Mike Findley
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Does Foreign Aid Build Peace?


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Article: [.pdf]
Citation:

Findley, Michael G. 2018. "Does Foreign Aid Build Peace?" Annual Review of Political Science 21(1): 359-384.

Abstract: Does foreign aid build peace? The answer is of paramount importance for policy makers and practitioners, given that the world’s poor are growing increasingly concentrated in conflict-affected countries. Scholars have also demonstrated keen interest, primarily examining the relationship between foreign aid and civil wars. This review takes stock of the existing literature through a survey of key theoretical arguments connecting aid to the onset, dynamics, and recurrence of civil wars. It then articulates a key challenge posed by under-theorization of aid allocation, which is largely nonrandom, making the causal effects difficult to infer. I identify five areas in need of greater attention: micro-foundational theoretical assumptions about aid flows; aid in the context of other foreign policy options; explicit articulation of other factors that may mediate or moderate aid’s effects; levels of observation and aggregation; and measurement.


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Department of Government
The University of Texas at Austin
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@mgfindley