Individual and country-level factors affecting support for foreign aid

This document examines attitudes to foreign aid with a large, multi-level, cross-national study. It outlines a theoretical rationale for support for foreign aid, discussing the importance of both individual factors and economic and social structures.

The paper asserts that there is growing evidence that aid can produce positive outcomes, from democracy to economic growth. Foreign aid, the author believes, can help donor countries as well. In donor countries, foreign aid may be viewed as a strategic foreign policy tool - both individual and country-level factors contribute to support for foreign aid. In recent years donor countries have committed to dramatic increases in the supply of foreign aid to developing countries. Meeting and sustaining such commitments will require sufficient support among donor country voters and taxpayers. The paper states that determinants of public opinion in donor countries on foreign aid have received little attention.

Key concluding points include:

• country-level results suggest that wealth and existing development support matter for individual support of aid. For example, citizens in countries with high levels of existing aid express less support for increasing aid. Citizens from countries with a history of colonisation also express more support for foreign aid on average
  
• the United States reports the highest percent of respondents who think no aid should be provided to countries with corruption problems. However, the U.S. population is unique among the donor countries in its attention to corruption, being the only country where a higher percentage of respondents favor a more restrictive policy of giving only to non-corrupt countries
  
• where support for aid is shallow and citizens are ill-informed about foreign affairs and development issues, “vociferous lobbies” may influence opinion and distort aid policies. Better understanding the factors that influence public support for foreign aid can therefore only advance the quality of distributed foreign aid in the future
  
• but it is possible that the implications of some of these attitudinal and behavioral variables differ across countries. For example, interest in politics and TV consumption may increase Americans’ knowledge of foreign affairs and development issues less than it does in smaller countries
  
• overall, foreign aid helps recipient countries develop infrastructure, strengthen institutions, and address humanitarian crises while providing an important foreign policy tool for donor nations.