The scholarly interest in phenomenon of foreign aid has remained strong for almost seven decades. The best representatives of social sciences in the West keep providing increasingly more exquisite interpretations of international development cooperation policies. This paper summarizes their conclusions on the impact of domestic socio-political factors within the OECD DAC member countries which have been overshadowed by their foreign economic and political interests in developing countries. In accordance with Carol Lancaster’s typology, these determinants are divided into four sub-categories: 1) “ideas” – system of shared values; 2) “institutions” – particularities of political system and electoral processes; 3) “organization” – model of aid management, and 4) “interests” – role of interest groups and public opinion. The paper unveils and explains the main inconsistencies in extant explicative models and identifies some promising directions for future research, including identification of linkages between political and economic as well as between domestic and external determinants of foreign aid.