Paper Titles & Abstracts

While research on the foreign aid policies of the new member states has picked up steam in recent years especially from a Europeanisation perspective, the Polish aid programme has been largely neglected. This gap is especially significant since Poland is the largest and politically most important of the new member states. This paper addresses this gap by investigating the development of Poland's post-Cold War foreign aid. It does so by asking two questions: 1. Why did Poland introduce a foreign aid programme in 1998? And 2. How and why did this programme develop into its current shape. The paper addresses these questions by process-tracing the decision-making based on a combination of documentary analysis and elite interviews. It contrasts the foreign aid related norm-diffusion from the EU, the important institutions in development cooperation like the OECD or UNDP as well as other states like the US with domestic influences, particularly from the NGO scene.In answering this question we gain insights on how influential the EU has been in this case in a narrow sense as a norm setter in foreign aid as compared to other actors. In a broader perspective answering these questions also provides insights into the opportunities and constrictions the 'Return to Europe' has provided for the post Cold War transformation of Polish foreign policy.