Foreign aid, grassroots activism, and the strength of applied community studies in aid-receiving countries: the case of community psychology

Abstract

What influences the strength of community psychology as an academic and professional field in countries receiving foreign aidq What impact does aid itself haveq While capacity development is a major focus for donor countries and other international development agencies, there has been no empirical study of the relationship of aid to the strength of applied social research training in recipient countries. We coded the strength of community psychology in 67 aid-receiving nations and analyzed the factors predicting it, including nonviolent activism and development aid. As hypothesized according to dependency theory, aid is negatively correlated to the strength of community psychology in each country, and significantly explains the variance of the strength of the discipline over and above the influence of GDP per capita, income inequality, educational infrastructure, civil liberties, and nonviolent activism. We also find that the less aid received, the more strongly nonviolent activism predicts the strength of community psychology. Based on the case study literature, our findings support the observation that aid is managed in ways that exclude locally trained researchers and practitioners. We hypothesize how this might occur and offer suggestions for further qualitative research.