Budget Support and Democracy: a twist in the conditionality tale

Is the Threat of Foreign Aid Withdrawal an Effective Deterrent to Political Oppression? Evidence from 53 African Countries

“…The findings are broadly consistent with the literature on aid conditionality for political objectives in recipient countries (Killick, 2003;Crawford, 2001;Carothers, 2000;Stokke, 2013;Hayman, 2011;Faust, 2010). It is widely believed that foreign aid as a policy instrument for the promotion of political rights in recipient countries could be manipulated by donors to achieve the objective of enhancing democracy.…”

“…The use of foreign aid as a policy instrument for the promotion of political rights in recipient countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall is also a widely accepted fact in policy making and academic circles (Gibson et al, 2014;Killick, 2003;Crawford, 2001;Carothers, 2000;Stokke, 2013;Hayman, 2011;Faust, 2010). There has also been a recent stream of studies consistent with celebrated aid literatures ('The Bottom Billion' (Collier, 2007), 'Dead Aid' (Moyo, 2009)) in putting to question the effectiveness of development assistance as a policy instrument (Krause, 2013;Banuri, 2013;Marglin, 2013;Wamboye et al, 2013;Ghosh, 2013;Monni & Spaventa, 2013;Titumir & Kamal, 2013).…”

Foreign Aid and the Domestic Politics of European Budget Support

“…In addition, conditionalities have often imposed policy reforms on countries, while neglecting recipients' own development preferences and strategies (see e.g. Collier et al 1997 accountability and human rights (Hayman 2011;. Thus seen, besides its function of providing reliable funding for poverty-reduction strategies, budget support has become a potentially powerful instrument for donors to influence domestic political decision-making via political dialogue and conditionality.…”

Europeanisation should meet international constructivism: the Nordic Plus group and the internalisation of political conditionality by France and the United Kingdom

“…This exercise is important because the emphasis of much previous analysis 'has been on the presentation of empirical results as evidence for Europeanization rather than on systematic theory building ' (de Flers and Müller 2012, 24). Interestingly, political conditionality is not considered appropriate even for budget support operations, albeit this aid modality is unanimously recognized to be increasingly subject to the application of aid sanctions (Hayman 2011;Molenaers 2012) published a "Technical Note on Implementing DFID's strengthened approach to budget support", which affirms that, in considering whether to give budget support or not, it will continue to assess governments against the three commitments mentioned above. In addition, it 'will place more emphasis on domestic accountability by making partner country commitment to strengthening domestic accountability a specific commitment, separating it out from the other commitments, so the commitments will be to:…”