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Does Asia still need development assistance?
German development assistance from Hallstein to the oil crisis
More help is not always helpful
Development cooperation must become more efficient
10/2006 |
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German development assistance from Hallstein to the oil crisis
Bastian Hein:
Die Westdeutschen und die Dritte Welt. Entwicklungspolitik und Entwicklungsdienste zwischen Reform und Revolte 1959-1974. [The West Germans and the Third World. Development policy and development agencies between reform and revolt 1959-1974.]
Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2006, 334 p.,
¤39.80, ISBN 3-486-57880-4
Bastian Hein offers a comprehensive study of the early days of development assistance in the Federal Republic of Germany. His work is part of a research project on political and social change in the 1960s and early 1970s undertaken by the Munich-based Institute of Contemporary History. Anybody expecting a long treatise on the formation and the implications of the “1968 student movement”, therefore, will be pleasantly surprised. Rather, Hein has compiled a thorough historical analysis, outlining the wide range of factors which influenced the budding branch of policy known as “development policy”.
One reason behind the Federal Republic’s commitment to development was the US/British threat to withdraw troops from an economically-booming West Germany in the late 1950s, if the country did not contribute its fair share to international development aid. The Hallstein doctrine – according to which West Germany cooperated only with states which did not maintain diplomatic relations with communist East Germany – and the the Cold War competition in general, also influenced development policy. The author goes on to explore the German economy’s search for markets in developing countries, and the various interests of the ministries concerned.
Hein looks closely at the personnel cooperation of development services in particular, in order to document where the “68ers initiated and instigated change or where they aroused resistance and hampered reform processes”. These sections will mainly be of interest to specialists and the relevant agencies themselves. He reaches the conclusion that in general the “68er” students were only marginally interested in questions of development policy. Rather, the actual change in the late 1960s was that “for the first time a large number of West Germans took a more than superficial interest in the problems of the Third World.”
The author’s obvious aversion to the 68ers and the more radical groups in particular is often unmistakable. His ill-humour is quite unnecessary, because as the book makes clear, their influence on development cooperation was comparatively limited, with the exception of staff representatives at the German Development Service. All in all, however, Hein’s hostility does not impair the quality of his analysis. His book is recommended without reservation to both experts and interested laypersons.
Uwe Kerkow
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