ABSTRACT
Japan’s recent ODA initiatives in Bolivia collectively provide a clear example of the ways in which Tokyo’s traditional aid approaches have been reconfigured within dense international debates about the proper role and style of assistance. One of Japan’s leading analysts of the political economy of ODA, Toru Yanagihara, examines this case closely in this chapter, demonstrating one of the crucial sitespecific avenues through which these tensions might develop, and contributing an essential part of this volume’s emphasis on site-specific examinations of transnational flows in Japanese aid. When aid donors work collaboratively and in close contact with the recipient government, the combination of local political choices and global aid discourses can make it difficult for any donor to maintain a distinctive or independent aid identity. In this case, the shift toward “human security” and “livelihood security” affected the terrain for Japanese developmentalist goals, placing JICA’s local representatives in between competing visions of appropriate forms of assistance.
