Malawi and the politics of foreign aid.

Malawi's behaviour in international relations has been interpreted largely in terms of the country's economic needs. The conventional argument has been that the country's foreign and domestic policies were adopted for reasons of making the country attractive to donor countries and organizations. This argument is so prevalent that it is even reflected in the titles of some books and articles on Malawi's post-independence political and economic history. For example, a pamphlet kept by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library is titled: "Malawi: Foreign Policy and Development". This thesis proceeds on the premise that foreign aid has not been the main objective of Malawi foreign and domestic policies. Accordingly, it looks critically at the alleged link between foreign aid and the country's foreign and domestic policies. It finds that the conventional argument is supported with evidence which is erroneous in many cases or at least partial and tries to show that the effects which the politics of foreign aid have exerted on Malawi are quite different from those which are assumed by the conventional argument. By contrast, the argument of the thesis is that Malawi's foreign and domestic policies are not the result of the politics of foreign aid. Rather they are the product of the style and perceptions of the country's leadership