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theses

Research on the relationship between regime type and foreign aid allocation is limited in theoretical explanations and empirical support. This research attempts to fill this gap by aiming to find out why autocratic and illiberal governments give foreign aid, recognizing that aid provision is not peculiar to the liberal democracies. This study suggests a different theoretical mechanism for the assistance of non-democratic countries. I argue that, in non-democratic and illiberal countries, the nature of the relationship between the leader and business elites affects the aid allocation in terms of motivation and preferences over aid policies. Countries with illiberal and autocratic regime types become donors due to the political influence of business elites, given that foreign aid policies benefit business elites, particularly those that are politically influential. Concurrently, in these countries, business elite configuration influences the preferences of aid allocation. Using data from the Enterprise Survey, OECD and AidData, this study employs quantitative analysis and finds that non-democratic and illiberal regimes with high influence from the business elites are more likely to provide aid and in much higher amounts. Besides, using data from the World Bank and AidData, the findings of quantitative analyses show the dominance in the business elite structure drives the leaders to provide higher-value aid projects with less variation in the aid sector to the nations in-need. Robustness checks are implemented with alternative tests.

ETD_10328

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-9mbj-qj58

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.