Buying Trouble? The Impact of Foreign Assistance on Conflict in Direct and Indirect Rivalry Situations

Year 2014, , 35 - 54, 31.01.2014

Peter Rudloff James M. Scott

https://doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.167320

Abstract

Buying Trouble? The Impact of Foreign Assistance on Conflict in Direct and Indirect Rivalry Situations

Abstract

States provide foreign assistance for many reasons, including their achievement of strategic goals. Previous research suggests that rivalries exert a meaningful impact on foreign aid allocations, not only in direct rivalry situations (i.e., rivals are less like to receive aid), but also in indirect rivalry situations (i.e., potential recipients located near rivals or with rivalries in common with the donor are more likely to receive aid). What happens as a consequence of such strategic aid allocations? In this paper, we examine the effect of foreign aid on conflict within direct and indirect rivalry situations. Specifically, we identify and develop two contending arguments about the likely consequences of foreign aid and conflict in indirect rivalry situations. To test these arguments, we examine foreign assistance by the United States and the conflict history of recipient states from 1962 to 2000. Our results indicate that when foreign aid recipients and donors are rivals with a third state, increased foreign aid to the recipient leads to increased conflict between the recipient and the third-party rival 

Keywords

foreign aid, rivalry, conflict

References

• Alesina, A. and Dollar, D. “Who gives foreign aid to whom and why?” Journal of Economic Growth 5 (2000): 33-63.
• Barnett Michael and Martha Finnemore. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.
• Beck, Nathaniel, Jonathan N. Katz, and Richard Tucker. “Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable.” American Journal of Political Science 42, no.4 (1998): 1260- 1288.
• Bendor, Jonathan, A. Glazer, and Thomas Hammond. “Theories of Delegation.” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 235-69.
• Bennett, D. Scott and Allan C. Stam. “EUGene: A Conceptual Manual.” International Interactions 26, no.2 (2000): 179-204.
• Blouin, Max and Stéphane Pallage. “Humanitarian Relief and Civil Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 52, no.4 (2008): 548-565.
• Bobrow, Davis B., P. Terrence Hopmann, Roger W. Benjamin, and D. A. Sylvan. “The Impact of Foreign Assistance on National Development and International Conflict.” Journal of Peace Science 1, no.1 (1973): 39-60.
• Boschini, Anne and Anders Olofsgard. “Foreign Aid: An Instrument for Fighting Communism.” Journal of Development Studies 43 (2007): 622-648.
• Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce and Alastair Smith. “Foreign Aid and Policy Concessions.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 51, no.2 (2007): 251-284.
• Burnside, C. and D. Dollar. “Aid, Policies and Growth.” American Economic Review 90 (2000): 847- 868.
• Carter, David B. and Curtis S. Signorino. “Back to the Future: Modeling Time Dependence in Binary Data.” Political Analysis 18, no.3 (2010): 271-292.
• Cassen, R. Does Aid Work? 2d Ed. Oxford. Clarendon Press, 1994.
• Center for the Study of Civil War. Accessed November 4, 2011. http://www.prio.no/CSCW/Datasets/Stata-Tools/.
• Colaresi, Michael P., Karen A. Rasler, and William R. Thompson. Strategic Rivalries in World Politics: Position, Space, and Conflict Escalation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Collier, P. and D. Dollar. Development Effectiveness: What Have We Learned? Washington, DC: World Bank, 2001.
• Collier, Paul. Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. New York: Harper, 2009.
• Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler. “Aid, Policy, and Peace: Reducing the Risks of Civil Conflict.” Defence and Peace Economics 13, no.6 (2002): 435- 450.
• Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler. “Unintended Consequences: Does Aid Promote Arms Races?” Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 69, no.1 (2007): 1-27.
• Cox, Eric W. Why Enduring Rivalries Do -or Don’t - End. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010.
• Crawford, G. “Foreign Aid and Political Conditionality: Issues of Effectiveness and Consistency.” Democratization 4 (1997): 69-108.
• de Ree, Joppe and Eleonora Nillesen. “Aiding Violence or Peace? The Impact of Foreign Aid on the Risk of Civil Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Journal of Development Economics 88, no.2 (2009): 301-313.
• Derouen, Karl, and Uk Heo. “Reward, Punishment or Inducement? US Economic and Military Aid, 1946–1996.” Defence & Peace Economics 15, no.5 (2004): 453-470.
• Diehl, Paul F. and Gary Goertz. War and Peace in International Rivalry. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
• Easterly, William. “Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no.3 (2003): 23-48.
• Easterly, W. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. New York: Penguin, 2006.
• Meernik, James, Eric L. Krueger and Steven C. Poe. “Testing models of U.S. foreign policy: foreign aid during and after the Cold War.” Journal of Politics 60 (1998): 63-85.
• Mitchell, Sara McLaughlin and Brandon C. Prins. “Rivalry and Diversionary Uses of Force.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 48, no.6 (2004): 937-961.
• Moon, Bruce E. “The Foreign Policy of the Dependent State.” International Studies Quarterly 27 (1983): 315-340.
• Mott, William H. United States Military Assistance: An Empirical Perspective. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002.
• Morey, Daniel S. “Conflict and the Duration of Peace in Enduring Rivalries.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 26, no.4 (2009): 331-345.
• Nielsen, Daniel and Michael Tierney. “Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform.” International Organization 57 (2003): 241-76.
• Nielsen, Richard A., Michael G. Findley, Zachary S. Davis, Tara Candland, Daniel L. Nielson. “Foreign Aid Shocks as a Cause of Violent Armed Conflict.” American Journal of Political Science 55, no.2 (2011): 219-232.
• Noel, Alain, and Jean-Philippe Therien. “Political Parties and Foreign Aid.” The American Political Science Review 94 (2000): 151-162.
• Palmer, Glenn, Scott B. Wohlander and T. Clifton Morgan. “Give or Take: Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy Substitutability.” Journal of Peace Research 39 (2002): 5-26.
• R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. 2012. http://www.r-project.org/.
• Rasler, Karen A. and William R. Thompson. “Contested Territory, Strategic Rivalry, and Conflict Escalation.” International Studies Quarterly 50, no.1 (2006): 145-168.
• Regan, P.M. “U.S. Economic Aid and Political Repression: An Empirical Evaluation of U.S. Foreign Policy.” Political Research Quarterly 48 (1995): 613-628.
• Richardson, Neil R. and Charles W. Kegley. “Trade Dependence and Foreign Policy Compliance: A Longitudinal Analysis.” International Studies Quarterly 24 (1980): 191-222.
• Ruttan, Vernon W. United States Development Assistance Policy: The Domestic Politics of Foreign Aid. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
• Rudloff, Peter, James M. Scott, and Tyra Blew. “Countering Adversaries and Cultivating Friends: Indirect Rivalry Factors and Foreign Aid Allocation.” Cooperation and Conflict 48 (2013): 401-423.
• Schraeder, Peter J., Steven W. Hook, and Bruce Taylor. “Clarifying the Foreign Aid Puzzle: A Comparison of American, Japanese, French, and Swedish Aid Flows.” World Politics 50 (1998): 294-323.
• Scott, James M. Deciding to Intervene: The Reagan Doctrine and American Foreign Policy. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996.
• Signorino, Curtis S. and Jeffrey M. Ritter. “Tau-b or Not Tau-b: Measuring the Similarity of Foreign Policy Positions.” International Studies Quarterly 43, no.1 (1999): 115-144.
• Sullivan, Patricia L. Brock C. Tessman and Xiaojun Li. “US Military Aid and Recipient State Cooperation.” Foreign Policy Analysis. 7 (2011): 275-294.
• Suzuki, Akisato and Neophytos Loizides. “Escalation of Interstate Crises of Conflictual Dyads: Greece–Turkey and India–Pakistan.” Cooperation and Conflict 46 (2011): 21-39.
• Tendler, Judith. Inside Foreign Aid. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
• Thompson, William R. Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics. International Studies Quarterly 45 (2001): 557-586.
• Tucker, Richard. BTSCS: A Binary Time-Series-Cross-Section Data Analysis Utility. Version 4.0.4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1999.
• USAID. US Overseas Loans and Grants. “Greenbook”. February 18, 2011. http://www.usaid.gov/policy/greenbook. html.
• World Bank. 2011. http://data.worldbank.org.
• Yoon, Mi Yung. “Explaining U.S. Intervention in Third World Internal Wars, 1945-1989.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 41 (1997): 580- 602.