Once a member, always a member? Assessing the importance of time in the relationship between the European Union and the Development Assistance Committee

• Published in: Cambridge review of international affairs Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 512 - 527
• Main Authors: Verschaeve, Joren, Orbie, Jan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Routledge 02-04-2016; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Development policy; Economic development; Foreign aid; Institutionalism; International economic organizations; Membership; Path dependence; Poverty; Europe
• ISSN: 0955-7571; 1474-449X
• DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2015.1015486

This article examines the European Union's (EU's) full membership of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). More specifically, we address (1) why the EU became a full member of the DAC in 1961, long before the EU was granted legal competences for development policy, and (2) why this membership status has remained unaltered over the past half-century, despite persistent dissatisfaction among both EU and non-EU members of the DAC. By applying historical institutionalism, we find that the initial decision on the EU's membership status in the DAC created a path dependence that was impossible to reverse afterwards, despite changing internal and external circumstances.