Chapter 3 highlighted the striking differences, both across donor states and over time, in the framing of development assistance by decision-makers. This chapter looks into the sources of these differences, and analyses the factors that cause ideas about aid to change. In the next few chapters, I will argue that frames for aid are both prior to and shape aid policy; this makes it all the more important to provide an account of the sources of these frames. I do so by relating them to deeper beliefs about national identity and historical experiences. I shall argue that four broad factors affect the relative strength of different frames: national traditions and experiences, the international political and economic context, the efforts of governments as frame entrepreneurs and information providers, and experiences with past policy successes and failures. International norms, on the other hand, exert a weak influence at best.

The chapter is divided into four sections. First, I examine the connections between national identity and the initial discourse on aid that emerged in the 1950s. Since multiple policy frames may be compatible with a nation’s history and identity, it is especially important to examine the early debates on foreign aid, as that is where the initial set of relevant arguments will be identified and tested. The second section discusses in more detail the evolution of aid discourses in the four countries. This allows us to see how international influences as well as national experiences influenced these discourses over time. The third section takes a closer look at the impact of governments as frame entrepreneurs. I show that elites are far from passive participants in the policy discourse. Instead, they actively work to increase the prominence of the frames they consider most important, whereas others are downplayed as much as possible. In the fourth section, finally, I discuss the way governments may control the visibility of aid policy and the availability of information about successes and failures, in attempts to prevent or reinforce shifts in the relative salience of different frames.