Introduction

The international approach attempts to explain the distribution of United States foreign aid across recipient states by examining relationships that are external to the donor state. This body of research utilizes the nation state as the unit of analysis, and explains the allocation of scarce foreign aid funds by examining the bilateral relations between the donor and recipient states. There are two basic approaches to explaining the foreign aid policy of the United States; the international approach, and the domestic approach. There are several basic similarities between the two approaches; they vary in one key aspect. The international approach utilizes the nation state as the unit of analysis; while the second approach, the domestic approach, adopts intra-state, or domestic, institutions as the unit of analysis. The domestic approach has been successful in identifying significant variances between institutions that have substantive legal authority over foreign aid decisions. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.