Helping us or helping them? What makes foreign aid popular with donor publics?

Abstract

We test whether emphasizing foreign aid’s ability to advancedonor national interests increases public support for aid. We compare ap-peals to the national interest with other approaches, including highlightingaid’s ability to help developing countries. Tests involved a nationally-representative, randomized survey experiment in which the treatmentswere vignettes about a major, real aid project. Central amongst our find-ings were asymmetric treatment effects. It was easier to reduce the viewthat too much aid is given than to increase the belief that too little isgiven. Only appeals to the national interest were reliably able to do thelatter. The efficacy of the different treatments varied depending on par-ticipant ideology, although in unexpected ways. Show more