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In" Development, Security, and Aid" Jamey Essex offers a
sophisticated study of the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), examining the separate but intertwined
discourses of geopolitics and geoeconomics.
Geopolitics concentrates on territory, borders, and strategic
political and military positioning within the international state
system. Geoeconomics emphasizes economic power, growth, and
connectedness within a global, and supposedly borderless, system.
Both discourses have strongly influenced the strategies of USAID
and the views of American policy makers, bureaucrats, and business
leaders toward international development. Providing a unique
geographical analysis of American development policy, Essex details
USAID's establishment in 1961 and traces the agency's growth from
the Cold War into an era of neoliberal globalization up to and
beyond 9/11, the global war on terror, and the looming age of
austerity.
USAID promotes improvement for millions by providing emergency
assistance and support for long-term economic and social
development. Yet the agency's humanitarian efforts are strongly
influenced, and often trumped, by its mandate to advance American
foreign policies. As a site of, a strategy for, and an agent in the
making of geopolitics and geoeconomics, USAID, Essex argues, has
often struggled to reconcile its many institutional mandates and
objectives. The agency has always occupied a precarious political
position, one that is increasingly marked by the strong influence
of military, corporate, and foreign-policy institutions in American
development strategy.
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