IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rripxx/v24y2017i3p454-496.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can foreign aid donors credibly threaten to suspend aid? Evidence from a cross-national survey of donor officials

Author

Listed:
  • Haley J. Swedlund

Abstract

Under what conditions are foreign aid donors willing to suspend foreign aid to punish political transgressions, such as election fraud, corruption scandals or political repression? Prior scholarship has emphasized that political sanctions, including foreign aid suspensions, are constrained by the geostrategic considerations of donor countries. However, foreign aid suspensions often occur in strategically important countries, and donors respond differently to different types of political transgressions within the same county. To shed light on this puzzle, in this article, I present evidence from an original survey of top-level donor representatives in 20 African countries, including a list experiment designed to elicit truthful responses about the conditions under which donors are willing to suspend foreign aid. I argue that the likelihood of a foreign aid suspension depends not only on the strategic considerations of the donor government, but also on the institutional incentives of the donor agency. A donor agency's institutional incentives are shaped by the agency's organizational design, as well as by its foreign aid portfolio in the recipient country.

Suggested Citation

  • Haley J. Swedlund, 2017. "Can foreign aid donors credibly threaten to suspend aid? Evidence from a cross-national survey of donor officials," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 454-496, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:24:y:2017:i:3:p:454-496
    DOI: 10.1080/09692290.2017.1302490
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09692290.2017.1302490
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09692290.2017.1302490?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati & Yuanxin Li & Samuel Brazys & Alexander Dukalskis, 2019. "Building Bridges or Breaking Bonds? The Belt and Road Initiative and Foreign Aid Competition," Working Papers 201906, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    2. Corwin, Hillary, 2023. "Coercive and catalytic strategies for human rights promotion: State violence and foreign assistance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    3. Suzuki, Mao, 2020. "Profits before patients? Analyzing donors’ economic motives for foreign aid in the health sector," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    4. Dorband, Ira Irina & Jakob, Michael & Steckel, Jan Christoph, 2020. "Unraveling the political economy of coal: Insights from Vietnam," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    5. Samuel Brazys & Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati & Tianyang Song, 2019. "Which Wheel Gets the Grease? Constituent Agency and Sub-national World Bank Aid Allocation," Working Papers 201907, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    6. Robert Ferritto, 2024. "Will policy help close the digital gender divide? An intersectional feminist policy analysis of Ethiopia's national digital policy," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 42(2), March.
    7. Portela, Clara & Mora-Sanguinetti, Juan S., 2023. "Sanctions effectiveness, development and regime type. Are aid suspensions and economic sanctions alike?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    8. Johannes Karreth & Jason Quinn & Madhav Joshi & Jaroslav Tir, 2023. "International Third Parties and the Implementation of Comprehensive Peace Agreements After Civil War," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 67(2-3), pages 494-521, February.
    9. Jin Mun Jeong, 2020. "Economic sanctions and income inequality: impacts of trade restrictions and foreign aid suspension on target countries," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 37(6), pages 674-693, November.
    10. Dasandi, Niheer & Erez, Lior, 2023. "The flag and the stick: Aid suspensions, human rights, and the problem of the complicit public," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rripxx:v:24:y:2017:i:3:p:454-496. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rrip20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.