Overview

Does foreign aid promote human rights? As the world's largest aid donor, the United States has provided foreign assistance to more than 200 countries. Deploying global numerical data on US foreign aid and comparative historical analysis of America's post-Cold War foreign policies in Southeast Asia, Aid Imperium provides the most comprehensive explanation that links US strategic assistance to physical integrity rights outcomes in recipient countries, particularly in ways that previous quantitative studies have systematically ignored. The book innovatively highlights the active political agency of Global South states and actors as they negotiate and chart their political trajectories with the United States as the core state of the international system. Drawing from theoretical insights in the humanities and the social sciences as well as a wide range of empirical documents, Aid Imperium is the first multidisciplinary study to explain how US foreign policy affects state repression and physical integrity rights outcomes in Southeast Asia and the rest of the Global South.

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9780472132782

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Reviews

Finalist for the 2021 Foreword INDIES Book Award, Political and Social Sciences (Adult Nonfiction) -- Foreword INDIES Book Award Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. provides a provocative account of how foreign economic assistance from the world's largest bilateral donor--the United States--has harmed human rights in Southeast Asia after the Cold War. Aid Imperium advances a novel conceptualization of foreign strategic support (i.e., foreign aid in conjunction with public diplomacy) and provides an impressively researched narrative of its effects in the Philippines and Thailand... --Perspectives on Politics-- Perspectives on Politics Regilme presents a coherent and credible theory of the effect of foreign aid on recipient nations' human rights conditions...Aid imperium could set the stage for a new school of thought within the literature on foreign aid. --The SAIS Review of International Affairs--Alvin Edhitjia Siagian The SAIS Review of International Affairs Regilme's case studies of the Philippines and Thailand show convincingly how the American emphasis on human rights as the legitimizing rationale for development aid quickly shifted to a focus on national security interests after 9/11. --World Affairs--Jozef Raadschelders World Affairs Salvador Regilme skillfully explores many all-important topics in his well-argued and thoroughly researched book... --Australian Outlook--Marc Martorell Junyent Australian Outlook Does US aid improve physical integrity rights in receiving countries? Through a masterly analysis of American 'foreign strategic support' in Thailand and the Philippines, Aid Imperium reintroduces politics to the picture, transforming aid recipients from passive players into key political actors for whom relations with the US and their own security imperatives plays a pivotal role in explaining the human rights impact of aid. --Stephen Hopgood, SOAS, University of London -- Stephen Hopgood Does US foreign aid help or hurt human rights in recipient countries? Aid Imperium, with unique scholarly insight, systematic rigor and conceptual care, offers nuanced answers to this important question. This is a must-read for anyone interested in US foreign policy and human rights. --Julian Go, Professor of Sociology, the University of Chicago -- Julian Go In this clear-eyed and commendable study, Salvador Santino Fulo Regilme Jr. explores whether and how foreign aid can improve human rights outcomes--and sometimes sets them back. Theoretically rigorous, with illuminating case studies of US aid to Southeast Asia, this book opens a new era of debate on a crucial topic. --Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World -- Samuel Moyn In this highly engaging book, Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. makes an important contribution to this research, by examining the relationship between US foreign assistance and human rights--specifically physical integrity rights--in the Philippines and Thailand in the post-Cold War period. ...The book will be valuable to scholars of foreign policy, human rights, and international development. --International Affairs--Niheer Dasandi International Affairs Aid Imperium clearly demonstrates the complexity of US foreign strategic support in different contexts, and it offers well-considered insights into the main independent variables that impact on the human rights situation in recipient countries. This book will undoubtedly find a place among scholars, students and general readers interested in US foreign aid programmes and public diplomacy for years to come. --LSE Review of Books--Kai Chen LSE

Finalist: Foreword INDIES 2021 Book Award, Political and Social Sciences (Adult Nonfiction)-- Foreword INDIES Book Award Finalist for the 2021 Foreword INDIES Book Award, Political and Social Sciences (Adult Nonfiction) -- Foreword INDIES Book Award Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. provides a provocative account of how foreign economic assistance from the world's largest bilateral donor--the United States--has harmed human rights in Southeast Asia after the Cold War. Aid Imperium advances a novel conceptualization of foreign strategic support (i.e., foreign aid in conjunction with public diplomacy) and provides an impressively researched narrative of its effects in the Philippines and Thailand... --Perspectives on Politics-- Perspectives on Politics Regilme presents a coherent and credible theory of the effect of foreign aid on recipient nations' human rights conditions...Aid imperium could set the stage for a new school of thought within the literature on foreign aid. --The SAIS Review of International Affairs--Alvin Edhitjia Siagian The SAIS Review of International Affairs Regilme's case studies of the Philippines and Thailand show convincingly how the American emphasis on human rights as the legitimizing rationale for development aid quickly shifted to a focus on national security interests after 9/11. --World Affairs--Jozef Raadschelders World Affairs Salvador Regilme skillfully explores many all-important topics in his well-argued and thoroughly researched book... --Australian Outlook--Marc Martorell Junyent Australian Outlook Does US aid improve physical integrity rights in receiving countries? Through a masterly analysis of American 'foreign strategic support' in Thailand and the Philippines, Aid Imperium reintroduces politics to the picture, transforming aid recipients from passive players into key political actors for whom relations with the US and their own security imperatives plays a pivotal role in explaining the human rights impact of aid. --Stephen Hopgood, SOAS, University of London -- Stephen Hopgood Does US foreign aid help or hurt human rights in recipient countries? Aid Imperium, with unique scholarly insight, systematic rigor and conceptual care, offers nuanced answers to this important question. This is a must-read for anyone interested in US foreign policy and human rights. --Julian Go, Professor of Sociology, the University of Chicago -- Julian Go In this clear-eyed and commendable study, Salvador Santino Fulo Regilme Jr. explores whether and how foreign aid can improve human rights outcomes--and sometimes sets them back. Theoretically rigorous, with illuminating case studies of US aid to Southeast Asia, this book opens a new era of debate on a crucial topic. --Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World -- Samuel Moyn In this highly engaging book, Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. makes an important contribution to this research, by examining the relationship between US foreign assistance and human rights--specifically physical integrity rights--in the Philippines and Thailand in the post-Cold War period. ...The book will be valuable to scholars of foreign policy, human rights, and international development. --International Affairs--Niheer Dasandi International Affairs Aid Imperium clearly demonstrates the complexity of US foreign strategic support in different contexts, and it offers well-considered insights into the main independent variables that impact on the human rights situation in recipient countries. This book will undoubtedly find a place among scholars, students and general readers interested in US foreign aid programmes and public diplomacy for years to come. --LSE Review of Books--Kai Chen LSE

Aid Imperium clearly demonstrates the complexity of US foreign strategic support in different contexts, and it offers well-considered insights into the main independent variables that impact on the human rights situation in recipient countries. This book will undoubtedly find a place among scholars, students and general readers interested in US foreign aid programmes and public diplomacy for years to come. --LSE Review of Books--Kai Chen LSE

Author Information

Salvador Santino Fulo Regilme Jr. is a Tenured University Lecturer of International Relations at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands.

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