Avoiding the Blame Game: Domestic Political Consequences of Aid Withdrawal

• In Event: Information and Accountability

Abstract

The credit-claiming literature on aid suggests that politicians in information-poor environments may take credit for the presence of aid to signal their quality, regardless of their own involvement. Is the reverse true? What happens in aid's absence? Despite the numerous incentives for aid agencies and incumbent politicians to follow through on implementing aid projects, a gap often exists between committed and disbursed aid. I argue that these "disbursement gaps" negatively impact incumbent politicians' electoral returns and may lead them to take costly action to avoid blame. In particular, I expect these blame-avoidance strategies to be pronounced when the aid in question belongs to sectors that form clear cleavages between incumbents and challenger parties. I collect novel data on sub-national aid commitments and disbursements in Kosovo and demonstrate that the disbursement gap is associated with a political cost for intended recipient incumbents using electoral returns. I then provide an in-depth case study of aid withdrawal by the World Bank in Kosovo to trace the process through which the rescinded promise of aid can negatively impact domestic incumbents and the strategies incumbents use to minimize this cost. I field an original survey experiment to validate the effect of aid withdrawal and politicians' actions on support for incumbent politicians. The results suggest that the salience of aid to existing political cleavages between incumbent and challenger politicians moderates the negative effect of aid withdrawal on incumbent political support. I highlight the necessity of understanding how interactions between international and domestic participants in aid affect the impact aid can have on recipients even in its absence. Future research uses the consequences of aid withdrawal to examine selection into aid contracts.

Author

• Cleo Marie O'Brien-Udry, Yale University