Senior Thesis: USAID and Soft Power
In the 1960s, Nessim and Denise Maleh fled Egypt with $27 and no passport to come to the United States in pursuit of a better life. Several decades later their granddaughter, Violet Becker ’25, has spent the last year studying the political environment in her grandparents’ native country and how the United States has influenced it, culminating in her senior thesis project.
Becker, a government major from New York City, studied the effects of United States soft power—a nation’s ability to influence another through culture, foreign policy, and diplomacy—in Egypt and Jordan. Becker investigated the U.S. expansion of its democracy assistance programs, like the now-dismantled United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in the two countries after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 through 2022, and analyzed whether this policy approach led to concrete change in these regions.
“To this day, [USAID], the primary agency of U.S foreign assistance, has maintained the belief that democratic governments are best equipped to protect economic and social stability and advance global peace and security,” Becker wrote in her thesis. “A goal of USAID is the promotion of good governance; to dismantle corrupt institutions, strengthen the nascent public sector, improve the quality of regulations, and advance the rule of law.”
Her research looks at two approaches to foreign diplomacy: top-down and bottom-up. Top-down assistance is state-led action or policy decisions, while bottom-up is more focused on aid to on-the-ground organizations, like women’s rights groups, to improve living conditions. Becker looked at USAID documents that outline the organization’s goals and analysis of what is happening on the ground in each country, as well as year-to-year progress reports. She also interviewed former USAID employees, State Department officials, and officials from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt.
Becker found that U.S. aid disbursements to Egypt coincided with increases to autonomy in civil society—for example, a central government that is less restrictive of groups who promote increased personal freedoms—in the country. There were no changes to other areas she studied like electoral politics, judicial constraints over executive power, or women’s equality in Egypt. However, the improvements that did occur could not be entirely attributed to aid disbursement, as much of the improvements came at the time of Arab Spring in the early 2010s, a series of pro-democracy protests throughout the Middle East, and subsequent governmental fragility in Egypt, she said. In Jordan, an autocratic nation where there was no Arab Spring-type protest, she found no change to any category.
“During a moment of temporary regime fragility, USAID found a window to expand their networks on the ground. It made me feel there is reason to keep trying,” Becker said. “Even if our modes of assistance aren’t effecting the change that officials would like to see, I believe it is still important that the U.S. government continues soft power initiatives in the region: to support people on the ground who desire a voice and aren’t represented by authoritarian leaders.”
At this time, it will not be possible to keep trying, however. A week prior to submitting her thesis, the Trump administration announced it was enacting a near-total freeze on USAID operations, and thousands of staff worldwide were laid off. She had contacted the USAID/Egypt mission director to interview them for the thesis, but they were forced to decline participation due to the chaos created by the cuts to the organization. “I came into this project hoping to tackle all the nuances of U.S. soft power and this agency,” Becker said. “Now, USAID doesn’t exist, period. In the midst of unpacking the efficacy of the agency, the agency has disappeared. It’s a startling moment.”
“In the absence of U.S. soft power in the [Middle East and North Africa] region, autocratic superpowers—such as China and Russia—are well-positioned to fill the void,” Becker wrote.
After Wesleyan, Becker will be taking on a two-year position at an international litigation law firm in New York City. She is considering a career in foreign relations or human rights law and may pursue a law degree in the future, she said.
