger nation. Likewise, a more powerful nation often interferes in the political life of a weaker nation helping to create a situation wherein citizens of the poorer and weaker nation are subject to political conditions that violate their own political rights (negative rights again) to freedom.
In such cases I would argue that we, as citizens, have moral obligations to resist and not take advantage of these violations of the negative rights of others.
However, putting aside the violation of negative rights, do we have obligations to the poor and suffering strangers of the world (including the poor and suffering of our own nation, state, city and even local neighborhood or block we live on)?
I will argue that there are certain cases in which I am persuaded that we do, but that these are exceptional cases of immediate needs in immediate environments, and that in the general case we must answer -- NO, I have no moral obligation.

Like Pogge, perhaps, the fact that the conditions which results in the deprivation of many developing nations originate in the policies and demands of the rescuer. A positive obligation claims the donor should step in and take action despite the wishes of the recipient, a negative obligation claims the donor should respect the wishes of the recipient. For Corbett, it seems, this is the moral high-road.

Corbett 1995:

Again, I argue that the practical necessity of having a moral obligation which we can keep, requires us to be limited in obligation to those cases that we experience directly in the chances of living, and not to the entire world of suffering which we can know.
I know my general view sounds quite harsh. Perhaps it is. However, while it amounts to a virtual libertarian view of moral obligation to the positive rights of others, it is accompanied by a vehement humanitarian sentiment that encourages generous and constant concern for the well-being of distant others, and a willingness to sacrifice to help them, not out of a sense of moral duty or obligation, but out of a sense of loving concern for other people.
At the same time, I would hope that such a stern moral position would underline the notion that people have a rigorous moral obligation for their own well-being, and must exercise the maximum energy and courageous action to take care of themselves, their families and their own political environments. We may well get help from generous and kind others when in need, but we cannot expect this help as our moral right. Yet, we may well expect that our negative moral rights of freedom to act and decide as we wish, within the legitimate limits placed on us by our society, will be our moral birthright.

Thus Corbett presents one of the most important arguments in favor of rejection the Affirmative position. Wealthy nations should help developing nations because rational people would agree it is the right thing to do. This is the definition of a moral act. To assert a positive obligation to assist diminishes the moral worth of the act.

The Values

Having looked at some of the factors which argue against Affirmation of the topic, we can see sovereignty (and its similar cousin, autonomy) emerge as a key value for the Negative. Sovereignty is preserved by minimizing outside interference or maximizing negative rights. But I think other key values at stake include the values of justice of and morality. These themes are discussed in the sources and so I would encourage you to read them (see: Barugahare, J & Lie and see: Corbett). For this contribution to the Negative position, the overarching theme is the value of morality. The principle of helping other unconditionally, not out of obligation, but only out of an abundance and concern for our fellow human beings.

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Sources:


Barugahare, J & Lie, RK (2014) Obligations of Poor Countries in Ensuring Global Justice: The Case of Uganda, ETIKK I PRAKSIS NR. 2 2014, accessed 10/12/2017 at: http://tapir.pdc.no/pdf/EIP/2014/2014-02-7.pdf

Boyce, James K., "Aid, Conditionality, and War Economies" (2004). Economics Department Working Paper Series. 72. Accessed 10/12/2017 at: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=econ_workingpaper

Branczik, A (2004) Humanitarian Aid and Development Assistance, Beyond Intractability, February 2004, accessed 10/12/207 at: http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/humanitarian-aid

Corbett, R, Moral Obligations to Distant Others, accessed 10/12/2017 at: http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/philosophy/moral/others/distant.html

Eurodad (2006), World bank and IMF conditionality: a development injustice, Eurdad Report, June 2006, accessed 10/12/2017 at: http://www.eurodad.org/uploadedfiles/whats_new/reports/eurodad_world_bank_and_imf_conditionality_report.pdf

Pogge, TW (2003), “Assisting” the Global Poor,  CUNY Graduate Center, the University of Hong Kong, Soochow University, the University of St. Andrews, Harvard’s JFK School, the University of Sheffield, the University of North Carolina, and the Chinese University in Hong Kong. November 17, 2003 , accessed 10/12/2017 at: http://www.princeton.edu/rpds/seminars/pdfs/pogge_assistingpoor.pdf

Rich, R (2004), Applying Conditionality to Development Assistance, Agenda, Volume 11, Number 4, 2004, pages 321-334, accessed 10/12/2017 at: http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p85271/pdf/11-4-A-3.pdf