The Construction of Slovakia as a Donor and Its Power Effects

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study the Slovak “development” cooperation’s
power effects and the identities based on the related discourses. In the first
part I focus on Slovakia’s identity as a “developed” country. Here I look at
the need of Slovakia to become a donor that predated the recreation of the
Slovak development apparatus. The new apparatus secured for Slovakia the
identity of a “developed” country and reacted to the decline of financial
support for the Slovak NGO sector after 1998. This part also points to the
way the government and suggestive polls construct Slovakia’s identity as a
donor and the identity of Slovaks as a people who are willing to help. The
next part focuses on the construction of Slovakia as a “new” donor with a
specific transition experience. First it shows the power asymmetry casued
by the discourse of “old” and “new” donors, and then it shows how the
transition experience discourse takes part in legitimizing the current
hegemonic ideology and how it serves to hierarchize Slovaks in relation to
“old” donors. The last part analyzes the power effects of the representation
of Slovakia as an egoistic, altruistic and effective donor.