Aiding together? Europeans’ attitudes on common aid policy

Abstract

This article explores the determinants of individual support for common aid policy in the European Union, the largest multilateral contributor of foreign aid. Using the 2016 Eurobarometer survey data, I first investigate the influence of individuals’ assessments of aid objectives on support for multilateral disbursements, and second, I explore the effect of country-level factors, population and economic power. Multilevel regression models reveal that those who prioritize economic infrastructural projects in developing countries are highly negative of the utilization of EU channels. Conversely, individual preferences for the promotion of democratic reforms and the provision of basic necessities are strongly and positively associated with the dependent variable. The results also demonstrate that individuals living in lower income and less populated polities are more positively disposed towards common aid policy.

Politicization of Aiding Others: The Impact of Migration on European Public Opinion of Development Aid

“…The micro‐level component of the dataset is supplemented by several key macro‐level controls on macroeconomic indicators: GDP per capita and unemployment. I expect individuals in economically worse‐off countries and regions to be less supportive of sending aid that will add to their tax burdens and divert resources away from public services at home (Kiratli, 2019). Similarly, in polities with high levels of unemployment, allocating resources to foreign others is more likely to be opposed.…”

“…Second, with some notable exceptions (Bauhr and Charron, 2019; Kiratli, 2019; Noël, and Thérien, 2002), most of the literature explaining public attitudes on foreign aid disbursements focuses on individual‐level variables and ignores the impact of macro‐level, time‐variant factors. Yet public attitudes to foreign aid considerably vary across donors and over time, and a significant portion of this variance stems from factors embedded in social, political and economic developments at the donor level.…”

Together or Not? Dynamics of Public Attitudes on UN and NATO

“…The majority of IGOs are funded by members’ contributions based on a scale of national incomes, and there is a substantial disparity across member states in terms of payments to the operating budget. Against this, constituencies of larger contributors that also possess a broader range of economic and military resources may feel less reliant on IGOs given that their countries have greater options to utilize scale benefits and are, therefore, less concerned by the benefits of cost-sharing (Kiratli, 2019; Round and Odedokun, 2004). Moreover, as Dellmuth and Tallberg (2015: 459) note, for certain high-profile IGOs such as the UN and EU, member states’ financial contributions can be highly politicized in bigger donors, subjecting these institutions to further public scrutiny.…”