Racial Prejudice and Paternalism in Mass Support for Foreign Aid

Abstract

What motivates mass opinions toward foreign aid in donor country publics? Many advocates of boosting development assistance blame the alleged shortfall in aid on racial resentment among donor publics and, in particular, the purported mass belief that the non-white, foreign recipients of aid are wasteful and underserving of aid. In contrast, aid skeptics claim that overly generous donor commitments are driven by widespread racial paternalism, whereby the poor recipients of aid are seen as unable to develop without the assistance of white, Western providers. These contradictory charges prompt us to investigate numerous aspects of racial prejudice and mass attitudes toward foreign aid that have previously gone unexplored. Most importantly, the idea that racial bias may manifest as paternalism, rather than sheer resentment, has received scant attention among scholars of mass prejudice. Moreover, scholars of foreign aid attitudes have overlooked the potential role of race-of-recipient in shaping mass generosity to the global poor. We use both observational and experimental survey data to show that, while both resentment and paternalistic attitudes do matter, racial paternalism is far more important as a factor in shaping foreign aid attitudes.