Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: The aim of this article is to study the Slovak “development” cooperation’spower effects and the identities based on the related discourses. In the firstpart I focus on Slovakia’s identity as a “developed” country. Here I look atthe need of Slovakia to become a donor that predated the recreation of theSlovak development apparatus. The new apparatus secured for Slovakia theidentity of a “developed” country and reacted to the decline of financialsupport for the Slovak NGO sector after 1998. This part also points to theway the government and suggestive polls construct Slovakia’s identity as adonor and the identity of Slovaks as a people who are willing to help. Thenext part focuses on the construction of Slovakia as a “new” donor with aspecific transition experience. First it shows the power asymmetry casuedby the discourse of “old” and “new” donors, and then it shows how thetransition experience discourse takes part in legitimizing the currenthegemonic ideology and how it serves to hierarchize Slovaks in relation to“old” donors. The last part analyzes the power effects of the representationof Slovakia as an egoistic, altruistic and effective donor.
DOI: 10.32422/cjir.262
Author: Tomáš Profant
Language: English
Subfield: Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4394010302