Foreign Aid and Political Support: How Politicians' Aid Oversight Capacity and Voter Information Condition Credit-Giving

Abstract

Prominent scholarship on foreign aid argues that aid can interfere with citizens' ability to hold politicians accountable. One particular concern is that politicians receive undeserved credit for aid projects due to misattribution by voters with low information. But in some cases, politicians exert effort to ensure the success of projects and thus may deserve any credit they receive from voters. The authors show that the credit politicians receive depends both on voter information and on the capacity of politicians' offices to provide oversight. Drawing on original surveys of politicians and nongovernmental organizations (ngos) in Uganda, the authors describe circumstances in which politicians support the realization and administration of aid projects. The authors then use an experiment to show that information about foreign financing and ngo implementation of these projects reduces support for incumbent politicians only when their offices have low aid oversight capacity. The authors also provide evidence from other African countries that shows that credit-giving for aid depends on both information and state capacity. Their results suggest that voters think realistically about what politicians might have contributed to aid projects and update their assessments accordingly.