Buying Rights and Democracy: Foreign Aid, Political Conditionalities, and Isomorphism

• In Event: 538 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Paper Session. Social Movements and Human Rights

Abstract

Foreign aid donor states, at least rhetorically, support democracy and human rights. This support translates into conditions on aid allocation that promote donor foreign policy and commercial interests, but also have the potential to shape norm adoption/implementation by aid recipients. Using fixed effects panel regression, this paper examines the effects of democracy and human rights on bilateral aid flows over a 30-year period through a theoretical framework of sociological neoinstitutionalism. Conditions, beyond simply constricting the choice of developing nations so that donor interests are served, actively work to shape institutional isomorphism globally. Results show that donor conditions do not operate uniformly over time or across recipient countries of differing levels of economic development. In some cases, conditionalities act as a tool of coercive isomorphism to unlock more aid as a reward for preferred political behaviour, but in others, it appears that aid provides the resources and expertise needed to close decoupling gaps in democracy and rights implementation through a form of normative isomorphism.

Author

• Liam Swiss, Memorial University