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INTRODUCTION
Foreign assistance remains a vital instrument of U.S. foreign policy – and an object of
unceasing controversy and debate. At the same time, the United States is both the world’s largest
source of bilateral economic assistance, with approved transfers of $20.7 billion in Fiscal Year
2004, and the smallest aid provider as a percentage of gross national product, with a level of
about .13 percent (Tarnoff and Nowels, 2004: 15, 30). Thus, paradoxically, the world’s
predominant aid donor is widely considered its stingiest, a view that is frequently expressed at
international conferences involving North-South economic relations. Domestically, U.S. foreign
aid is among the least popular federal programs, a consistent pattern that is skewed by pervasive
misperceptions regarding the actual size and scale of the aid program (see Kull and Destler,
1999). Among common complaints: U.S. aid is wasted on repressive and corrupt governments,
aid does little to improve living conditions in recipient states, and aid funds would be better spent
on economic problems in the United States (see Rielly, various years).
Like his predecessors, President George W. Bush came into office in 2001 with his own
agenda for U.S. foreign aid. Bush modeled his aid agenda around his broader approach to world
politics and economics. Skeptical of past programs, Bush demanded that future recipients be
accountable for the money they receive from Washington, D.C. Aid recipients, in his view,
should have democratic governments and market economies in place and demonstrate that their
aid would be used to advance political and economic reforms. After the terrorist attacks of
September 2001, Bush identified international development as one of three “pillars” of his
national-security strategy, along with diplomacy and defense.
A central element of President Bush's foreign-aid policy involved a new program, the
Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which was designed to reward developing countries that
adopted the U.S. government’s model of market democracy. In 2002, the president pledged $5
billion in foreign aid annually by Fiscal Year 2006 to a limited number of developing countries
that would presumably serve as role models for other states to follow. Sixteen “top performers”
were identified in 2004 as the first recipients of MCA funds, and a seventeenth country was
added to the pool for Fiscal Year 2005. If implemented and fully funded, the Bush initiative
would represent the most fundamental change in U.S. foreign aid since the passage of the
Convention