Hegemonic Discourses Surrounding United States’ Leadership in Post-Ebola Development in Liberia

1 Introduction

Besides military might, international development aid and financial assistance to recipient countries form tools of hegemony and influence that benefit donor countries (Gibler and Miller 2012; Morgenthau 1962; Regilme 2023). These tools of domination explain the concept of hegemony as the concentration of power in one state, resulting in the powerful presence of that state in terms of international leadership and the consent it derives from the international society (Schenoni 2019). The concept of hegemony and how it operates within the circles of power and influence lead to the question that scholars ask as “how different social groups achieve dominance through constructing consent and while the focus quite correctly centers on matters like political projects and social alliances” (Joseph 2000, 179). To answer this question partly requires examining the hegemonic discourses surrounding foreign aid and development assistance.

In the political economy of development, hegemony is often seen as a critical tool in helping to “institutionalize and maintain legitimacy for an American-centered international order” (Mastanduno 2002, 181) and the imposition of political pressures on governments of recipient countries (Knack 2004). This explains the dominance of the United States in the international community, using foreign aid as a tool for promoting “geostrategic interests” and a trump card for global governance (Regilme 2023). From this perspective, the relations of authority in terms of hegemony include the economic, military, and ideational domains that one state has in promoting its interests over others (Schenoni 2019). The discourse function of hegemony (Nonhoff 2019) is also seen in situations where international organizations constitute the primary mechanisms “through which universal norms of a world hegemony are clearly expressed” (Unay 2010, 42). For instance, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is mandated to sponsor global development aid programs on behalf of the U.S. government. To globalize this narrative of the U.S. as the leader of the world, therefore, required the need to mainstream the discourse about the American idea of development and reinforce the “call to every nation to follow their footsteps” (Sachs 2020).

Ofori-Parku and Steeves (2016) employed the concept of hegemonic globalization to explain how in the discursive construction of African communities, “dominant groups maintain dominant control over ideological, political, and economic institutions or behaviors among less powerful groups” (251). This manifests in a manner where “power operates between and among development actors to (re) create and perpetuate a hierarchical, constituted structural relation … and reconstitutes the identities and abilities of actors” (Naylor 2011, 178). These dynamics strengthen the overarching objective of foreign development aid in achieving the national interests of the U.S. on the landscape of global power (Beletskaya 2022). From this perspective, donor countries place less emphasis on the agency and interests of recipients of development programs. Extant studies point to the concerning reality where development agencies ignore local voices in development practice by situating foreign perceptions and know-how at the center of development strategies that aim to address local needs in the developing world (e.g. Vunibola 2023; Murray and Overton 2011; Sirolli 2003). Others argue the extent to which such a posture is informed by a monolithic understanding of the world and how funders determine the way that development aid programs must be implemented (e.g. Escobar 2020).

Based on document analysis as an instrument for data collection, this article poses two overarching research questions regarding the hegemonic discourses surrounding U.S. leadership in post-Ebola development in Liberia. Research Question 1: To what extent were modernist political economic assumptions evident in Liberia as the U.S. priority in response to Ebola? Research Question 2: How did USAID consider women’s socio-economic roles in the post-Ebola development process in Liberia between 2015 and 2020? These questions are important and related for two reasons: First, women form the larger labor force in the agricultural sector in Liberia, and the fact that women were most affected by the Ebola epidemic had a significant impact on food security in that country (Menendez et al. 2015). Second, studies show that women constitute the main target of international development assistance (e.g. Wilkins 2016). Thus, the call for U.S. assistance to Liberia during and after the Ebola epidemic could not discount the agency of women in that country’s economic recovery.

In situating the two research questions in literature, this paper is divided into several parts. First, I provide an overview of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa between 2013 and 2015, focusing on Liberia as the “epicenter” of the virus that necessitated U.S. assistance. Second, I examine the political economy of international development aid using USAID in post-Ebola development in Liberia as a case study. The third section of the paper outlines the research methods, while the fourth section presents the results and discussion, based on the research questions that underpinned the study. The paper concludes with implications for development aid and offers recommendations for further studies on the hegemonic discourses that influence development aid in the global South.

2 Ebola in Liberia and the Call for U.S. Assistance

The premise that the U.S. has a moral obligation to Liberia is traced to the “back-to-Africa experiment” (Oyebade and Falola 2008, 20) between the U.S. Congress and the American Colonization Association (ACS) that resulted in the repatriation of freed Black slaves to present-day Liberia (Hyman 2003). The repatriation initiative had religious and moral motivations – to heal the scars of indignity caused by the enslavement of Black people (see Cook 2003). This was reinforced by President William Howard Taft in his strong view that “America had a duty and moral obligation to assist Liberia” (Amin 2019, 72). It is critical to note how Taft’s view, from his standpoint as president and the then chief justice of the U.S., has given legitimacy to the global perception that Liberia is indeed the U.S.’ responsibility.

Thus, when Liberia was overwhelmed by the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the then President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, called on President Barack Obama for help (Sirleaf 2014 cited in Cooper 2014). The urgency of the call reinforced the usual axiom that Liberia is an American responsibility (Gwertzman 2003) and justifies the latter’s moral obligation to help the former (see Hodge 2002). Obama’s charge to USAID to “provide the kinds of capabilities that only America has, and to mobilize the world in ways that only America can do” (Obama 2014, n.p.) in the fight against Ebola in West Africa recalled Harry Truman’s 1949 Point Four Program when Truman asserted that

More than half the people of the world are living in conditions approaching misery. Their food is inadequate. They are victims of disease. Their economic life is primitive and stagnant. Their poverty is a threat both to them and to more prosperous areas. For the first time in history, humanity possesses the knowledge and skill to relieve the suffering of these people. (Daniels 1951, 10–11)

Truman’s message to the world was clear that as a world leader, the U.S. would “embark on a new program of modernization and capital investment” to relieve the plights of the later so-called Third World countries (see Truman 1949). The creation of the Technical Cooperation Administration (TCA) in 1950 as the first U.S. bilateral aid organization, which was later replaced by the Mutual Security Administration (MSA) to prioritize military aid to countries strategically aligned with the U.S. (Melkote and Steeves 2015), was nothing short of an exercise of hegemony. The subsequent establishment of USAID under the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act by the Kennedy Administration to transfer financial resources to developing countries to promote global development (McBride 2018; U.S. Government 1961) was another strategic move to consolidate U.S. hegemony without losing sight of its national security, as well as global political and economic interests. Obama’s message to the world about the U.S.’ unparalleled capabilities and leadership in the fight against Ebola, using USAID as a vehicle for spearheading the post-Ebola development process was one strand of the hegemonic discourse. Another strand by which USAID exhibits its hegemony is how it controls development discourse with a “rulebook” for implementing its development projects in the countries it operates.

Cartalucci (2016) argued that as part of the hegemonic dynamics, USAID is positioned primarily as a tool by the U.S. to co-opt and project its power abroad. This argument is congruent with Jadallah’s view that the hegemony displayed by USAID in its development aid to Egypt was “coercive and lacked consent” and that in the U.S.-Egyptian context, “aid produced nothing but subordination” (Jadallah 2014, 5). From the foregoing, it is justifiable to reason that the U.S. response to the fight against Ebola and its demonstrable development support to Liberia was first and foremost based on historical relations. One cannot lose sight of the “need” for the U.S. to save its face by aiding Liberia as a moral responsibility. This can be appreciated when situated within the political economy of foreign development aid.

3 Political Economy of Foreign Development Assistance

Political economy from a Marxian perspective focuses on moral judgements and their societal implications (Gilpin 1977). These require the need to relate morality to everyday life and the ethical implications of such behaviors on the well-being of society (Sayer 2007). Contemporary political economy, on the other hand, is viewed from a broader perspective as the study of the nexus between social and power relations that constitute the production, distribution, and consumption of resources. This focuses on the idea of political economy as a “specific set of social relations organized around power or the ability to control people, processes, and things, even in the face of resistance” (Mosco 2009, 24). The place of political economy in foreign development aid is founded on the view that foreign aid has always been political, and the fact that receiving countries have less control over aid allocations (Werker 2012).

In discussing the functions of foreign development aid within the framework of political economy, Morgenthau (1962) argued how “the transfer of money and services from one government to another performs the function of a price paid for political services rendered or to be rendered” (302). This extends the argument that in certain occasions, the “political services” being rendered by the donor country would also result in some reciprocal “assistance flowing to the donor country” (Werker 2012, 6). Although the needs of recipient countries are considered the central focus of foreign development assistance, extant studies highlight donors’ strategic political and economic interests as equally crucial determinants of foreign aid allocations (e.g. Alesina and Dollar 2000; Easterly and Pfutze 2008; Moyo 2009; Steele 2011). Others observe the extent to which the political economy of aid based on donor-recipient reciprocity is in turn influenced by ideological motives, where international response and levels of development assistance are tied to several factors.

Existing studies outline the factors influencing foreign aid allocations as the level of democracy by recipient countries; the geographical distance of beneficiary countries to donors; whether the affected countries were sources of crude oil; and recipient countries’ potential for natural resource wealth (e.g. Neumayer 2003; Raschky and Schwindt 2012). Additionally, neoliberal critics of development aid describe Overseas Development Agencies (ODAs) as instruments used by Western nations to explore and exploit the resources of developing nations (e.g. Carbonnier 2010). For these reasons, aid allocation is prioritized based on the potential trade benefits that donor countries tend to get from their recipient counterparts (Williamson and Harrison 2010; Younas 2008). In practical terms, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa revealed the influence that colonial and historical ties had on aid allocation. For example, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report discovered the extent to which international response to Ebola in the three countries most affected was influenced by colonial relationships, which in turn was determined by the resource potential of the former colonies (UN 2014). This explains why financial responses to the Ebola epidemic were largely negotiated privately between the U.S. and Liberia, the UK and Sierra Leone, as well as France and Guinea (see O’Grady 2014).

The politically motivated nature of aid is validated by the popular assumption that once aid has been disbursed to a beneficiary country, it is by no means free of political and economic challenges (Werker 2012). Although the goal of development practitioners has always been to increase the collective capacity of beneficiaries to improve development outcomes (Fearon, Humphreys, and Weinstein 2009), that has always not been the case in the political economy of aid. This validates Natsios’ (Natsios 2020) argument that on many occasions, the strategic nature of U.S. foreign assistance provides “no flexibility to respond to opportunities or specific requests and needs of recipient countries” (107). Natsios described how USAID’s programs in the developing world are those prioritized by Congress and the American people, and not those demanded by governments of recipient countries to accelerate economic growth. These impositions are realized by a top-down-expert-led development implementation manual that USAID development practitioners must follow (see USAID 2014). Examining how such hegemonic discourses characterized USAID’s leadership in post-Ebola development in Liberia informed the overarching research questions for this article.

4 Research Methods

This study adopts a qualitative method, using analysis of documents. Guided by Gross (2018), the study was accomplished by closely reading and analyzing publicly available evaluation reports on the Land Governance Support Activity (i.e. 2015–20 total pages = 179), the Feed the Future Initiative (total pages = 63), the Maternal and Child Health Program (total pages = 155), and 22 press releases on the three gender-sensitive USAID-funded programs in Liberia. As observed by extant studies, analysis of documents for a study of this nature serves as a means of tracking the changes in the implementation of development programs over time (e.g. Bowen 2009; Yin 1994). To assess the hegemonic discourses surrounding USAID’s leadership in post-Ebola development in Liberia, I analyzed the texts using critical discourse analysis (CDA). As a method, CDA entails the systematic process by which texts as data are analyzed, based on the identifiable patterns these texts produce in a communication context (see Fairclough 1992; Reisigl 2017).

To critically analyze discourse surrounding topics on development aid as the focus of this study is crucial. The use of CDA as a tool for data analysis also entails “unveiling and challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about language and society, as well as recognizing discourse as a potentially powerful agent of change” (Mautner 2009, 124). Discourse analysis as a method in international development research is “most appropriate for critiquing hegemonic discourse and exposing its silences, omissions and double talk” (Pieterse 2011, 239). Because this study examines the hegemonic discourses surrounding leadership in the implementation of development aid, power plays a central role in the discursive process, which justifies the use of CDA in assessing the power asymmetries that characterize the locus of the social actors in the development communication process.

This study specifically applies Reisigl and Wodak’s (2009) discourse historical approach (DHA) as a critical discourse analysis method, based on its appropriateness in examining how ideology and power are masked and how they manifest in everyday asymmetrical discourses (on development) between actors from different backgrounds and positions (Reisigl 2017; Reisigl and Wodak 2009). First, I situate the overarching research questions of the study within the predication strategies inherent in discourse, which portray the U.S. moral obligation to help Liberia as not only a dominant notion of power but also highlight the positive attributes that characterize U.S. global leadership. Second, I apply the nomination strategies – which explain how the actors in the development discourse are “named” and their role in the development discourse. These lead to the results and discussion section, where these strategies are elaborated in the analysis of the discourse.

5 Results and Discussion

Analysis of the documents is categorized under five dominant themes, namely: U.S. moral obligation to Liberia; a gesture of humanitarian solidarity; ideological and strategic motivations; gender equality and empowerment; and self-reliance through food security. These thematic analyses answer the two research questions as to the extent to which modernist political economic assumptions influenced USAID’s role in Liberia, and how USAID considered women’s socio-economic roles in the post-Ebola development process.

6 Conclusions

This article makes three key contributions to the literature on the hegemonic discourses surrounding foreign development aid in Africa, using USAID’s leadership in the post-Ebola development process in Liberia as a case study. Each of these discourses or narratives exhibits structural power and productive power through which the development interventions were executed. The first narrative describes Liberia as a poor country caused by protracted civil wars, a situation that has been worsened by the Ebola outbreak. Liberia has been described by development actors with predicates such as “vulnerable,” “poor,” and “overwhelmed” by Ebola. These predicates discursively cast Liberia as a country that deserved urgent intervention from the U.S. They also explain why development actors, led by USAID in the fight against Ebola in West Africa, decided to focus on Liberia (Widner 2018).

The second dominant narrative portrays Liberia in a critical situation and women as the most vulnerable group of people in that country. This is attributed to factors such as women’s role as primary caregivers in their homes and communities, the gendered nature of nursing in Africa, and traditional burial practices typically performed by women which exposed them to the virus (Kitching, Walsh, and Morgan 2015; Mendez et al. 2015). The extent of the vulnerability of Liberians, particularly women during and after Ebola, certainly called for the USAID FtF initiative to promote self-reliance through food security and thus was operated with a narrative description of empowering poor and vulnerable women in Liberia.

The third, and perhaps the most important discourse surrounding USAID’s leadership in the post-Ebola development process is the narrative of “Liberia as an American responsibility” (Gwertzman 2003). This, as noted earlier, justifies the latter’s moral obligation to help the former (Hodge 2002). Again, Obama’s task to USAID in the fight against Ebola and the way forward defined USAID’s development discourse in Liberia. Despite the empowerment goal behind the development interventions, their execution was based on dominant narratives by development actors that discursively reinforced USAID’s structural and productive powers in the post-Ebola development process in Liberia.

The findings regarding the extent to which modernist political economic assumptions were evident in Liberia as a U.S. priority in response to Ebola, and how USAID considered women’s socio-economic roles in the post-Ebola development process in Liberia, are important. First, they call for the need to situate and advance research on the political economy of foreign development in sub-Saharan Africa from political economy and colonial lenses. This will help to explain how the disproportionate aid to countries in sub-Saharan Africa is motivated by colonial relations, and more importantly, the potential resource benefits that will accrue to donor countries providing the aid. This will emphasize how certain countries in Africa will continue to receive more development support from the U.S. and other developed countries despite the recipient countries’ extreme departure from the values of democracy that oftentimes serve as criteria for Western development aid. Finally, the findings here highlight the clear hegemonic discourses inherent in USAID’s approach to development programs in Liberia in a manner that discounts the agency of beneficiaries in the development process.