International Aid and Democracy Promotion
Liberalization at the Margins
Bann Seng Tan, 2020
To advance democracy realistically, we should account for the reluctance of Western donors and the pushback by recipients. Since political liberalization hurts authoritarian recipients, they can be expected to offer alternative policy concessions for aid in lieu of democratization and donors, eager for policy compliance, may not do enough to promote political liberalization. This means some recipients like Egypt, will have leverage against the West and are effectively immune to donor pressure. It also implies some recipients, like Fiji, will lack the attributes to make counteroffers attractive enough to the West. The latter group should be the proper emphasis of democracy aid. If the West filters recipients by their leverage, democracy promotion with foreign aid need not be a lost cause.
