{"title":"The Paradigm Shift of Danish Development Policy (1990–2020)","authors":"Anne Mette Kjær","doi":"10.1080/08039410.2022.2080762","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract\n For decades, Danish Development Policy was characterized by continuity, backed, as it was, by a relatively stable consensus across the political spectrum. However, this changed in the new Millennium where a paradigm shift in Danish development policy took place. This article characterizes and explains the paradigm shift and identifies its main driving forces. Drawing on Peter Hall’s policy paradigm framework, I identify development policy changes as a first, second, as well as a third order change, which constitutes a fundamental paradigm shift. Aid has been cut by almost a third, and the composition of instruments has changed with reduced allocations to bilateral country programmes, reduced allocations to the poorest and most stable countries, and increased allocations to humanitarian aid and areas of origin of migrants. Other purposes such as e.g. security concerns, global climate mitigation, or reducing migration flows, have to a large extent substituted the longstanding main objective of poverty reduction. International events and tendencies are of course important factors in explaining these significant development policy shifts, but domestic driving forces are equally important and consist mainly in a politicization of development aid enabled by a prior shift in policy-arena, both driven by domestic coalition politics. The politicization happened when a centre-right government was elected in 2001 and enabled a paradigm shift that happened over the 00s and which has been consolidated by the Social democratic minority government since 2019.","PeriodicalId":45207,"journal":{"name":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"FORUM FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2022.2080762","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"DEVELOPMENT STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract
For decades, Danish Development Policy was characterized by continuity, backed, as it was, by a relatively stable consensus across the political spectrum. However, this changed in the new Millennium where a paradigm shift in Danish development policy took place. This article characterizes and explains the paradigm shift and identifies its main driving forces. Drawing on Peter Hall’s policy paradigm framework, I identify development policy changes as a first, second, as well as a third order change, which constitutes a fundamental paradigm shift. Aid has been cut by almost a third, and the composition of instruments has changed with reduced allocations to bilateral country programmes, reduced allocations to the poorest and most stable countries, and increased allocations to humanitarian aid and areas of origin of migrants. Other purposes such as e.g. security concerns, global climate mitigation, or reducing migration flows, have to a large extent substituted the longstanding main objective of poverty reduction. International events and tendencies are of course important factors in explaining these significant development policy shifts, but domestic driving forces are equally important and consist mainly in a politicization of development aid enabled by a prior shift in policy-arena, both driven by domestic coalition politics. The politicization happened when a centre-right government was elected in 2001 and enabled a paradigm shift that happened over the 00s and which has been consolidated by the Social democratic minority government since 2019.
期刊介绍:
Forum for Development Studies was established in 1974, and soon became the leading Norwegian journal for development research. While this position has been consolidated, Forum has gradually become an international journal, with its main constituency in the Nordic countries. The journal is owned by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the Norwegian Association for Development Research. Forum aims to be a platform for development research broadly defined – including the social sciences, economics, history and law. All articles are double-blind peer-reviewed. In order to maintain the journal as a meeting place for different disciplines, we encourage authors to communicate across disciplinary boundaries. Contributions that limit the use of exclusive terminology and frame the questions explored in ways that are accessible to the whole range of the Journal''s readership will be given priority.