Donor-recipient relations always raise the question of who is setting the agenda. Granting support while preserving the autonomy of the recipient is a problem that affects not only development aid and foreign-funded transnational advocacy, but also modern science. Almost without exception, modern science cannot obtain sufficient resources from the market, which means that to finance its operation, resources are needed from public funding agencies or private Maecenas like philanthropic foundations. In agreement with the focus on autonomy, PHILANTHROPIC RULE conceptualizes the resources transferred from donors to recipients as means of domination.
The overarching goal is to establish under which conditions donors may use their resources to steer the recipient’s agenda, both in substantive and methodological terms, and when recipients may resist encroachments upon their agendas. The conditions vary depending on whether the donor is a state, an international organization, or a private, philanthropic foundation. A further relevant condition is the multiplicity of donors, all of which may make their support conditional upon the recipient abiding by their indications, subjecting the recipient to frequently mutually incompatible requirements. Alternatively, when multiple donors are available, recipients may play one off against another, obtaining some autonomy from them as a result. The main conclusions of the action are the following: donors may easily warp the agendas of recipients from academia, but surely also from activists; this is particularly true in contexts where recipients do not have access to funding granted by their own governments or other local donors. Therefore, it is essential that recipients are involved in the definition of the donors' policy. Otherwise, comparatively small gaps in resource availability move the recipient to redefine research agendas, neglecting questions that from the local perspective would be essential, but for which funding is not available. Donor-recipient relations easily create the appearance of a shared interest, but resistance and occasionally domination actually behind the scenes.
Projects like PHILANTHROPIC RULE are important for the European Union and its member states, which spend billions of Euros every year on their research policies. Similarly, comparable donor-recipient relations also characterize their outward-bent policies promoting development, human rights, and democracy. To better implement them, it is central to rely more on knowledge that informs decision-makers about how to conduct these policies in ways that combine the donors’ accountability to tax-payers with maximizing the autonomy of the recipients.
