Does Foreign Aid Bifurcate Donor Approval?: Patronage Politics, Winner–Loser Status, and Public Attitudes toward the Donor

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia Chen ◽  
Sung Min Han
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Patronage Politics

Winning hearts & minds (!)

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 819-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Efe Tokdemir
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Individual

Foreign aid is a policy tool implemented with the purpose of fostering both hard and soft power abroad. Yet, previous research has not probed the effects of US foreign aid on public attitudes toward the US in the recipient countries. In this article, I argue that US foreign aid may actually feed anti-Americanism: aid indirectly creates winners and losers in the recipient countries, such that politically discontented people may blame the US for the survival of the prevailing regime. Drawing on Pew Research for Global Attitudes and on USAID Greenbook datasets, I focus on determining both the conditions under which foreign aid exacerbates anti-Americanism and the type of aid most likely to do this. The findings reveal that political losers of the recipient countries are more likely to express negative attitudes toward the USA as the amount of US aid increases, whereas political winners enjoy the results of US aid and view the USA positively accordingly. Moreover, the effect of US aid on attitudes toward the USA is also conditional on the regime type. While US aid increases the likelihood of anti-American attitudes among the losers in non-democratic countries, it decreases the likelihood of anti-Americanism among the losers in democratic ones. This article has important implications for policy in terms of determining how and to whom to provide aid in the context of the possible ramifications of providing aid at the individual level.

scholarly journals The Effect of Geostrategic Competition on Public Attitudes to Aid

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Terence Wood ◽  
Chris Hoy ◽  
Jonathan Pryke
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Separate Experiment ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
New Era ◽  
China’S Rise ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
China's Rise ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Aid Policy

Abstract China’s rise is ushering in a new era of geostrategic contestation involving foreign aid. In many traditional OECD donors, aid policy is changing as a result. We report on a survey experiment studying the impacts of rising Chinese aid on public opinion in traditional donors. We randomly treated people with vignettes emphasising China’s rise as an aid donor in the Pacific, a region of substantial geostrategic competition. We used a large, nationally-representative sample of Australians (Australia is the largest donor to the Pacific). As expected, treating participants reduced hostility to aid and increased support for more aid focused on the Pacific. Counter to expectations, however, treatment reduced support for using aid to advance Australian interests. These findings were largely replicated in a separate experiment in New Zealand. Knowledge of Chinese competition changes support for aid, but it does not increase support for using aid as a tool of geostrategy.

scholarly journals Human Rights Violations, Political Conditionality and Public Attitudes to Foreign Aid: Evidence from Survey Experiments

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172098089
Author(s):  
Niheer Dasandi ◽  
Jonathan Fisher ◽  
David Hudson ◽  
Jennifer vanHeerde-Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Political Conditionality ◽  
Survey Experiments ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Government Responsiveness ◽  
Representative Samples

There has been much criticism of donor governments who give aid to states that violate human rights. This has fuelled concerns about how such coverage affects public support for foreign aid. In response, donors increasingly use aid suspensions to signal to domestic audiences that a regime has been sanctioned and aid is not misspent. This article examines how reports of rights violations affect attitudes to aid and what, if any, impact donor responses have on public perceptions. We conduct survey experiments using nationally representative samples of the British public. Our findings demonstrate that reports of rights abuses reduce public support for aid. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, any response from donors, whether it be to justify continuing aid or to cut aid, prevents a decline in support. In policy terms, the findings demonstrate the importance of government responsiveness in maintaining public support for a frequently contested aspect of foreign policy.

U.S. Public Attitudes Toward the Afghanistan War

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Staci Rhine ◽  
Stephen Bennett ◽  
Richard Flickinger ◽  
Ed Hasecke
Keyword(s):  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Afghanistan War

Trust in the Police: Cross-country Comparisons

2012 ◽  
pp. 24-47
Author(s):  
V. Gimpelson ◽  
G. Monusova
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
The Public ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Police Activity

Using different cross-country data sets and simple econometric techniques we study public attitudes towards the police. More positive attitudes are more likely to emerge in the countries that have better functioning democratic institutions, less prone to corruption but enjoy more transparent and accountable police activity. This has a stronger impact on the public opinion (trust and attitudes) than objective crime rates or density of policemen. Citizens tend to trust more in those (policemen) with whom they share common values and can have some control over. The latter is a function of democracy. In authoritarian countries — “police states” — this tendency may not work directly. When we move from semi-authoritarian countries to openly authoritarian ones the trust in the police measured by surveys can also rise. As a result, the trust appears to be U-shaped along the quality of government axis. This phenomenon can be explained with two simple facts. First, publicly spread information concerning police activity in authoritarian countries is strongly controlled; second, the police itself is better controlled by authoritarian regimes which are afraid of dangerous (for them) erosion of this institution.

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