9. Diffusion, Fusion, and Confusion: Development Cooperation in a Multiplex World Order

Development cooperation (DC) is undergoing fundamental changes for several reasons. Firstly, the narrative of DC is in flux. For many decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) approach to official development assistance (ODA) was the predominant narrative in this regard. However, the rise of South-South cooperation (SSC) is introducing a distinct concept of DC (Bracho 2017; Chaturvedi 2016; Zoccal Gomes and Esteves 2018), and multiple sites of “contested cooperation” (see the Introduction to this handbook) have become a key feature of the DC field. In addition, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a universal umbrella concept for “sustainable development” and “partnerships” in support of sustainable development. At the same time, OECD ODA providers are rephrasing their ODA approaches (e.g. stronger emphasis on co-benefits for ODA providers).

Secondly, we can observe several interrelated challenges concerning the DC system per se. At least three challenges need to be highlighted (Ashoff and Klingebiel 2014): (i) The fragmentation of actors and approaches is an increasing trend and major feature of DC in several regards (increase of multilateral funds, philanthropic actors, increase of new funding instruments, etc.) (Klingebiel, Mahn, et al. 2016). The increase of actors might lead, for example, to a stronger need for coordination efforts; (ii) a list of principal–agent problems deriving from the complex constellation of actors in the DC system (in terms of “accountability”, “ownership”, etc.) (Keijzer et al. 2018; Martens et al. 2002; Ostrom et al. 2002); (iii) the potentially negative impacts of DC, especially on the governance and economy of partner countries (see, e.g., Brautigam and Knack 2004).

Several analytical pieces have discussed those structural changes and systemic challenges. Whereas former debates (roughly until 2005) mainly associated the DC narrative and systemic aspects with the OECD’s approach to DC, a whole range of new analytical pieces are meanwhile looking at SSC and, to some extent, triangular approaches. Of course, SSC is not fundamentally a new development paradigm and operational approach. The Bandung Conference in 1955, other discussions on technical cooperation among developing countries (TCDC) in the 1960s and 1970s, and the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (1978) indicate that SSC is not a new type of international cooperation. However, what is different from the past is its dynamic increase in terms of volume, geographical coverage, and attractiveness as well as its implications and significance for DC in general.

One main implication of such changes is the search for, and debate on, norms guiding different types of DC. The predominant debates on DC until the beginning of the 2000s were mainly guided and influenced by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD and its member states. Ideas and norms originated mainly from the discussions of this specific club. This does not exclude, for example, debates and conclusions on DC norms in the context of the United Nations (UN) (e.g. the target that OECD countries should provide at least 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product for ODA) or the inclusion of developing countries in the OECD Working Party on Aid Effectiveness (WP-EFF).¹ Nevertheless, DC was basically binarily coded: donors as providers of DC or ODA and developing countries at the receiving end.

The rise of SSC and the increasing attention paid to SSC has led to a significant shift. The former de facto monopoly situation of OECD providers of DC is over. SSC is an alternative option for countries looking for development finance and other types of development support. Moreover, SSC is a main instrument for the provider countries to increase their “soft power” potential (Nye 2011) and to influence global governance structures. At the same time, SSC providers were only partly successful in agreeing on their set of norms for SSC as a specific type of DC. For example, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries were already able to organise discussions on SSC. However, they have not come up so far with a specific organisational understanding and definition of a set of norms.

Nonetheless, we are increasingly witnessing challenges based on the two distinct DC approaches. One challenge is stemming from a de facto disagreement between the main actors on a global platform for discussions, and subsequently on norms for DC. The transformation of the former OECD WP-EFF into the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation (GPEDC), jointly managed by the OECD and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), is not accepted by the main providers of SSC (especially China, India, Brazil, and South Africa) (Klingebiel and Xiaoyun 2016). The UN Development Cooperation Forum (UN DCF) is a global dialogue platform on DC. However, this forum is not able to perform as a norm-sharpener in the field of DC (Janus et al. 2016). Thus, a functioning global platform on DC norms does not exist so far. Consequently, there exist mainly two distinct sets of norms for DC.

Against this background, the present chapter analyses changing norms for DC from the end of the Cold War to the establishment of the 2030 Agenda. We aim at identifying the diverging norms for ODA and SSC and the interrelationship between both norm systems. Thus, norm-making, norm-taking, and norm-diffusion of two competing norm clusters are key terms (which will be introduced later on) and offer crucial perspectives to our chapter.

In general terms, norms can be understood as “shared understandings that make behavioral claims” (Checkel 2001). DC is shaped by norms. ODA “being administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective” (definition of ODA; see OECD, n.d.-a) and SSC being based on the principle of “solidarity”² are illustrations of concrete norms forming different types of DC. Those are concrete examples of how narratives and concepts of DC are translated into specific norms.

Academic debates on norms in international relations (IR) provide numerous insights (e.g. Gilardi 2013; Risse 2017). In development research and research on DC, only a few studies try to benefit explicitly from IR discussions on norms. The work of Cold-Ravnkilde et al. (2018) is one of the few examples of the application of academic debates, specifically for DC. More generally, Acharya (2004) approaches the debates about norm-diffusion being a main concept from a perspective of the Global South for explaining which and whose ideas matter in world politics. Transnational norm-diffusion is a crucial dimension for a number of the most important IR debates (Gilardi 2013). Overall, there are different phases of research on norms (Rosert 2012): At the beginning of the IR debates on norms, there was a clear focus on the evidence that norms exist and matter. In a second phase of the academic debates, the focus was on how norms influence and impact policies. A third dimension covered mainly the question of why norms might have different consequences on different actors or in different context settings. For the current phase, there is a strong interest in norm-diffusion and the relationship between competing norms. The implications of norms for IR are far-reaching. The “spread of ideas” is directly related to the question “Whose norms matter?” (Acharya 2004). Thus, the transnational diffusion of norms, ideas, and policies has a strong link to the ability of actors to shape (global) agendas. The ability to spread norms is therefore an element of power.

Norms can be typically viewed from a constructivist or rationalist perspective (see, e.g., Checkel 2001; Gilardi 2013; Payne 2001; Risse 2017; Rosert 2012). Constructivist theorists mainly focus on ideational building blocks and persuasive communication as a foundation for norm-building. Rationalist theorists would rather focus on material forces in achieving normative changes.

Norm-diffusion is highly relevant for development research and research on global agenda-setting abilities. Traditionally, countries of the Global South can be regarded as “norm-takers”: They have to comply with certain conditions in order to be eligible for development assistance.

Norms for global governance structures were created in the past, mainly without a defined role for countries from the Global South. This applies, for instance, to decisions related to the G7 and the OECD. Thus, the definitions of norms on DC (more specifically with respect to ODA) were for almost 50 years provided by the OECD-DAC as the “norm-maker”.

The main interest of the present contribution is to create a better understanding of norms in the field of DC. In this context, it is important to note that norms evolve. The role of actors might also change fundamentally. In academic literature, for instance, China’s shift from being a “norm-taker” to a “norm-maker” on foreign aid has been one of the debates over the last decade (see, e.g., Reilly 2011). Nevertheless, we argue that norm-setting (creation of norms) and norm-diffusion (the process that is needed to spread norms) are intertwined processes, displacing and scrambling what would otherwise be considered as steady positions: norm-maker and norm-taker positions.

It is the intention of our chapter to make the most important norms as well as changes in norms visible. We mainly discuss those aspects based on a comparison between the OECD’s approach to ODA and the approach of SSC partners.

For our approach, we refer to an emerging debate on “norm clusters”. Winston (2018) has introduced the term as a new theoretical construct. She identifies inconsistencies between the accepted structure of contemporary international norms and the variety of accepted outcomes of norm-diffusion in the real world. Her proposal for a new conceptual structure is as follows: to restructure the concept of contemporary international norms itself into a looser and less determinate collection of interlocking normative components. In her view, a norm cluster consists of a bounded collection of interrelated and specific (i) problems, (ii) values, and (iii) behaviours.

Winston (2018, pp. 13ff.) uses the Non-Proliferation Treaty of the UN as an example. She identifies (i) the problem “Nuclear weapons exist”, (ii) the value “Nuclear war is undesirable”, and (iii) the behaviours “No weapons transfer”, “No weapons development”, “No acceptance of transferred weapons”, and “Reporting and verification”.

Winston (2018) proposed a formal model for norms structuration based on three components (Fig. 9.1).

According to Winston, “A norm cluster is a bounded collection of interrelated specific problems, values, and behaviors that are understood to be similar enough that their adopters form a family group” (Winston 2018, p. 10). She assumes that, even in contexts where different problems are found and distinct values coexist, a norm may be created as “an ‘appropriate’ means of addressing the more general problem that motivates norm cluster adoption” (Winston 2018, p. 10).

We adopt Winston’s model with two caveats. First, the model ignores power relations embedded within the process of norm-setting and norm-diffusion. As we argue, power is the missing link connecting values and what may be considered appropriate behaviour. Second, issues are framed as political problems by a specific set of values, and not the other way around.

In this section, we address the issue area of development. Let us assume, for instance, that within the development field, the lack of resources, capacities, or technology—or general dispossession, as we call it (or privation)—is a material condition or a social fact. Nevertheless, this material condition or social fact may be framed as a different problem, depending on the agent’s set of values and relative position. Indeed, whereas for great powers the general issue of dispossession may be understood through the lenses of rivalry, influence, or national security, the same issue may be experienced by the dispossessed agents as a matter of autonomy, sovereignty, or self-reliance. Therefore, drawing on the Winston model, we understand that problems are not a priori givens, but rather social facts framed by values and relative positions, and then turned into problems.

Henceforth, we suggest the following model of norms structuration:

For the purpose of our analysis, we apply this approach to the policy field of DC. In our model of a norm cluster for DC, we identify joint “problem” and “value” statements for DC norms based on ODA and SSC. However, we identify “behaviours” that are only partly the same.

In the following parts of our chapter, we provide a more detailed justification for the previous proposal on how to apply the norm cluster approach. Especially, we are providing a norm cluster approach for DC for several phases. We start with the early years of the emergence of a concept of (Western) development assistance and early debates on SSC (1945–1961). We discuss changes over time before, in our conclusion, we reflect on the current phase since the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan in 2011.

The concept of ODA was crafted after the Second World War. The Marshall Plan, the bipolar competition, and the decolonisation process framed the emerging norms governing the development assistance provided by developed countries. These norms were established mainly by the United States (largely visible in what is called the Truman Doctrine, as mainly conceptualised in 1947 and 1948) and throughout the interplay between the former European empires and their former colonies (Klingebiel 2014). The relevance of national liberation movements in the colonies is often underestimated. Fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, 40 nations and their 800 million inhabitants became independent. The history of European powers became no less knotted to these newly sovereign entities than it was during the colonial rule (Bayly 2004; Garavini 2012). Development and modernisation tied the European powers and their former colonies, generating not only one but two mirroring clusters of norms among donors and recipients from one side, and Southern partners from the other. These clusters were underpinned by specific understandings about what development meant.

As discussed above, drawing on Winston’s norm clusters approach, the material fact of dispossession may originate from different political or social problems when framed by different agents. Dispossession would be a way to designate a situation of populations in former colonies as well as states’ lack of capacities and resources. Nevertheless, the definition of a development challenge depends on the set of values and the relative position from where the problem is framed. Hence, the relative position frames the ways in which the problem is understood as well as the rules and behaviours suggested to address the problem.

During decolonisation, economic and social issues (dispossession) at the international system’s periphery were framed in different ways by the European powers and the newly sovereign states. These distinct understandings would establish two clusters of norms: development assistance and SSC. This section addresses the mirroring constitution of these two clusters, taking as a point of departure the events after the Second World War.

In the developed world, the Marshall Plan and President Harry Truman’s Doctrine to provide assistance to “developing countries” are considered very often to be the landmarks from which contemporary DC evolved (Zeiler 2015). Four arguments were mobilised to leverage domestic support for international assistance: the rivalry between the two superpowers, the need to keep a foot in former colonial territories, the eventual support from developing countries at the UN, and the economic gains achieved by means of export promotions and tied aid (Griffin 1991, p. 647).

International assistance was also a subject of debate within the post-colonial region. In 1954, China’s Premier, Zhou Enlai, and India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, highlighted “equality and cooperation for mutual benefit” as one of the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” at the signing of the Sino-Indian Treaty of 1954 (Van Eekelen 1964). One year later, the final communiqué at the Bandung Conference incorporated the five principles as part of the “Ten Principles of Bandung”. The 29 countries present at the Asian-African Conference distinguished international assistance provided by states “outside the region” and cooperation based on the principles of mutual interest and respect for national sovereignty (Jayaprakash 2005, para. 1). These principles included self-determination, respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference, promotion of mutual interests, and cooperation (see Carbonnier et al. 2012; Dellios and Ferguson 2013; Huang 2018).

Even though they shared a common concern—dispossession—developed countries and former colonies framed it as two different political problems. From one side, the United States and former European empires saw the post-colonial region as a disputed territory with the Soviet Union or as a site where they should keep or recover their influence. Hence, DC was seen as a foreign policy tool to keep the soviets out and gain influence.

From the other side, dispossession was taken as a handicap that diminished the individual country’s ability to make its own policies. DC should, then, be a tool to foster self-determination (and to support the emerging post-colonial elites) that is underpinned by a respect for sovereignty and guided by the principles of mutual interest and equality.

Figure 9.2 presents both clusters, highlighting the two relative positions from where the problems of development were framed. From one side, developed countries framed the issue of dispossession through security lenses. Dispossession was turned into underdevelopment—a condition from which discontent and potential allegiances with the soviet bloc could grow, becoming, therefore, a threat. Assistance would be a tool for developed countries to maintain influence, and ultimately their hierarchical position vis-à-vis the post-colonial world. From the other side, leaders in the post-colonial world understood dispossession within the light of the colonial experience. As a political problem, it would become an obstacle for self-determination. Cooperation among former colonies would be a path to assert the right for self-determination.

European countries and the United States started to discuss a joint initiative on development assistance in the late 1950s. The international norm-setting process was part of an institutional mushrooming both at the multilateral and national levels. At the national and multilateral levels, initiatives such as the establishment of cooperation agencies or clubs of agencies, such as the Development Assistance Group (DAG), created by the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation member states, are evidence of how development assistance was being consolidated as a legitimate answer to the challenges generated by the decolonisation process (see Bracho 2015; Führer 1996).

In 1961, the “Resolution of the Common Aid Effort” outlined the ODA framework and its differences vis-à-vis so-called other official flows or private finance. In so doing, it establishes a boundary between “business as usual” and development assistance “in the form of grants or loans on favorable terms […]”. Furthermore, to DAG members, the resolution assigned the task of helping “the less-developed countries help themselves” (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] 2006, p. 10).

The divisive line between DAG members and less-developed countries re-enacted the old lines that enabled colonialism and trusteeship, generating a privileged position for Western powers. As Bracho (2015) suggested, the old idea of responsibilities, which, for centuries, supported colonialism, was brought again to the table. As he pointed out, “the responsibilities remained; though it was now reformulated as a collective responsibility of the rich nations of the North to help the poor ones of the South reach development” (Bracho 2015, p. 2). The ODA framework established a divisive line between donors and recipients. Developed countries should establish a way to provide assistance on an “assured and continuing basis” (OECD 2006, p. 10).

As the title of the resolution suggests, the main question shifted to how Western powers would share the burden of international assistance (Bracho 2015, p. 5). After many recommendations, the DAC established the concept of ODA in 1972:

ODA consists of flows to developing countries and multilateral institutions provided by official agencies, including state and local governments, or by their executive agencies, each transaction of which meets the following test: a) it is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective, and b) it is concessional in character and contains a grant element of at least 25 percent (calculated at a rate of discount of 10 percent). (OECD, n.d.-a)

Even though the DAG was the main venue where the concept of ODA was being coined, the concept arose from the intersection between developing countries’ demands and the developed countries’ willingness to create a financial flow that would distinguish itself from trade and investment. The concept of ODA resulted from a “decade-long process of setting objectives for aid volume and terms” (Scott 2015, p. 21). This process was “both a collaboration and a tug-of-war between the DAC (representing the donors) and the UN (dominated by aid recipients)” (Scott 2015, p. 21).

Taking advantage of the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) favoured environment, the developing world exerted significant pressure on the DAC countries for the adoption of softer and untied loans and the expansion of the maturity period. UNCTAD I strengthened the vocabulary around the idea of preferential treatment for developing countries beyond the field of trade and, by default, the responsibilities assigned to developed countries. At the end of UNCTAD I, the creation of the G77 was an important step in vocalising the demand for preferential treatment and a “necessary means for co-operation amongst the developing countries themselves” (Group of 77 1964).

Likewise, UNCTAD I and UNCTAD II became opportunities for developing countries to advocate the target of 1 per cent of the gross domestic product as the ODA contribution (Scott 2015). The inception of ODA was, therefore, instrumental for the establishment of the 0.7 target in 1970 and vice versa. UNCTAD was also a venue for developing countries to assert what they would expect from DAC members: (i) “financial and technical co-operation” for “strengthening the economic and political independence”, (ii) “financial and technical assistance […] to ensure the steady and uninterrupted growth of their national economy”, and (iii) such assistance should not be subject to any political, economic, military, or other conditions unacceptable to the developing countries (UN Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD] 1964, p. 44, authors’ emphasis).

Confronting the pressure from developing countries and civil society organisations (CSOs), DAC countries agreed on the concept of ODA as a way to streamline aid flows, measuring and monitoring them against the intended target. Since 1972, ODA has provided the main normative framework for DC. The regulatory dimension of ODA encompasses at least four principles: (i) must have a developmental purpose; (ii) it is an official flow, and therefore mobilises public funds; (iii) must be concessional with a grant element; (iv) it is unidirectional (from developed countries to developing countries), not involving necessarily any expectation of reciprocity.

Developing countries were far from playing the role of norm-takers. As the debates from Bandung to UNCTAD show, a concessional flow attached to a given target was a demand of newly independent countries. Instead of the dyadic model of norm-makers and -takers, the case of ODA shows how a norm can be produced as a mirror effect, where two different positions with different rationales converge to the same set of principles and rules. Figure 9.3 summarises the process of ODA norm-setting.

Even considering that developed and developing countries were driven by these different sets of values and interests, the establishment of ODA as the North-South cooperation (NSC) normative framework was a decision taken by DAC members under growing pressure from developing countries. The establishment of ODA as a set of norms was one of these critical points when, as Winston (2018) perceived, different agents coalesced, generating a behavioural pattern for both developed and developing countries and engendering a cluster of norms.

ODA was perceived by developing countries as key for achieving de facto independence. Nevertheless, due to the structural asymmetries between donors and recipients, developing countries re-enacted the idea of DC among themselves at the two UNCTAD conferences (UNCTAD 1964). During three decades, concepts and approaches related to dependency theory influenced debates around TCDC and economic cooperation among developing countries (ECDC). TCDC and ECDC were still foreign policy tools, mobilised to cement coalitions among Southern countries as the G77.

The first conference on “Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC)” in Buenos Aires in 1978 was a critical juncture to turn “cooperation among developing countries” into what is now known as SSC. On the one hand, developing countries were still animated by the claims for the transformation of the structures of the international system that were manifested throughout the New International Economic Order resolution at the UN General Assembly. In this context, the claims for self-determination were supplemented with a general aspiration for self-reliance. Self-determination was seen as a juridical condition for autonomy—a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. For achieving autonomy, any developing country should rely on its own capacities and on its partners within the South.

On the other hand, though, developing countries were starting to face the severe consequences of a broader economic crisis rooted in high levels of debt and debt-servicing, droughts, deterioration of commodity prices, and the oil prices shock. The expectations nurtured by the discourses of Southern leaders contrasted with the resources available for producing actual changes. At the Buenos Aires conference, the contrast between great aspirations and scarce political and economic resources became evident.

The final declaration presented TCDC as a “means of building communication and of promoting wider and more effective cooperation among developing countries […] experience for their mutual benefit and for achieving national and collective self-reliance which are essential for their social and economic development” (United Nations [UN] 2019, p. 6, para. 5). Building on the Bandung principles, the conference stressed the principles of sovereignty, non-intervention, and non-interference, and it presented TCDC as a modality of DC guided by the principles of horizontality (as opposed to the vertical relationship between donor and recipient) and mutual benefits (as opposed to the idea of responsibility and assistance). Nevertheless, the contrast between ODA and TCDC was balanced when the document further elaborated on the relationship between NSC and SSC: “TCDC is intended neither to replace the existing relationship between the North and the South nor indeed to be used as an argument against the continuation of North-South technical flows” (Talal 1978, p. 75).

While the conference in 1978 kept the main reformist tenets that had animated the debates around SSC, it also acknowledged ODA’s centrality and stated the complementary nature of SSC vis-à-vis NSC: TCDC “will increase the absorptive capacity of developing countries for technical and other imports from developed countries” (UN 2019, p. 4). Such a statement consolidated the dual position of developing countries, as recipients of ODA and partners of SSC. Indeed, feeling the heat of the economic crises, developing countries urged the donors to increase ODA disbursement.

Furthermore, the difficulties currently encountered by the world economy make it even more necessary for the developing countries to evolve strategies based on greater national and collective self-reliance, for which TCDC is an important instrument. This in no way reduces the responsibility of developed countries to undertake the necessary policy measures. In particular, the increase of development assistance for accelerated development of developing countries. (UN 2019, p. 6, authors’ emphasis)

The Buenos Aires conference contributed towards reinforcing two normative clusters within the broader field of DC. Contrary to the conventional scholarship though, as we have argued, these two clusters have mutually constituted themselves as mirrors, reproducing each other—almost identical but still inverted. Despite many differences between these two clusters, the cornerstone of such inversion was actually the differential responsibilities assigned to developed and developing countries. Indeed, developed countries’ responsibilities manifested themselves not only throughout the concessional nature and the grant element that defined ODA, or the preferential treatment in trade (which was outside the normative reach of ODA), but particularly through the idea of non-reciprocity or non-mutuality. Indeed, by inverting the ODA framework, SSC emphasised mutual benefits and the idea of reciprocity as the foundation of the relationships between Southern countries. Figure 9.4 summarises the constitution of the SSC cluster.

After Buenos Aires, in the context of a generalised debt crisis where developing countries missed the necessary resources for engaging in SSC in a significant way, ODA was consolidated as a quasi-monopolist set of practices. In terms of significance, SSC was hardly visible in developing countries. The Soviet Union had few countries with a special relationship and cooperation formats (e.g. with Cuba); however, Eastern forms of DC never gained momentum or relevance. Starting at the end of the 1970s, OECD donors adopted a two-pronged approach towards development assistance based on the combination of policies designed to fight poverty and the promotion of structural adjustments via conditional loans and grants. Even though conditionalities were always part of development assistance practices, they became an ubiquitous resource in the hands of traditional donors during the 1980s and 1990s (Stokke 1995).

After the end of the Cold War, the DC community faced a paradoxical situation. While the end of the East/West rivalry expanded the demand for development assistance (generating new recipients and new agendas), it impacted negatively on the supply side, diminishing the volume of ODA offered by DAC donors (Severino and Ray 2009). Freed from the threat represented by the Soviet Union, donors could focus on their own fiscal accounts. Cutting ODA became an easy way to produce more balanced sheets. At the same time, these donors had to redirect their efforts to normalise the economic and political situations in the former soviet bloc and stabilise conflict-affected countries, particularly in Africa. From being a tool designed to contain the advancement of the Soviet Union and keep influence over the former colonies, development assistance focussed now on institutional reforms and the governance agenda, aiming at integrating the periphery of the international system into the liberal-democratic and market-oriented world. Accordingly, the ODA agenda was broadened, encompassing comprehensive plans of market-oriented institutional reforms, democracy promotion, and sectoral programmes. The new agenda indicated a shift from security to “good governance”—and especially democracy—as a main development assistance goal.

Conditional development assistance became an ordinary tool for promoting economic and political reforms in the Global South, playing at least a threefold role. First, the vocabulary of good governance could replace the security rhetoric that underpinned the expenditure in development assistance during the Cold War, building legitimacy among donors’ constituencies. Second, it would help to integrate parts of the former soviet bloc into the international market. Finally, following the democratic peace credo, and in line with the idea of a “New World Order”, conditional development assistance would contribute towards building a stable and peaceful world while promoting democracy.

Nevertheless, the decline of ODA provision between 1990 and 1997 illustrates the difficulties that such a model faced during that period. As the DAC report “Shaping the twenty-first Century: The Role of Development Co-operation” (OECD Development Assistance Committee [DAC] 1996) indicated, there was a “deep concern that domestic preoccupations and budgetary pressures in some Member countries could seriously jeopardize the international development co-operation effort at a critical juncture” (OECD-DAC 1996, p. 16). Nevertheless, facing significant fiscal constraints—polarised around the structuralist and monetarist positions and involved with structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), either voluntarily or under coercion—developing countries had little policy or fiscal spaces for engaging with SSC. For almost a decade, the DC arena was almost entirely occupied by ODA, as Fig. 9.5 tries to illustrate.

At the end of the 1990s, conditional ODA started to be contested, showing its first signs of exhaustion. Beyond the poor economic results, though, at the end of the decade, criticism against the conditional delivery model (Hermes and Lensink 2001) became pervasive. Three points were noteworthy: (i) a legitimacy gap generated by the imposition of policies by foreign powers; (ii) the selectivity of the conditional approach (Doornbos 2001; Pronk 2001); and, (iii) the sustainability gap broadened with the dismantling of national capacities for policy design and implementation across the developing world, perpetuating in many cases aid dependency.

The DAC report “Shaping the 21st Century” illustrated the limits of the conditional assistance practices paving the way towards a new agenda for DAC donors. The effectiveness agenda was finally codified at the Second High-Level Forum (HLF-2) in Paris in 2005, rebuilding DAC donors’ own position within the DC field and aiming at obturating the gaps described above (Esteves and Assunção 2014).

In 2006, Richard Manning, chair of the DAC, published an article entitled “Will ‘Emerging Donors’ Change the Face of International Co-operation?” (Manning 2006). In that piece, Manning recognised the almost exclusive position taken by ODA donors after the end of the Cold War and, acknowledging the growing relevance of non-DAC development partners, suggested a new question: Will “non-DAC donors not apply DAC ‘standards’?” (Manning 2006, p. 377). Looking at the evident trends, particularly with regard to China and India, Manning sketched a norm-diffusion strategy that started with the establishment of “links with these other donors – or in some cases rebuild links that have atrophied” (Manning 2006, p. 383). The strategy was based on mechanisms of socialisation and learning, opening existing venues for the so-called emerging donors, supporting the production of evidence-based knowledge, and opening new forms of collaboration with them. The first significant movement would take place at the DAC’s Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-3) in 2008.

Rather than only reviewing the progress made since the Paris Declaration, the HLF became itself an occasion for the diffusion of the Paris Agenda. The meeting resulted in the Accra Agenda for Action (AAA). Beyond the usual vocabulary, the AAA included references to civil society and—for the first time in a DAC HLF outcome document—to SSC. In 2009, a Task Team on South-South Cooperation (TT-SSC) was also created, recognising the need for greater dialogue with SSC providers. The TT-SSC was designed as a multi-stakeholder platform (including donors, middle-income countries, academia, civil society, and bilateral and multilateral agencies). The TT-SSC aimed at mapping, documenting, analysing, and discussing evidence on the synergies between aid effectiveness principles and SSC practices (Task Team on South-South Cooperation [TT-SSC] 2010b). It should also work on adapting the Paris and Accra principles for SSC, adding the so-called Southern perspectives to the effectiveness agenda and identifying complementarities and intersections between South-South and North-South cooperation. Between 2009 and 2010, the TT-SSC documented and analysed 110 cases presented and discussed at the High-Level Event on South-South Cooperation and Capacity Development held in Bogota (OECD 2010; TT-SSC 2010a). The efforts for gathering data and producing knowledge were followed with the creation of new sites and opportunities for interaction between traditional donors and SSC partners (SSCPs) where such findings could be presented and discussed. Moreover, traditional donors started to launch initiatives of triangular cooperation as a way to socialise and influence the newcomers (Zoccal Gomes and Esteves 2018).

The process of socialisation spawned some resistance, though. In 2008, the UN DCF met for the first time. Created within the framework of the UN Economic and Social Council, the HLF was set up to discuss trends and promote coherence between the various modalities of DC, with particular emphasis on SSC. Despite being relatively recent and meeting only every two years, the UN DCF was perceived as being a universal space that was more horizontal than the DAC club. Eyben and Savage (2012) further note that by framing its agenda under the HLF, SSCPs also presented a discursive challenge to the “aid effectiveness” promoted by the DAC, bringing to the fore the concept of “development effectiveness”.

Marking the 30th anniversary of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action (1978), the 2009 High-level UN Conference on South-South Cooperation was held in Nairobi, Kenya. The Nairobi Final Document presents SSC as an essential tool for economic development, emphasising the sharing of challenges, difficulties, experiences, and innovative solutions. Principles such as the absence of conditionalities, sovereignty, and national ownership, which should be respected to ensure the effectiveness of SSC, were also pointed out. Like the UN DCF, the document also underscores the need to distinguish SSC from ODA, while challenging the effectiveness agenda by acknowledging “the need to enhance the development effectiveness of South-South cooperation” (UN 2009, para. 18, authors’ emphasis).

The subtle challenge to the Paris Agenda is noteworthy. Nevertheless, in addition to reaffirming the complementarity between SSC and NSC, the document largely adopted the vocabulary of the Paris Agenda (ownership, mutual accountability, results management, transparency, alignment, etc.). However, there is no explicit reference to the Paris Agenda (Figs. 9.6 and 9.7).

DAC’s diffusion strategy was summarised in the report “Investing in Development: A Common Cause in a Changing World”, endorsed at the 2009 High-Level Meeting (HLM) in the midst of the financial crisis. As the report stated, “the objective of the exercise was to address how to sustain and increase the relevance of the Committee in the changing development landscape over the next ten to fifteen years by reviewing its role, structure, functioning and composition” (OECD-DAC 2009, p. 2). The report’s recommendations included the following wording:

The DAC must […] extend and deepen inclusion of key development stakeholders in all areas of its work. It should invest heavily in reaching out to and building effective relationships with other donors and other key stakeholder groups. It should work pro-actively to welcome new members. (OECD-DAC 2009, p. 4, authors’ emphasis)

At the governance structure, the recommendation was reflected almost immediately in the enlargement of the WP-EEF in order to include recipients and attract rising powers under the hybrid category of providers–recipients.³ Furthermore, the WP-EEF established a TT-SSC, presented as “an inclusive platform to document and discuss how SSC practices enrich the aid effectiveness agenda” (OECD-DAC 2010, p. 2).

The outreach strategy to diffuse the principles of Paris included invitations to events convened either by the DAC or by its member states (Eyben 2012). Nevertheless, such spaces were still seen as carefully controlled by the convener. Thus, the challenge of upholding the credibility of the DAC as a policy space remained, as there were still restrictions on participation, especially given the legitimacy gained by one of its institutional competitors, the UN DCF (Eyben 2012, p. 85). While in 2008 Ghana had been chosen as the host country of the HLF-3, aiming to show openness regarding the participation of recipient countries, the next HLF took place in South Korea, which was a new DAC member seen as a bridge between the North and South, particularly between developed countries and emerging powers. In order to garner support from the latter group, the objectives of the conference were framed in terms of “development effectiveness”. As Eyben (2012) duly noted, “development effectiveness” was kept as a buzzword, enabling the emergence of diverse meanings, adapted to the speaker’s position:

Development effectiveness as “results” reflected DAC donors’ concerns about value for money at a time of cuts to domestic budgets. For centre-right donor governments, for whom private sector investment is the development driver, development effectiveness’ meanings of “results” and “beyond aid” meanings could usefully be combined to achieve some common ground with the rising powers. Recipient government […] also stressed that development as spurring investment and increasing productivity. (Eyben 2012, p. 88)

The vagueness of the concept not only enabled a conversation between different positions, but also created the possibility of amalgamating the two cluster of norms within a single framework. Indeed, while at first glance the focus on effectiveness could suggest the primacy of the DAC in setting the agenda, the displacement of the debate towards “development effectiveness” could be considered as evidence of SSCP agency. Unlike Nairobi, where traditional donors grabbed the opportunity to diffuse the Paris principles within the SSC agenda, in Busan—facing the growing fragmentation of the international DC field (Klingebiel, Mahn, et al. 2016)—they strove to generate a single cluster of norms.

Whereas Nairobi was about diffusion, Busan was about fusion. The fusion process encompassed four dimensions (Esteves and Assunção 2014). First, as discussed above, the conceptual framework for the new architecture around the Southern loosened agenda of development effectiveness in order to enable the conversation with emerging powers. Second and third, following the steps taken in Accra, there was recognition of SSC as a legitimate modality of DC and of CSOs and private agents as relevant partners. Finally, a new institutional architecture that could host all these agents and stakeholders was established: the GPEDC. As Bracho (2017) has pointed out, though, the key normative conundrum revolved around the concept of differential responsibilities. While traditional donors were trying to water down the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), SSCPs were conditioning their agreement with any final document to the upholding of differentiation (Bracho 2017).

Differential responsibilities were the normative cornerstone of all ODA frameworks. They had been recognised since their inception in the 1960s and manifested with the 0.7 target in the 1970s. Furthermore, the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Rio 1992) established the principle of CBDR. For many traditional donors, Busan was the opportunity to share the burden of funding international development with emerging powers. Hence, the wording suggested for the issue was “common goals and the aspiration in support of these over the long term” (Bracho 2017, p. 15).

Busan’s main result was the beginning of a process that would lead to the establishment of the GPEDC (Abdel-Malek 2015). Beyond the DAC’s distinctive club structure, the GPEDC intended to become a multi-stakeholder platform that would include, among governments, not only traditional donors and recipients but also major SSC providers. More than that, the platform was to mobilise private actors, philanthropy, and CSOs. The OECD and UNDP joint sponsorship supported the universalist claim embedded in the GPEDC’s structure. Three meetings of the Interim Post-Busan Group, attended by Brazil, India, and China as observers, consolidated its structure. At the end of the process, the Interim Group assigned two seats to the new hybrid donor/recipient in the platform governance structure.

However, in the first HLM in Mexico (2014), Brazil, India, and China decided not to participate in the platform. Difficulties in maintaining the principle of differentiation of responsibilities aggravated the perception that the process was a continuation of the Paris Agenda and driven by the DAC rather than the foundation for a genuinely new framework capable of merging the two clusters of norms into one original framework. As demonstrated by Zoccal Gomes (2018), many Southern agents still perceived the significant presence of the Paris principles driving the process: “Even if these principles were no longer referred directly, they were regarded as the dominant principles of DAC practice” (Zoccal Gomes 2018, p. 173).

The absence of China and India and Brazil’s presence only as an observer at the First High-Level Meeting of the Global Partnership in Mexico would point to the GPEDC’s limits on merging the two clusters of standards. The absence of the three countries at the Second High-Level Meeting of the GPEDC in Nairobi would confirm these limits; in addition, South Africa also did not attend the HLM in Nairobi. Moreover, the failed attempt to merge the two clusters had at least five unforeseen consequences: (i) the weakening of the effectiveness agenda; (ii) ODA’s decentring as a central practice in the field of international DC; (iii) the thinning of the very concept of ODA; (iv) the weakening of the notion of international responsibility; and finally, (v) the increased fragmentation of the field.

A simple process of tracing and contrasting the principles generated in Busan reveals the reproduction of the Paris Agenda as the cornerstone of what would be an allegedly unified cluster of norms (see Table 9.1). For many partners, SSC would become a development flow among developing countries, framed, though, by principles inherited from the DAC’s own process. Instead of the foundation for a new cluster of norms, throughout the fusing of the existing clusters, Busan generated the expansion of the DAC’s activities. In that sense, one may argue that the GPEDC works more like a tool or a platform for the DAC’s outreach strategy than as a genuine governance scheme embedded in a universal cluster of norms. Indeed, while striving to keep its position, the DAC lost the opportunity to contribute towards reshaping the field around the concept of development effectiveness. Furthermore, as the GPEDC also kept the monitoring and assessment ambitions inherited and inspired by the DAC tradition, it ended up dismissing key SSC providers, particularly China and India.

The Busan HLF also fed a trend that had already been in place since the previous decade: the decentring of ODA as the normative foundation of DC (at least for developed countries). From one side, Accra traditional donors acknowledged, for the first time, the relevance of other sets of practices, such SSC, as being relevant for the field of international DC. From the other side, for developed countries, ODA had established the boundaries discriminating development flows from other activities such as trade and investment, the emergence of SSC providers, the growing relevance of the Financing for Development agenda; the pervasive discourse on development partnerships expelled ODA from the core of the field, turning it into one development flow among others. The OECD-DAC’s work on a new tool for measurement, Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD), illustrates this ODA decentring process. Paragraph 17 of the compendium states:

The TOSSD measure will not supplant the ODA measure and should uphold internationally agreed standards in support of sustainable development. It will therefore be a separate, conceptually distinct statistical metric tailored to the SDG era – encompassing support for tackling global challenges and promoting development enablers, for mobilising private sector resources through official interventions and for monitoring the ambitious “billions to trillions” financing agenda set out in Addis Ababa. No TOSSD targets or associated commitments will be established. ODA will remain the cornerstone of OECD DAC members’ accountability to the international development community – including the different commitments that have been undertaken in that regard. (OECD 2016, p. 10)

Nevertheless, the same document presents TOSSD as “an international data standard for measuring development finance, including relevant instruments, principles and standards, and investment aims (e.g. SDG achievement)” (OECD 2016, p. 11). As Chaturvedi et al. (2016) have pointed out, “TOSSD is a metric to simply capture broader resource flows, including and extending beyond ODA flows. Further, the use of an umbrella accounting mechanism to capture SSC can neutralize the distinction between North-South Cooperation (NSC) and South-South Cooperation (SSC)” (Chaturvedi et al. 2016, p. 2, authors’ emphasis). Neutralisation is an accurate way to capture TOSSD’s main effect; the compendium candidly represents such a process, clarifying the multiple intentions behind the development flows that are captured by the new metric: (i) the economic development of developing countries; (ii) other motivations (commercial, cultural, or political); and (iii) mutual benefits (including SSC flows). Figure 9.8 presents the DC field, reconfigured to the TOSSD metric accordingly.

During the public consultation process, the United States’ laconic comment is revealing of how TOSSD dissolved the specificities of each development flow:

The U.S. has concerns about including export credits under TOSSD. The inclusion of U.S. export credits under TOSSD would mischaracterize the underlying purpose and use of U.S. export credit financing, which are to promote the exports of, and create jobs in, the United States. (OECD, n.d.-b, p. 1)

Moreover, as discussed below, TOSSD mingles DC in general, and ODA in particular, into a broader spectrum of flows, keeping aside the specific responsibilities assigned to developed countries in promoting international development. Such concerns were vocalised by a vast array of institutions, including non-governmental organisations and think tanks such as OXFAM (2016), Reality of Aid (2016), and the German Development Institute (DIE) (Klingebiel, Mank, et al. 2016). Despite the peculiar ways with which the principle of mutual benefits was brought from the SSC vernacular to the TOSSD rationale (see Chaturvedi et al. 2016), the incorporation of such a principle, side by side with ODA, opened the door for any profitable initiatives being included as support for sustainable investment, as the DIE rightly pointed out:

Perhaps these “benefits” can be elaborated upon. Is this a reference to economic development and welfare as mentioned in the ODA definition (see the point made above) or does the word “benefits” open the door to corporations that seek profitable investment with side-benefits of development of one kind or another? Or both? (Klingebiel, Mank, et al. 2016)

After the difficulties in achieving the Busan HLF main goal, that is, fusing both clusters, the TOSSD process, as opened in 2016, illustrated another dynamic: confusion. In this context, confusion means some degree of anomy, or a trend towards anomy: a situation where agents behave unpredictably, taking each other’s positions, challenging established norms, and stretching existing concepts.

Such confusion impacted directly upon the concept of ODA in at least two ways: first, as already revealed in the TOSSD compendium, taking advantage of the door opened by SDG 16, many traditional donors started to bring ODA resources to activities related to peace, security, and support for refugees in their own territories (Knoll and Sherriff 2017; Shenfeldt 2018; Singfield 2019). Even though one can argue that peace and security activities are a cornerstone for any developmental project, it is also possible to understand it as a way to stretch the very concept of ODA. Indeed, the DAC is currently discussing the limits of in-donor use of ODA funds and the ways to report them (Knoll and Sherriff 2017).

Such widening mobilisation of ODA resources also appears in so-called blended finance and in the emerging practices for fostering private-sector engagement in development issues. The OECD defines blended finance as the “strategic use of development finance for the mobilisation of additional finance towards sustainable development in developing countries” (OECD 2019). Development finance also includes ODA and its blending with other financial flows. The expansion of blended finance within the DC field became a reason for concern, not only for academics (Waeyenberge 2015), CSOs, and think tanks (Romero 2016; Wehrmann 2018), but also for the DAC itself. Not by chance, the DAC established its principles for blended finance (OECD-DAC 2018), and the GPEDC further elaborated a set of voluntary principles for Private-sector Engagement through Development Cooperation (PSE) (Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation 2019).

For many reasons, this turn towards the private sector is noteworthy. For our purposes, though, it is important to stress how traditional donors are opening the door to a substantive change in the ODA’s normative foundation. As described above, ODA was defined as a flow characterised by the sole purpose of the “promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries”. This definition implied both unidirectionality and non-reciprocity (from developed to developing countries). Even arguing that PSE in general and blended finance, in particular, are being oriented towards the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries—which is far from self-evident, and the available data points in the other direction—when blended with private finance, ODA is neither unidirectional nor based on the principle of non-reciprocity. Moreover, these new practices seem to confirm how traditional donors are adopting, without necessarily saying it, the principle of mutual benefits, in tandem with what Chaturvedi et al. (2016) have called the “Southernisation” of DC.

The analysis of DC from the IR perspective of norms provides several insights. First, the two main existing sub-categories of DC—ODA and SSC—provide a highly relevant illustration of the academic discourse on norm-diffusion in IR. Despite the soft-power nature of DC, the debates on the dominating norms are highly controversial between ODA and SSC actors, not least for the period of time since the Busan HLF. DC is a symbolic policy field for international conflicts between main country groupings. It is at the same time an area to share international agendas and increase soft-power capacities, for example through reputation and international visibility.

Second, contrary to interpretations that consider developed countries as norm-makers and developing countries as norm-takers, our analysis provides evidence and highlights how Southern agents have influenced the processes of norm-setting and norm-diffusion for DC. Even though, for many decades, OECD countries and the DAC seem to be the sole “entrepreneurs”, developing countries have played a significant role in setting DC norms. Indeed, as we argued in Sect. 9.2, the ideas of preferential treatment, concessionality, and the establishment of the 0.7 per cent target were nurtured and advocated by developing countries in UN fora such as UNCTAD and by their leading group, the G77. Likewise, as seen in Sect. 9.3, even when the OECD approach to make ODA a global norm was exercised through conditionalities or via SAPs during the 1980s and 1990s, the diffusion was a complex and recursive process rather than a linear pathway.

Even considering that the figures from SSC on volumes were not particularly relevant, SSC partners did not adopt the principles of good governance advocated by OECD donors. On the contrary, SSC practitioners not only kept the principle of non-interference but also added if not a principle, then at least a guideline supporting the practices of non-conditionality. Likewise, as ODA recipients, developing countries responded to the good governance principles and conditionalities for market-based solution in heterogeneous and almost always hybrid ways, as the cases of the BRICS countries show (Ban and Blyth 2013).

After 2005, the DAC and its member states adopted a softer model of the effectiveness agenda diffusion that was based on “socialisation” and “learning”. Nevertheless, as we have argued, the ODA reform itself was an answer to a dynamic interplay between donors and recipients (which we designated as legitimacy, selectivity, and sustainability gaps). The principles of ownership and harmonisation that emerged from Paris—against the backdrop of emerging powers’ growing footprint within the DC field—aimed to fill these gaps. These principles can hardly be seen as a copyrighted product, authored by development experts in Paris. The launch of the effectiveness agenda may also be considered a complex process of norm-setting rather than an agent-centred norm-making decision. This analysis may also contribute to development theory, as we discuss below.

Before that, though, there is a third analytical insight that may be noteworthy. The whole context of norms for DC has fundamentally changed because of the rise of SSC volumes and visibility. Even though SSC providers so far have not been able to define an explicit set of concrete SSC norms, the concept has gained a lot of momentum. The Second High-level UN Conference on South-South Cooperation in Buenos Aires (March 2019) (BAPA+40) showed that a global consensus on SSC is difficult to reach, and that a defining moment for SSC providers (it is even difficult to identify a concrete group of SSC providers) to come up with a measurable competing concept of DC has not been reached yet. Furthermore, for several SSC providers, it might be more useful to question and challenge OECD norms for DC, and then assert their uniqueness, rather than proposing a clear set of competing norms.

This leads us to our fourth conclusion. The current main diffusion approach to DC norms from a global perspective is more complex. Socialisation approaches to norm-diffusion seem to face at least two serious obstacles: one normative and the other institutional. From the normative point of view, while key SSC providers are unwilling to advance a serious debate around the concept of differential responsibilities, traditional donors are insisting on a burden-sharing rhetoric, which would ultimately water down all differentiation between ODA donors and SSC providers. The most visible proof of such a conundrum appears in the debates about quantification, monitoring, and reporting.

The fifth insight drawn in this section is related to Winston’s (2018) concept of “norm cluster”. The concept is very useful for identifying and understanding inconsistencies between the accepted outcomes of norm-diffusion in the real world. Her proposal for a new conceptual structure based on a bounded collection of interrelated specific (i) problems, (ii) values, and (iii) behaviours was a meaningful way to provide a research structure. Nevertheless, as we have argued, Winston’s conceptual work must first take into account how social facts are framed into problems through the specific values rooted in agents’ specific positions.

In the case analysed here, we have tried to demonstrate how, since the end of the Second World War, the social fact of dispossession was framed as a political problem in different ways by developed and developing countries. Furthermore, Winston’s conceptual framework also underestimates the power relations embedded in the processes of setting what would be considered appropriate behaviour. As we have tried to demonstrate, the diffusion of power helps us understand how and why ODA, from 1945 to 2005, was consolidated as the normative framework in the field of DC, in spite of the attempts of developing countries to advance the alternative framework of SSC. Likewise, power relations also help us to understand how and why SSC has decentred ODA from its almost ubiquitous position since the beginning of the 2000s.

Sixth, in terms of future research, it is advisable for IR scholars working on norms to look out for DC case studies, given the high relevance of norm-diffusion issues. At the same time, it is recommendable for development research that focusses on different approaches to DC to use—to a much larger degree—analytical frameworks that come from the norms discourse.

Seventh, an obstacle for the significant process of socialisation is institutional. Currently, as the GPEDC was unable to attract key SSCPs, and as the UN DCF progressively loses relevance, there is no institutional arrangement mandated and endowed with the convening power for gathering traditional donors and SSCPs. The few initiatives for socialisation are confined to outreach or events on the margins of international conferences. Possibilities for “learning” are also rather limited: few SSC providers are explicitly looking for learning experiences; at the same time, traditional donors are looking to influence SSC approaches.

Nevertheless, the BAPA+40 process and its outcome document opened an unexpected door for learning and, perhaps, socialisation experiences: triangular cooperation. Further work needs to be done to understand the relevance of triangular cooperation. While scanning the outcome document, though, one may notice that the expression of “South-South and triangular cooperation” appears 56 times, indicating that statements about SSC also refer to triangular arrangements, most of which would include traditional donors. Moreover, paragraph 28 is entirely dedicated to triangular cooperation, recognising “that triangular cooperation is a modality that builds partnerships and trust, between all partners, and that combines diverse resources and capacities, under the ownership of the requesting developing country” (UN 2019, p. 8). Institutionally, the outcome document also recognises, specifically, the Global Partnership Initiative on Effective Triangular Cooperation in its efforts for mapping, documenting, and disseminating successful experiences.

Yet, although triangular cooperation may appear as an intersecting point where learning and eventually socialisation can take place, it is not enough to suggest a vigorous process of norm-setting and norm-diffusion. On the contrary, as the TOSSD concept shows, the OECD might be willing to adjust to some extent its norm set to SSC standards, but it will not do so via learning or socialisation, but rather through emulation and competition. The main diffusion mechanism of the current phase is “competition”. Such a mechanism arises in interdependent, “less hierarchical and more decentralised” (Brake and Katzenstein 2013, p. 746) environments, such as markets. Hence, the competitive mechanism is framed, from one side, by the end of the unipolar moment and the emergence of alternative sources of political and economic power, and from the other side by the interactive dynamics of key competitors. The failure of the DAC’s socialisation attempts of SSC providers has resulted in donors’ own policy adjustments towards Southern norms and methods (Chaturvedi et al. 2016). The trouble with such a mechanism is precisely the externalities generated from rivals’ policy adjustments (Braun and Gilardi 2006), spawning an adaptive and recursive process that may, likely, lead to a race-to-the-bottom. We have called such dynamics a situation that leads to an anomic environment.