Human rights and the allocation of foreign aid: A cross-national analysis of the last years of the Cold War, 1980–1989

Studies of conflict behavior show that states act differently based on changes in the global system. However, studies of other types of foreign policy behavior, such as aid allocation, have neglected to focus on similar system effects. This study is among the first to look at the impact of the cold war system on the relationship between recipient human rights practices and foreign aid disbursements for eight major aid donors, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Through an analysis of aid allocations to a sample of 72 recipients from 1980 to 1989 (the only Cold War years for which reliable and valid human rights data are available) this paper reveals striking and unique findings. Contrary to previous studies, it appears that recipient human rights are a significant factor in whether or not a recipient gets any aid, the so-called gatekeeping stage, but are not a significant factor in how much aid a country receives in the level stage. This paper makes three major contributions to the field. It is the first direct test of the effect of the Cold War system on the relationship between recipient country human rights and aid. It also extends this analysis to donors other than the United States. Finally, the results serve as a baseline for assessing the relationship between human rights and aid during the post-Cold War period (1990–2001) and the so-called “age of terror” (2002 onwards).