This paper examines how foreign aid allocation, tied to human rights and democracy promotion, is influenced by the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. Using a natural experiment involving former colonizers holding key positions during budget discussions, it demonstrates that aid increases significantly when this occurs.
Data & Methods: Leverages novel exogeneity from EU rotating presidency; employs instrumental variables estimation to isolate causal effects.
This isn't just descriptive statistics - we find substantial aid differences: countries get considerably more foreign aid than usual when their former colonizer holds the Council's presidency during budget-making processes. But what matters even more is Key Findings: The boost appears temporary, vanishing once the presiding country changes focus. While positive short-term effects exist, they don't persist long after.
Why It Matters: This suggests that conditionality tied to EU leadership commitment plays a crucial role in driving improvements for human rights and democratic institutions - even if only briefly. We argue this through event timing, qualitative evidence, and theoretical insights.
| Foreign AID, Human Rights and Democracy Promotion: Evidence from a Natural Experiment was authored by Allison Carnegie and Nikolay Marinov. It was published by Wiley in AJPS in 2017. |
