Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Decontextualizing Development: A Critical Examination Of American Popular Discourse On Foreign Aid, Jeffrey Haines

Institute for the Humanities Theses

Humanitarian foreign aid is a controversial topic, subject to much popular debate. Although there is much available polling and survey evidence about public stances on the issue, there have been significantly fewer attempts at more in-depth analyses of the public discourse. This thesis is an attempt to explore the popular discourse on aid in more depth, including its rationales, assumptions, and values.

It concludes that both sides of the American public in the debate often make use of similar types of assumptions regarding international affairs, suggesting often deeper agreement than the debate may indicate. It is argued that the set …