Leader, Protester, Enabler, Spoiler: Aid Strategies and Donor Politics in Institutional Assistance

Aid co-ordination has come to be seen as a miracle cure for the ills of donor proliferation. However, in weak states where aid conditionality may be a catalyst for institutional change, the ideal of aid co-ordination is conceptually suspect, and in some instances politically counterproductive. Co-ordination is one of the two solutions to the collective-action problem that the public good of effective institutional conditionality generates; donor leadership is the other. The desirability of each solution depends on every donor's commitment and presence, which together generate a four-fold typology: leader, protester, enabler, and spoiler. As long as there is at least one enabler or spoiler donor present, aid co-ordination will be less effective than donor leadership.