The instrumentalization of foreign aid under the Harper government

Abstract

This article examines the main trends in Canadian aid policies from the 2006 election of the Conservatives under Stephen Harper to their defeat in 2015. It finds that the Harper government increasingly instrumentalized Canadian foreign aid, reorienting it to benefit Canadian interests, to the detriment of poverty reduction abroad. This was part of a broader foreign policy that sabotaged Canada’s ability to use its soft power to influence the global order.