This paper asks how foreign donors respond when recipient governments pass restrictive laws targeting NGOs: do donors push back by increasing democracy support or back down by cutting it? Using dyadic aid-flow data, an original cross-national data set of NGO laws, and multiple research designs, the authors examine whether and how donors change democracy-promotion funding after such laws are enacted. Their central contribution is empirical evidence on donor behavior in the aftermath of restrictive NGO legislation and its potential incentives for governments considering curbs on civil society.
Bold empirical focus: evidence on donor responses Key measurement: NGO laws dataset Primary outcome: democracy aid flows
Data and methods
The study combines dyadic data on aid flows with an original data set coding restrictive NGO laws across countries and uses a variety of research designs to assess donor behavior before and after law enactment. The abstract identifies panel-style, cross-national dyadic aid flow measurement and multiple analytic approaches, but does not provide additional technical detail in the abstract itself.
Main findings
Across specifications reported in the abstract, the authors find that the donors most committed to democracy promotion "back down" after restrictive NGO laws are passed: democracy aid is reduced by about 70 percent in the years following enactment, according to the paper's summary. The abstract highlights that this pattern creates incentives for aid-dependent governments to use legislation to constrain civil society.
- Donors most committed to democracy promotion reduce democracy aid significantly after restrictive NGO laws.
- The abstract reports a roughly 70% reduction in democracy aid in the years after laws are enacted.
