SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Gisselquist, Rachel M., Niño-Zarazúa, Miguel and Samarin, Melissa (2021) Does aid support democracy? A systematic review of the literature. Helsinki: WIDER Working Paper 2021/14. (Unpublished)

[img]
Preview
Text - Published Version
Download (725kB) | Preview

Abstract

This study draws on a rigorous systematic review—to our knowledge the first in this area—to take stock of the literature on aid and democracy. It asks: Does aid—especially democracy aid—have positive impact on democracy? How? What factors most influence its impact? In so doing, it considers studies that explicitly focus on ‘democracy aid’ as an aggregate category, its subcomponents (e.g. aid to elections), and ‘developmental aid’. Overall, the evidence suggests that i) democracy aid generally supports rather than hinders democracy building around the world; ii) aid modalities influence the effectiveness of democracy aid; and iii) democracy aid is more associated with positive impact on democracy than developmental aid, probably because it targets key institutions and agents of democratic change. The review presents a new analytical framework for considering the evidence, bringing together core theories of democratization with work on foreign aid effectiveness. Overall, the evidence is most consistent with institutional and agent-based theories of exogenous democratization, and least consistent with expectations drawn from structural theories that would imply stronger positive impact for developmental aid on democratization.

Item Type: Monographs and Working Papers (Working Paper)
Keywords: foreign aid, democracy, systematic review, democracy aid, democracy assistance, democracy promotion, democratization
SOAS Departments & Centres: Departments and Subunits > Department of Economics
ISBN: 9789292569488
ISSN: 17987237
Copyright Statement: © UNU-WIDER 2021
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.35188/unu-wider/2021/948-8
Date Deposited: 31 Dec 2023 11:06
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/41162
Funders: Other

Altmetric Data

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
8Downloads
6 month trend
31Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item