Donor Political Preferences and Aid Allocation: Patterns in Recipient Type

• In Event: Foreign Policy and the Politics of Foreign Aid

Abstract

Studies of aid allocation often differentiate donors along blunt dimensions, clumping the Scandinavian donors into an altruistic giving group and states like the US and France into a more "strategic" group. Building on recent studies that incorporate new information in the form of donor government ideology along the traditional left-right spectrum, we elaborate a partisan theory of foreign aid allocation. Rather than simple left-right preferences, we emphasize internationalism as a preference dimension that conditions the effect of liberal and conservative values. Pro-internationalist governments will be more prone to use foreign aid as a tool for engaging with the world, but their preferences over which states to support and what types of aid to allocate differ based on ideology. Examining UNSC status and trade flows as proxies for strategic interests and economic development and income inequality as measures of need, we test the hypothesis that left-pro-international governments direct aid to recipients based on need while right-pro-international donors wield aid in a more “strategic” fashion.

Authors

• Amanda A. Licht, Binghamton University

• Zachary David Greene, University of Strathclyde