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Keeping Friends Close, But Enemies Closer: Foreign Aid Responses to Natural Disasters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2020

Cindy Cheng Open the ORCID record for Cindy Cheng [Opens in a new window]  and
Shahryar Minhas
Cindy Cheng*
Affiliation:
Hocschule für Politik at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the TUM School of Governance
Shahryar Minhas
Affiliation:
Political Science and Social Science Data Analytics Initiative, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: cindy.cheng@hfp.tum.de
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Abstract

If foreign aid is provided primarily for strategic reasons, as much of the field finds, how can donor generosity following natural disasters be explained? This article addresses this puzzle by building on the literature in three ways. First, it differentiates between three major types of aid: humanitarian, civil society and development. Second, it demonstrates that natural disasters act as an exogenous shock to the strategic calculus that donor countries undertake when making foreign aid allocation decisions. Specifically, the authors argue that donor countries use natural disasters as opportunities to exert influence on strategic opponents through the allocation of humanitarian and civil society aid. However, donors still reserve development aid for strategic allies irrespective of the incidence of natural disasters. Third, the findings are substantiated using a new measure of strategic interest that accounts for the indirect ties states share and the multiple dimensions upon which they interact.

Keywords

foreign aidstrategic interestnatural disasterslatent variablesdevelopment
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 940 - 962
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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