Does Foreign Aid Promote Democracy?
Open accessAbstract
Aid potentially can contribute to democratization in several ways: (1) through technical assistance focusing on electoral processes, the strengthening of legislatures and judiciaries as checks on executive power, and the promotion of civil society organizations, including a free press; (2) through conditionality; and (3) by improving education and increasing per capita incomes, which research shows are conducive to democratization. This study provides a multivariate analysis of the impact of aid on democratization in a large sample of recipient nations over the 1975–2000 period. Using two different democracy indexes and two different measures of aid intensity, no evidence is found that aid promotes democracy. This result is robust to alternative model specifications and estimation techniques, including the use of exogenous instruments for aid. Results are similar if the analysis is confined to the post–Cold War period (1990–2000), despite the reduced dependence of the U.S. and other donors on pro-Western authoritarian regimes among aid recipient nations.
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Knack (2004) finds no statistically significant relationship between aid and democracy scores.
“While Knack (2004) finds no statistically significant relationship between aid and democracy scores”
From Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding (2018) · cites this paper as Knack (2004)
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Cites
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Unwelcome Change: Coming to Terms with Democratic Backsliding
Waldner, D., & Lust, E. (2018) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-050517-114628 · Cited by 889 · see citing works
Chege, J. (2015) · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Knack, S.
- Affiliations
- World Bank (US)
- Corresponding author
- Knack, Stephen
- ORCID
- Knack, Stephen
- Venue
- International Studies Quarterly
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2004-03
- Volume
- 48
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 251-266
- ISSN
- 0020-8833 (ISSN-L)
- 1468-2478
- OpenAlex
- W2235896461
- Cited by
- 1
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Studies Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- Munich Personal RePEc Archive (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich) (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Development › International Development and Aid
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
- Keywords
- foreign aid, democratization, aid effectiveness, technical assistance, conditionality, civil society, electoral process, democracy index
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