Agents of Aid: Who Believes Aid Influences Post-Conflict States and Why?

• In Event: Securing State Reform in Fragile States

Abstract

International aid donors have increasingly focused their resources on fragile and conflict-affected countries to help them break out of the cycle of violence and underdevelopment. Scholarship on international aid has largely argued that international aid is used to buy political favor of governments, not respond to the needs of impoverished or conflict-affected populations. Relying on an original survey-embedded experiment administered to over 1,100 experts working for donor and implementing organizations, this paper argues that perceptions of political influence by international donors is conditioned by whether the aid worker is employed by an implementing partner or a donor. Even though donors are charged with implementing their country’s foreign policy, we find that implementing partners are more likely than donors to believe that aid influences political behavior within the conflict-affected country. We also find that while both donors and implementers believe they are influential when the country is progressing toward peace, only implementing partners believe they are influential when the country is regressing toward war. These findings hold across country contexts, years of experience of the aid worker, gender, and nationality.

Authors

• Susanna Campbell, American University

• Gabriele S. Spilker, University of Konstanz