Aid Is Not Oil: Donor Utility, Heterogeneous Aid, and the Aid-Democratization Relationship
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2015-06-01
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© 2015 The IO Foundation.Recent articles conclude that foreign aid, like other nontax resources, inhibits political change in authoritarian regimes. This article challenges both the negative political effects of aid and the similarity of aid to other resources. It develops a model incorporating changing donor preferences and the heterogeneity of foreign aid. Consistent with the model's predictions, an empirical test for the period 1973-2010 shows that, on average, the negative relationship between aid and the likelihood of democratic change is confined to the Cold War period. However, in the post-Cold War period, nondemocratic recipients of particular strategic importance can still use aid to thwart change. The relationship between oil revenue and democratic change does not follow the same pattern over time or across recipients. This supports the conclusion that aid has different properties than other, fungible, resources.
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Bermeo, SB (2015). Aid Is Not Oil: Donor Utility, Heterogeneous Aid, and the Aid-Democratization Relationship. International Organization, 70(1). pp. 1–32. 10.1017/S0020818315000296 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11675.
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Sarah Blodgett Bermeo
Sarah Bermeo is a political economist and associate professor of public policy and political science in the Sanford School at Duke University and Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) in the Master of International Development Policy (MIDP) program. Her research lies at the intersection of international relations and development, with a particular focus on relations between industrialized and developing countries. She has published multiple articles on foreign aid, with additional work examining trade agreements and migration. Her book, Targeted Development: Industrialized Country Strategy in a Globalizing World (Oxford, 2018) demonstrates that the desire to limit negative spillovers associated with underdevelopment leads industrialized states to allocate foreign aid, trade agreements, and climate finance across developing countries in a development-oriented, but also self-interested, manner. Her work has appeared in International Organization, Journal of Politics, and World Development. Her article, “Aid is Not Oil,” received the 2016 Robert O. Keohane Award from International Organization.
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