The theatrics of aid debates

On 16 April 2004, a young and idealistic politician read his inaugural speech as prime minister in the Spanish parliament. José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero had reached the premiership almost by accident, riding a wave of social anxiety over the previous government's political mishandling of a terrorist attack that struck Madrid days before the election, and which galvanised the yearlong popular protest over Spain's involvement in the invasion of Iraq. Zapatero's Socialist Party reached the polls armed not with an agenda but a vision for progressive change, both domestically and internationally. He followed a simple creed he had inherited from his grandfather, who had fought seventy years earlier against the military faction of General Franco: 'a limitless thirst for peace, a love of goodness, and the social betterment of the meek'. At home, they would use the power of government to build a more equitable and progressive society, enacting laws on dependents, marriage equality, or gender parity. Abroad, they would push an optimistic multilateralism that countered the post-September 11 narrative of clash of civilisations.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, Spain had become a rising actor in the international scene; two decades of democratic consolidation and economic growth had enabled growing trade relations and a more vocal role within the European Union (EU). History had bequeathed it cultural and economic ties with both Latin America and North Africa, which made it a useful intermediary for the EU's new common foreign policy. Conservative prime minister José María Aznar had used his parliamentary majority since the year 2000 to actively seek a higher profile for the country. In the months following September 11, he became a staunch ally of President George Bush, lending Spanish troops to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invasion of Afghanistan, and then featuring in the infamous Azores Declaration on Iraq, together with Bush, Britain's Tony Blair, and Portugal's José Manuel Barroso. For the United States, these three leaders were their Western European allies in the Iraq dispute, and their support in the UN would be essential for the legitimation of any invasion. This granted Spain's conservative government a perhaps disproportionate amount of international clout as well as a growing level of domestic dissent. The anti-war protests that swept the world in early 2003 had a very partisan bent in Spain, amplifying the voice and presence of a new generation of Socialist Party leaders.

Against the backdrop of his predecessor's military adventurism and support for Bush's 'war on terror', Zapatero desired to fundamentally change course in Spanish foreign policy. While acknowledging the difficult security challenges facing Western countries, he believed that enhanced cooperation, not conflict, was the key to overcoming them. This included not only practical collaboration in matters of defence and prosperity, but also a grander aspiration to bring cultures – or, as he later put it, civilisations - closer together. His foreign policy was built around a strong pro-European commitment, a focus on Latin America and the Mediterranean, a loyal but critical relationship with the United States, and an unequivocal alignment with international law and organisations. It would also, crucially, 'make development cooperation an essential element of our foreign policy'. At the time, Spain's gross domestic product (GDP) placed it right outside the G-8 in international rankings, but the legacy of Franco's dictatorship and the focus on internal democratisation and growth had left the country punching below its weight on the international scene. In contrast to Aznar's choice of military and security tools for raising the country's profile, the new prime minister would focus on more charitable and humanitarian means.

Two months before his election as prime minister, Zapatero was invited to speak before the Spanish Coordinator of Development NGOs and the 0.7% Platform. These civil society organisations represented the strongest voices of a small but vibrant development sector that was highly dependent on the national aid budget. Towards the end of the conservative government's second term, the amount of overseas development assistance disbursed by Spain had stagnated at 0.24% of GDP. This was a not insignificant contribution of around $2 billion to international development, but it fell short of the decade-long aspiration to achieve the symbolic 0.7% target (which in Europe had been reached only by Nordic countries). At that meeting in February 2004, Zapatero promised to substantially increase foreign aid to 0.5% of GDP by 2008, with a further goal of 0.7% by 2012 if he was re-elected. Not only that, he would change the official name of the ministry under which the Spanish aid agency was located to 'Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation' to signal his commitment to a foreign policy focused on peace and poverty reduction. In a hearing at the parliamentary commission on international cooperation in June 2004, the new minister for foreign affairs argued that 'a democratic society can only feel proud of itselfwhen all human beings, men and women, around the world, enjoy the political, economic, social and environmental rights that we all want to enjoy'.

Once in office, the new prime minister demonstrated that his electoral promises were not empty ones. Albeit more slowly than anticipated, Spain's relative aid contribution doubled from 0.24% in 2004 to 0.46% of GDP in 2009. In absolute terms, this represented a jump from around $2 billion a year to $6.9 billion at the peak of 2008. In order to manage this increase, Zapatero enlisted the support of the Socialist Party's former head of NGO relations, Leire Pajin, who at 28 years of age became Spain's youngest ever Secretary of State for International Cooperation (four years earlier, she had become the youngest elected MP in the country). With some experience in the NGO sector, Pajin became the face of a new era in Spanish aid, defined not only by the growing budget, but also by a closer working relationship with civil society and reforms of the central agency responsible for disbursing and overseeing all aid expenditures. This last element was crucial, given how decentralised and chaotic Spain's aid system was, with virtually every public organisation from the ministries all the way down to universities disbursing foreign aid in one way or another.

In Spanish politics, Zapatero would be known in the following years for his love of symbols and subversion as a way of advancing a progressive agenda. Appointing a 28-year-old to oversee the country's foreign aid was just another powerful gesture in a list that included a cabinet with total gender parity and the appointment of a pregnant MP as defence minister. Some of these symbolic gestures were virtually...