Competing for Foreign Aid

In Competing for Foreign Aid, Shannon Carcelli argues that bureaucratic fragmentation is an unintended byproduct of the foreign policy-making process. To unpack the black box of foreign policy, Carcelli traces Congress's role in policy incoherence, infighting, and fragmentation in the realm of foreign aid policy. Her theory proposes two factors that lead to fragmentation: congressional interest and disunity. Interestingly, as Carcelli shows, Congress is often the least capable of legislating effectively in the areas where its members care most about policy effectiveness. Combining qualitative process-tracing with a quantitative analysis of legislative voting, this book provides a deep dive into Congress's role in shaping--and often misshaping--the foreign aid bureaucracy.