Varieties of Democracy Aid Approaches: The Role of Donors' Domestic Ideology

After the end of the Cold War, DAC donors increased their efforts of democracy promotion in developing countries. Among other instruments, DAC donors increasingly use democracy aid to improve democracy abroad. However, DAC donors differ in their allocation and delivery strategy of democracy aid. Some donors favour a bottom‐up approach which consists of enhancing civil society participation. Other donors favour a top‐down approach which consists of enhancing recipient states' institutions. This study argues that donors' political economy ideologies entail different conceptions of democracy, leading to distinct theories of democratization and, consequently, democracy promotion approaches. These ideological underpinnings shape the priority, organization and staff of national aid bureaucracies, which in turn influences patterns of democracy aid allocation. To test the hypothesis, this article employs a country‐year fixed effect regression model using data from the OECD Credit Reporting System (CRS) dataset. This dataset contains detailed information on all democracy aid projects delivered by the 23 DAC donors in 156 recipient countries from 1990 to 2021. Results confirm that DAC donors' domestic ideology influences democracy aid approaches. These findings contribute to the understanding of the varieties of democracy promotion, democracy aid allocation strategies and effectiveness in developing countries' democratization process.