Foreign Aid for Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework and Evidence From 121 Aid-Receiving Countries,2002

Abstract

Does foreign aid improve human rights? Even though Western donors typically put human rights at the forefront of foreign aid, the influence of such assistance on human rights remains largely unknown. Against this backdrop, this study provides a theoretical framework and empirical assessment of how foreign aid influences the respect and promotion of human rights in recipient countries. Conceptualizing aid as a foreign policy tool, we provide a dynamic model of aid disbursement, emphasizing how foreign aid can positively be expected to influence the promotion of human rights in the pre-allocation (initial) as well as post-allocation (subsequent) phase(s). We propose two main mechanisms through which this occurs—conditionality (as a form of hard power) and norm diffusion (as a form of soft power). To test our theory, we provide a time-series cross-sectional analysis of 121 aid-receiving countries over a period of 20 years, 2002–2021. In line with our theoretical expectation, the analysis reveals a positive and statistically significant association between Official Development Assistance (ODA) from OECD/DAC countries and the protection of physical integrity and civil liberties, illustrating the ways in which the international community can indeed play an important and positive role in protecting and promoting human rights.

Keywords

foreign aid human rights physical integrity civil liberties conditionality norm diffusion

Introduction

On December 10, 2023, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly in the aftermath of World War II—celebrated its 75th anniversary. Sadly, the 75th anniversary has been paralleled not by the effective protection and promotion of human rights but by what Human Rights Watch (2024) has labeled a “global rights crisis,” with the last couple of years witnessing some of the bloodiest, most disastrous developments in terms of human rights abuse in recent history. Unceasing conflict in the Middle East and renewed conflict between different factions in Sudan continue to cause tremendous suffering—as does Russia’s full-scale invasive war against Ukraine, and conflicts in, among other places, Myanmar, Yemen, and the Sahel (Amnesty International 2023; Human Rights Watch 2023). In Iran, 2022 and 2025 both ended with waves of mass protests for fundamental rights—to which the Iranian government responded with grave human rights violations, including the use of excessive and lethal force, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, sham trials, and unlawful imprisonments (Amnesty International 2023, 2026; Human Rights Watch 2023). In addition, across the world, human rights abuses against women, girls, and LGBT people have gained new momentum, as exemplified by the revival of the Taliban’s gender persecution in Afghanistan and the adoption of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in Uganda in May 2023 (Human Rights Watch 2024).

In the light of increasing human rights violations, concerns have been raised regarding the effectiveness of the human rights framework. Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights brings with it a clear obligation to protect and promote human rights, many human rights and civil society organizations have directed critique against what they portray as a lukewarm endorsement of the human rights framework by the international community (cf. Human Rights Watch 2024).

Notwithstanding this critique, however, since the end of the Cold War, human rights have been at the center stage for international and bilateral cooperation (Magesan 2013). At least on the rhetorical level, the majority of Western donors demand respect for human rights in return for foreign aid (Carnegie and Marinov 2017; Dunning 2004). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights instruments moreover constitute the very starting point for the 2030 Agenda. In line with this, the World Bank (1998) proclaims: “The World Bank believes that creating the conditions for the attainment of human rights is a central and irreducible goal of development.” Protecting and promoting human rights is a key priority also of EU external action as the EU has “a firm political commitment to integrate human rights principles into development activities with partner countries” (European Commission 2025). The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) similarly identifies human rights as “a perspective that should permeate all development cooperation” (Sida 2024).

Yet, although most Western donors put human rights at the forefront of foreign aid, the actual influence of aid on human rights remains largely unknown. Instead, the previous literature has mainly been concerned with the opposite causal relationship—that is, how human rights influence aid flows (Alesina and Dollar 2000; Capellán and Gomez 2007; Dietrich and Murdie 2017; Lebovic and Voeten 2009; Magesan 2013; Neumayer 2003; Nielsen 2013; Schmaljohann 2013). The few empirical studies that do indeed explore the influence of foreign aid on human rights have typically focused only on a limited number of countries, time scope, or aid sectors, leaving the majority of empirical observations outside the analysis. Alternatively, they have focused not specifically on the impact of foreign aid on human rights but on related areas, particularly democracy—if yet with inconclusive results pertaining to the sign of the effect (Askarov and Doucouliagos 2013; Carnegie and Marinov 2017; Dijkstra 2018; Gafuri 2022; Kersting and Kilby 2014).

Against the backdrop of this knowledge gap, this study provides a theoretical framework as well as an empirical assessment of how foreign aid influences the respect and promotion of human rights in recipient countries. More specifically, conceptualizing aid as a foreign policy tool, we develop a theoretical framework which outlines how foreign aid can be expected to positively influence human rights in the pre-allocation (initial) as well as post-allocation (subsequent) phase(s) of aid disbursement, through the mechanisms of conditionality (as a form of hard power) and norm diffusion (as a form of soft power). Due to methodological and data limitations, the influence of foreign aid on human rights in the pre-allocation phase of the aid cycle does not lend itself easily to systematic empirical investigation but can at this stage be assessed only through theoretical reasoning and qualitative illustrations. That said, this study offers the so far most comprehensive empirical account of the association between foreign aid and human rights in terms of both the number of countries included and the time period covered. More specifically, we employ a time-series cross-sectional statistical analysis of the post-allocation influence of foreign aid—in the form of OECD/DAC Official Development Assistance (ODA)—on human rights—operationalized as the right to physical integrity and civil liberties—in 121 aid-receiving countries, covering all years for which data are available (2002–2021).

The results of the analysis indicate a positive association between foreign aid and respect for both physical integrity and civil liberties, demonstrating the importance of foreign aid in protecting and promoting human rights and preventing human suffering. Yet, the observed influence of aid in the post-allocation phase is short-lived, which calls for the further dialogue about how foreign aid can best be designed to help protect and promote human rights even after the initial “shock” to aid dissipates (cf. Carnegie and Marinov 2017). The results moreover warrant a further discussion about in what phase of the aid cycle donors indeed have the greatest potential to influence recipient countries’ human rights records. In our theoretical framework, we develop the argument that aid can potentially positively influence human rights in both the pre-allocation (initial) and post-allocation (subsequent) phase(s) of the aid cycle. In the pre-allocation phase, potential aid recipients are expected to increase the protection and promotion of human rights as an anticipatory response to the international human rights regime promoted by powerful donors in order to receive aid in the first place (in the context of an international aid regime defined by asymmetric power relations), as well as the result of norm diffusion. In the post-allocation phase, the positive impact of foreign aid on human rights is expected after the aid is allocated, as a direct response by recipient countries to donor conditionality and norm diffusion. The diminishing influence of aid revealed in the statistical analysis of the post-allocation phase might suggest that foreign aid has an even stronger influence on human rights in the pre-allocation phase. Yet, whether this is indeed the case is for future studies to explore.

The remainder of the paper proceeds as follows. The next section offers a review of previous studies on the relationship between foreign aid and human rights. In the section after that we present our theoretical framework. In developing our theoretical framework, we build on some well-established ideas in aid scholarship, particularly the importance of conditionality and norm diffusion in shaping the outcomes of aid. Yet, a main contribution of our study is that we, quite different from most previous studies, integrate both these mechanisms in a unitary theoretical framework, pointing to how they constitute important tools of hard respectively soft power in the foreign policy repertoire of donors. Moreover, quite different from the majority of previous studies, which have mainly been concerned with how aid influences outcomes after it has been allocated, our theoretical framework explicitly recognizes how aid is likely to have a positive influence on human rights also before it has actually been allocated. This is argued to happen by way of recipients’ anticipatory response to powerful Western human rights norms in a context of asymmetrical power relations, with the donor ultimately making the decisions about aid allocation. After having presented our theoretical framework, the subsequent section provides a discussion on methodology and data. The results of the analysis are then presented, followed by a concluding discussion on the role of foreign aid in the protection and promotion of human rights.

State of the Art: Previous Studies on Foreign Aid and Human Rights

The lion’s share of previous empirical work on the relationship between foreign aid and human rights has focused either on the reverse relationship than the one in focus of this paper—that is, how human rights influence the allocation of foreign aid, including aid sanctioning and aid rewarding (Alesina and Dollar 2000; Capellán and Gomez 2007; Dietrich and Murdie 2017; Lebovic and Voeten 2009; Magesan 2013; Neumayer 2003; Nielsen 2013; Schmaljohann 2013)—or how foreign aid influences related but yet distinct governance outcomes, particularly democracy (Askarov and Doucouliagos 2013; Blanken et al. 2025; Dijkstra 2018; Djankov et al. 2008; Dunning 2004; Gafuri 2022, 2024; Jones and Tarp 2016; Kersting and Kilby, 2014; Knack 2004; Young and Sheehan 2014).

The studies looking into the reverse relationship—that is, the impact of human rights on foreign aid—provide mixed findings as regards whether donors actually allocate aid based on the respect of human rights, such as they would typically claim, or if they rather allocate aid based on other interests or concerns. Analyzing the causes of aid allocation, studies by Alesina and Dollar (2000), Dietrich and Murdie (2017), Lebovic and Voeten (2009), Neumayer (2003), and Nielsen (2013) find that strategic considerations guided by other concerns—such as “realpolitik,” political alliances, donor goals, and the power position of donors—seem to be more important for aid allocation than respect for human rights. In line with this, Nielsen and Simmons (2015) find no evidence of that states are rewarded with foreign aid after human rights treaty ratification. Neumayer (2003) and Capellán and Gomez (2007) even find evidence of that states that show less respect for human rights seem to receive more aid.

Yet, other studies support donors in their claim. For instance, Lebovic and Voeten (2009) find that “human rights blaming”—that is, when human rights organizations direct public attention to human rights violations—leads to multilateral institutions allocating less aid to the responsible government. Dietrich and Murdie (2017) similarly find that human rights blaming have consequences for, if not the amount of aid, at least for the direction of funds, with human rights blaming leading to aid being redirected from state actors to non-state actors. There are moreover studies showing that countries are not only punished when failing to protect and promote human rights but also rewarded when they successfully protect such rights. Countries that show greater respect for civil and political rights have been found to be more likely to receive aid (Alesina and Dollar 2000; Neumayer 2003; Nielsen 2013). Similarly, ratification of human rights treaties has been found to result in higher inflows of foreign aid (Magesan 2013; Schmaljohann 2013).

The existing empirical evidence regarding the influence of foreign aid on human rights is typically limited in terms of the number of donors and recipients included, as well as in terms of the time frame. As such, it remains inconclusive in terms of general relationships and implications. Studying the effect of US aid on the level of repression in recipient countries, Gibler (2008) finds a positive effect of aid on human rights in the initial phase of the aid cycle, especially in “Partly free” countries (cf. Freedom House Index), through the mechanism of high opportunity costs. Kiyani (2022) shows how U.S. aid impacts human rights especially in autocratic regimes, through two key mechanisms: the strategic importance of the recipient to the U.S. and the strategic substitution of visible human rights abuses with less visible violations by autocratic leaders to attract or maintain aid. According to Kiyani, autocrats often rely on repression to maintain power but risk losing U.S. aid if their human rights records are poor. To navigate this dilemma, such regimes may thus replace overt violations, such as killings, with less visible tactics, including forced disappearances and covert surveillance. This strategic substitution enables them to suppress dissent, while at the same time reducing the risk of aid withdrawal. However, the substitution effect diminishes when the U.S. has strategic interests in a recipient country, as autocrats in such cases expect to receive aid regardless. In a study of EU foreign aid, Carnegie and Marinov (2017) find a positive, if yet diminishing, effect of aid on human rights in recipient countries, pointing to conditionality as the main mechanism behind this. Similarly, Cole (2022) finds that US foreign aid is somewhat effective in boosting human rights, at least in recent decades. In line with this, using longitudinal analysis on a sample of 120 aid-receiving countries between 1981 and 2011, Wei and Swiss (2022) find that foreign aid has a significant effect on reducing human rights decoupling, i.e., the mismatch between human rights treaty ratification and the actual protection and promotion of human rights.

By way of conclusion, although some previous studies have explored the influence of foreign aid on the protection and promotion of human rights, such studies remain scarce. Moreover, due to limitations in the scope of these previous studies—in terms of both the donors and countries studied and the time periods covered—our general knowledge of the role of foreign aid in the protection and promotion of human rights remains sparse.

It is against this backdrop this paper offers the most comprehensive statistical analysis of the impact of foreign aid on human rights to date in terms of the donors, recipients, and time frame covered. The next section provides the basis for this analysis by presenting our novel and comprehensive theoretical framework, which outlines how foreign aid can be expected to positively influence human rights in the pre-allocation as well as post-allocation phase, through the main mechanisms of conditionality and norm diffusion.

Foreign Aid and Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework

At the most basic level, foreign aid can be understood in terms of a transaction that “is administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective” (OECD 2025). Although some negotiation might take place (cf. Cheeseman et al. 2024), in an international context characterized by asymmetrical power relations between donors and (potential) aid recipients, donors ultimately decide which countries will receive aid, the amount and type of aid provided, the time frame in which aid is given, and the channel of aid delivery (cf. Apodaca 2017; Stokke 1995). As such, we hold, foreign aid constitutes also an important foreign policy tool in the hands of powerful donors.

Following Joseph Nye, as a foreign policy tool, aid can be expected to influence political outcomes and developments by the means of both hard and soft power (cf. Blair et al. 2022). Hard power refers to the ability to reach one’s goals through coercive actions or threats, the so-called “carrots” and “sticks” of international politics (Nye 1990). Soft power is instead understood as “the ability to shape the preference of others through a broad sense of attraction rather than specific incentives or sanctions” (Nye and Power 2004, 5).

As described below, we expect Western foreign aid to have a positive influence on human rights through the means of both hard and soft power. This approach differs from the majority of previous studies, which have tended to focus on either or of these two sets of means. Moreover, quite different from most previous studies—which have mainly focused on the influence of aid after it has been allocated (see Stokke 1995; Cheeseman et al. 2024 for a further discussion on this), we expect aid to have a positive influence in both what we call the pre-allocation, i.e., initial, phase of aid disbursement, and in what we call the post-allocation, i.e., subsequent, phase(s) of aid disbursement. The pre-allocation phase of aid disbursement is in this context understood as the initial phase in which donors decide what countries should be eligible for aid in the first place. The post-allocation phase on the other hand refers to any subsequent phase(s) of aid disbursement, in which donors decide what countries should continue to get aid, and what countries should rather have their aid withdrawn or suspended (cf. Cheeseman et al. 2024; Stokke 1995).

As a tool of hard power, as emphasized by Apodaca (2017), foreign aid can be provided to a recipient country as either a reward for a certain behavior, or as an inducement to change behavior. In the aid literature, the use of aid as “carrots” and “sticks” in this way is commonly referred to as conditionality (cf. Stokke 1995). As described by (Stokke 1995, 12; cf. Koch 2015, Gafuri 2022), conditionality attached to foreign aid is associated with state-to-state relations as well as international agency-to-state relations; the donor sets certain conditions to be met by the recipient either as a prerequisite for entering into an aid agreement in the first place (i.e., ex-ante conditionality, being present in the initial, pre-allocation phase of the aid cycle), or for keeping up aid once aid has been allocated to a particular country (i.e., ex-post conditionality, being present in the subsequent, post-allocation phase(s) of the aid cycle). With ex-ante conditionality, the interest of the potential aid recipient in receiving the aid in the first place is used by the donor as a lever for desired behavior change (cf. Checkel, 2000; Fierro, 2002; Koch, 2015). The leverage mechanisms in ex-post conditionality instead relates to the interest of the aid recipient in upscaling, continuing, or resuming beneficial cooperation with the donor to ensure continued aid flows. In short, as argued by Koch (2015), whereas in ex-post political conditionality, respect for human rights is the objective, in ex-ante conditionality human rights represent a precondition. As such, foreign aid is used as a lever to promote objectives set by the donor which the recipient state would not otherwise have agreed to. In case the (potential) aid recipient does not agree with the donor’s conditions, there is a risk that aid is either not allocated in the first place, or that it is withdrawn or suspended. The prospect and presence of aid is thus as important for development as is the absence and potential withdrawal or suspension of aid (cf. Cheeseman et al. 2024). Not only do (potential) aid recipients respond to the (potential) granting of bilateral and multilateral aid as a positive incentive, but the threat of aid withdrawal or suspension moreover serves as an effective deterrent (Apodaca 2017; cf. Fierro, 2002 on positive versus negative conditionality). As such, both the (potential) granting and the (potential) denial of foreign aid can be a valuable instrument by donors to modify a recipient state’s behavior.

In line with the above discussion, since the end of the Cold War, it has become increasingly more common for Western donors to condition aid on respect for human rights (as well as other aspects of good governance) (cf. Carnegie and Marinov 2017; Cheeseman et al. 2024; Dunning 2004; Gafuri 2022; Stokke 1995). For instance, the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, passed in 1975, conditions all U.S. aid on the respect for human rights (Knack 2004). Similarly, the European Union has conditioned aid on human rights since 1995, first through the Lomé Convention, and later on through the Cotonou Agreement, which was adopted in 2000, and which further served to establish the procedural framework for EU conditionality in relation to human rights, including the right to suspend aid in case recipient countries violate such rights (European Union 2022). The EU has, for instance, employed article 96 under the Cotonou Agreement to apply political pressure in response to human rights violations in, among other countries, Fiji, Zimbabwe, the Central African Republic, Guinea Bissau, Togo, Madagascar, Burundi, Uganda, Syria, Ethiopia, and Belarus. Several other major donors, including Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada, and Germany, also have a history of conditioning aid on respect for human rights (cf. Dasandi 2022; Dasandi and Erez 2023). When, in 2009, the Ugandan parliament passed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (AHB), which sought to strengthen the country’s already very strict anti-sodomy laws by introducing new provisions that further targeted the rights of LGBT people, several Western donors, including United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, and the EU, threatened to suspend aid if the Ugandan government did not reject the bill (Dasandi 2022; Dasandi and Erez 2023). On August 8, 2023, The World Bank similarly issued a statement announcing that it had effectively suspended all new funding to Uganda over concerns with the country’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act, since it “fundamentally contradicts the World Bank Group’s values” (World Bank 2023).

Important to note in the discussion about conditionality is that, while there is consensus in the literature that strategic considerations constitute a major constraint to conditionality in practice (cf. Dunning 2004; Lebovic and Voeten 2009; Nielsen 2013), as emphasized by Swedlund (2017), there is widespread evidence of that conditionality is at play even in situations characterized by competing donor interests, including geopolitical ones. The use of conditionality despite donors’ conflicting interests is, in addition to human rights being a strong Western norm, probably driven in part also by other interests and concerns, including national political interests. Studies show that citizens in Western donor countries typically have a very strong preference for conditioning foreign aid on good governance, including respect for human rights (cf. Fisher 2015; Swedlund 2017). In addition, human rights are widely expected to increase the effectiveness of aid, by lowering the risk for aid capture, and allowing for greater accountability, transparency, and control of financing (Alesina and Dollar 2000; Cole 2015b; Dietrich and Winters 2021; Douch et al., 2022; Neumayer 2003; Rajan and Subramanian 2007). As such, human rights help ensure that donors get “value for money” (cf. OECD, 2006).

That said, it is however not only through coercive, hard power, donors can influence the behavior of recipient states. As a foreign policy actor, we argue, there is reason to believe that donors might moreover influence recipients by way of soft power, particularly through norm diffusion (cf. Checkel 2001; Nye 1990; Pevehouse 2002; Risse et al. 1999).

Following Nye’s definition (2004, 5), as aforementioned, soft power can be understood as “the ability to shape the preference of others through a broad sense of attraction rather than specific incentives or sanctions.” This can be expected to happen via a variety of channels. Foreign aid can serve to broker connections between donors and recipients, facilitating the transmission of cultural norms and policy templates from the former to the latter (cf. Dawson and Swiss 2020; Swiss 2016a, 2016b; Wei and Swiss 2022). In a context of asymmetrical power relations, donor countries could moreover be expected to serve as models for recipient countries to emulate (cf. Swiss 2016a). In addition, donors could be expected to influence recipient countries through mainstreaming, i.e., the incorporation of a certain perspective into the design, implementation, and evaluation of all aid projects (cf. Dietrich et al., 2025). Donors may also promote a particular norm through specific projects (cf. OECD 2006). In short, as Rich (2004, 322) points out, “donor values are embedded in ODA,” but “the inculcation of donor values is rarely put in the form of overt conditionality. It is simply part of the package.”

Since the end of the Cold War, even though not all Western donors explicitly condition aid on human rights, they all embrace the international human rights framework, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Swiss 2018). Being powerful actors on the global arena, Western donors should as such be expected to have an important role in transmitting the global norm pertaining to human rights to the countries in which they are active. Indeed, today, most major Western donors systematically integrate human rights principles and standards into development cooperation procedures (cf. Smidt et al. 2024). The European Union and its member states, for instance, request that human rights “principles should be rigorously applied throughout programming, design and implementation and across all sectors” (European Commission 2021, 8, see also European Commission 2025). Similarly, all major bilateral aid, including Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, British, French, German, and Canadian aid, is carried out in line with a so-called human rights-based approach (HRBA). The human rights-based approach is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights (United Nations 2023). In line with this approach, for example The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) identifies human rights as “a perspective that should permeate all development cooperation” (Sida 2024).

In sum, based on the above discussion, we expect foreign aid to have a positive effect on human rights in recipient countries in the pre-allocation as well as post-allocation phase of the aid disbursement cycle, through the mechanisms of conditionality and norm diffusion. In the pre-allocation phase—that is, the initial phase of the aid allocation cycle, in which donors decide whether a particular country should be eligible for aid in the first place (cf. Koch 2015; Stokke 1995)—we expect that potential aid recipients will increase their respect for human rights, in an anticipatory response to the powerful Western human rights regime, as put into effect by the ex-ante conditionality and normative framework promoted by Western donors. In the post-allocation phase—that is, the subsequent phase(s) of the aid allocation cycle, in which donors decide whether a particular country should continue to get aid or if aid should rather be withdrawn or suspended (cf. Koch 2015; Stokke 1995)—we expect that recipient countries will increase their respect for human rights as a direct response to the aid provided, through the mechanisms of ex-post conditionality and norm diffusion.

With the point of departure in our theoretical framework, while recognizing that other factors, such as geopolitical or other interests, might intervene in the ways in which donor conditionality and norms pertaining to human rights are put into effect and transmitted in practice, we formulate and subsequently test the following hypothesis about the impact of foreign aid on human rights:¹

Western foreign aid is likely to have a positive influence on human rights in recipient countries, ceteris paribus.

Method, Measurements, and Data

To investigate the influence of foreign aid on human rights is a demanding task, not least since any potential positive impact of foreign aid is theorized to be happening not only after but also before aid has actually been allocated. Moreover, there are many country- and context-specific factors that could potentially influence respect for human rights. In addition, as in any other study attempting to establish causality, endogeneity concerns are always present.

To empirically distinguish the causal influence of foreign aid pre-allocation is unfortunately beyond the methodological scope of this paper. That said, this study still takes on a comprehensive approach to assess the association between foreign aid and human rights. More specifically, we conduct a time-series cross-sectional statistical analysis, using fixed effects, covering 121 aid-receiving countries over 20 years (2002–2021).² We include year dummies to account for global trends, shocks, or other time-varying factors that may affect all countries in a given year. To our knowledge, this is the most ambitious analysis of the association between foreign aid and human rights undertaken so far, as it covers a larger number of countries, a longer time span, and a broader coverage of aid than any previous study. The use of fixed effects allows us to account for the heterogeneity of the units of analysis and thus allows for the control of unobserved explanatory variables and differences within the countries, such as culture and other time-invariant contextual factors (Mehmetoglu and Jakobsen 2022). We additionally run the Hausmann test.³ Following previous research on foreign aid, which suggests that aid is likely to have an influence with a 1-year delay due to the time required for project implementation, we lag the variables accordingly (Gafuri 2022).

Important to note is that, although the focus of this study is on the influence of foreign aid on human rights, we acknowledge that the relationship is likely to be dynamic over time. Therefore, since we use observational data, while our theoretical framework is causal, we refrain from making empirical causal claims.

Operationalizations and Measurements

The analysis is based on data from three main sources: The Quality of Government (QoG) time-series cross-sectional dataset (Teorell et al. 2016), The Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) time-series dataset version 12 (Coppedge et al. 2024), and the OECD’s Crediting Reporting System (CRS) Aid Activity dataset (OECD 2023).⁴

Dependent Variable: Respect for Human Rights

To measure human rights is not a straightforward task. While some previous studies have used human rights treaty ratifications as a measure of human rights, some significant reservations have been made regarding the use of such a measure (Goodliffe and Hawkins 2006). In particular, it has been argued that ratification can be, and is to a significant extent also used, as a substitute for actual “good” behavior (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005; Hathaway 2001; Keith 1999; Schmaljohann 2013). Cole (2015a, 360) has even argued that “perhaps nowhere is decoupling [i.e., the mismatch between formal practices or policies and the actual use or implementation of these (Wei and Swiss 2022)] more pronounced or better documented than in the international human rights regime.” Ratification has even been found to have a negative impact on domestic human rights institutions (Magesan 2013), particularly in autocracies, where it has been associated with a larger number of human rights violations (Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui 2005; Neumayer 2005).

Against this backdrop, we operationalize human rights using two distinct measurements of respect for human rights, which together capture the core of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, namely, respect for physical integrity rights and respect for civil liberties.

To capture respect for physical integrity rights we use the physical violence index from the V-Dem time-series dataset (Coppedge et al. 2024). This index measures the extent to which physical integrity rights are respected. It is constructed by averaging two indicators that capture two different aspects of physical integrity: freedom from torture⁵ and freedom from political killings.⁶ Both indicators focus on political terror carried out by the government or its agents. The variable ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 displays low respect for physical integrity and 1 represents the highest form of respect.

Using the physical violence index is favorable since physical integrity rights can be considered the rights closest to the very core of the UDHR, corresponding to Articles 3, 5 and 6 in the UDHR (United Nations 2023). Overall, these rights enjoy a more undeniable status (Neumayer 2003), which makes them relevant. Additionally, the V-Dem data focuses on actual practices rather than just legal or constitutional rights, which is advantageous since it gives a better indication of the scope of “on the ground” human rights violations in a country. Another strength of the V-Dem physical violence index is that it is based on expert assessments, rather than self-reported information. This is conducive to the validity of the results, as it helps avoid systematic measurement errors—for instance, countries with worse human rights records are more likely to underreport human rights violations compared to countries with stronger protections, which tend to be more transparent. To have an initial focus on physical integrity rights is of importance since they lay the foundation for the ability to exercise other human rights. People who do not feel that their physical integrity is protected—who live in fear of, for example, forced disappearances, unlawful imprisonments, torture, or political murder—are severely being deprived of the possibility and freedom to exercise other rights, such as the right to speak, move, demonstrate, or organize freely.⁷

That said, the right to physical integrity can be understood as the most basic right as it is negatively defined. To broaden the analysis, in line with previous research (Neumayer 2005) we thus include also a second dependent variable—respect for civil liberties. Again, this index is constructed using two indicators from the V-Dem time-series dataset (Coppedge et al. 2024; Pemstein et al. 2018); the private civil liberties index⁸ and the political civil liberties index,⁹ which respond to Articles 4, 13, 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the UDHR (United Nations 2023). We combine these variables into an index by summarizing the two variables and rescaling the new index from 0 to 1, where 0 means low respect for civil liberties and 1 represents high respect. Like the other key dependent variable, this index reflects the government’s respect for human rights rather than just constitutional and legal rights. In line with the reasoning of previous studies (see Neumayer 2005), we do not include political rights in the analysis, since such rights can be considered closer to the concept of democracy than that of human rights and do as such not relate very closely to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the end, by combining the physical violence index and the civil liberties index, we believe that our analysis provides a broad and complementary measure of respect for human rights. That said, recognizing the limitations of any single index, we complement our main analysis with robustness tests using alternative, prominent datasets covering human rights. More specifically, we use human rights scores from the CIRIGHTS Data Project, which provides annual measures of government respect for a wide range of internationally recognized human rights and physical integrity indices; the Fariss latent human rights scores, which estimate states’ overall human rights performance using a dynamic latent variable model; and the International SERF Index, which evaluates countries’ fulfillment of core economic and social rights relative to their available resources (Cingranelli et al., 2014; Fariss, 2014; Fariss et al., 2020; Randolph et al., 2025) (see Table A21–A25 in the Appendix). As demonstrated in the section covering robustness checks, across these alternative measures, our key results remain substantively the same.

Independent Variable: Foreign Aid

To empirically capture foreign aid, we use gross disbursements of all Official Development Assistance (ODA) from all sectors and all OECD DAC donors and multilateral development institutions in the OECD’s CRS Aid Activity dataset (OECD 2023). ODA is the main source of financing for foreign aid and is defined by the OECD as “government aid that promotes and specifically targets the economic development and welfare of development countries” (OECD 2025). ODA includes grants as well as soft (concessionary) loans, and is disbursed to various sectors, including health, education, governance, and civil society. It excludes military aid, as well as loans with primarily commercial objectives. We use disbursements of—rather than commitments to—aid since this measure captures actual financial transfers to recipient countries.

For a more intuitive comparison of the influence of foreign aid across recipient countries, we use foreign aid per capita, following studies by Askarov and Doucouliagos (2013), Gafuri (2022) and Blanken et al. (2025). We calculate foreign aid per capita by dividing the Official Development Assistance (ODA) received by the population, derived from the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2022). We then divide the result by a thousand. Since there are no strong theoretical differences predicted as regards the impact of aid from bilateral and multilateral donors on human rights, we do not differentiate between bilateral and multilateral aid in the analysis. The study does not include ODA from private donors and non-DAC donors. We additionally present results using the log of aid per capita, with a value of 1 added to avoid taking the logarithm of zero (Table A12–A13 in the Appendix).

One question that needs to be taken into consideration is to what extent ODA—as compared to aid specifically targeted to promote human rights—should be expected to be relevant for the protection of human rights, or if it might be too harsh of a test of our hypothesis—that is, that foreign aid is likely to have a positive influence on human rights, ceteris paribus. Because of several different reasons we do not expect this to be the case. To begin with, as aforementioned, there is a general expectation—not least among major donors, such as the World Bank—that all aid should be permeated by and promote human rights principles. Moreover, looking at the figures, in 2021 the total ODA from both DAC and multilateral donors disbursed to what the OECD defines as “developing countries” was 205.561.395 million US dollars, whereas the total ODA for the specific sector “Human Rights” delivered to developing countries was 1.130.283 million US dollars, i.e., a mere 0.55 percent of total ODA (OECD 2023). The small part of the total ODA that the human rights sector represents cannot be expected to carry all of the effect of ODA on human rights, but based on existing theories, there is reason to believe that even the non-targeted ODA should have an effect on human rights. That said, we still run additional tests with aid that targets only human rights (see Appendix A13–A20).

Control Variables

Following previous studies on foreign aid and human rights we include several control variables: (1) Conflict; (2) State Capacity; (3) Democracy; (4) Economic development; (5) Control of Corruption; (6) Infant mortality, and; (7) State Authority.

Conflict is a control variable commonly used in foreign aid and human rights studies since involvement in conflict can be expected to have a negative impact on respect for human rights (Gafuri 2022). Moreover, it can be considered of importance for aid inflows, as the level of need tends to be guiding in aid allocations, and a country in conflict is likely to be in greater need. To empirically capture Conflict, we create an index of two variables from the UCDP Dyadic dataset (retrieved from the QoG standard dataset); the internal armed conflict variable and the interstate armed conflict variable (Davies et al. 2022; Gleditsch et al. 2002; Pettersson 2020). Conflict is a binary index coded as 1 if either internal or interstate armed conflict is present, and 0 otherwise.

State capacity is a factor with a potential positive influence on the respect for human rights, as well as on the management of aid inflows (Cole 2015b; Dietrich and Murdie 2017; Persson et al. 2025; Rajan and Subramanian 2007; Vaccaro 2023). To account for state capacity, we use the government effectiveness variable from the World Bank’s Worldwide Indicators of Governance (Kaufmann and Kraay 2010), sourced from the QoG dataset (Teorell et al., 2023). This variable focuses on the government’s ability to produce and implement good policies and deliver public goods.¹⁰ We rescaled the variable to a 0–1 scale for easier interpretation, with 0 representing the lowest government effectiveness and 1 representing the highest government effectiveness.

Democracy is expected to have a positive influence on human rights as well as aid inflows (Alesina and Dollar 2000; Nielsen 2013). Yet, given the aim of this study, democracy is somewhat problematic to include in the analysis since democracy indices often include civil liberties and thus correlate too closely with our dependent variable.¹¹ Hence, our analysis controls only for free and fair elections (which is a cornerstone of any democratic system), using the clean elections index from the V-Dem time-series dataset (Coppedge et al. 2024; Pemstein et al. 2018). The measure ranges from 0 to 1, 0 indicating that elections are not free and fair, and 1 indicating that elections are fully free and fair (i.e., free from registration fraud, systemic irregularities, government intimidation of the opposition, vote buying and election violence).

Economic development is expected to have a negative effect on aid allocation (richer countries are typically not eligible for foreign aid), but a positive effect on human rights. To control for economic development, we use GDP per capita. GDP per capita is often used to control for economic development, not least because it is highly correlated with other development outcomes such as life expectancy and literacy (Neumayer 2003). We pick the GDP per capita variable from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (World Bank 2022), accessed through the QoG dataset (Teorell et al. 2023). The variable is re-calculated from 2015 to 2020 US dollars to correspond with the aid data. A logged version of the variable is used to deal with abnormal distribution of observations.¹² To further control for economic development, we moreover include a control for GDP growth rate, which is expected to have a positive effect on respect for human rights. Even this variable is taken from the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2022), accessed through the QoG dataset (Teorell et al. 2023). The measure displays the annual percentage growth rate of GDP at market prices, based on constant local currency.

We additionally include the World Bank’s indicator Control of Corruption, which measures perceptions of corruption, defined as the abuse of public power for private gain. The indicator captures different aspects of corruption in line with this definition, including the frequency of bribes, the impact of corruption on business, grand level corruption, and elite attempts to manipulate the state (“state capture”). Low scores indicate weak control of corruption, while high scores indicate stronger control (Coppedge et al. 2024).

Another factor that is associated with human rights is infant mortality, which is expected to have a positive impact on foreign aid and a negative impact on human rights. The variable is picked from the World Development Indicators (World Bank 2022), accessed through the QoG standard dataset (Teorell et al. 2023), and indicates the probability of dying between birth and age 1, per 1,000 live births.

We in addition control for the extent to which a state has effective control over its territory, or if state authority is rejected by, for example, parts of the population, insurgent groups, or criminal organizations. This variable is collected from the V-Dem time-series dataset and indicates the percentage of officially recognized land under government authority (Coppedge et al. 2024). The measure runs from 0 to 100, higher scores indicating the state’s greater control over territory. Similar to democracy scores and the state capacity index, we expect that greater territorial control is positively associated with human rights.

Table A1 in the Appendix presents the descriptive statistics for all control variables.

Data Descriptives and Correlations

In terms of developments in our key variables over time, Figure 1 shows that there has been a steady improvement in human rights from 2001 to 2012. However, since 2012, quite in line with the “global rights crisis” described by Human Rights Watch (2024), we can observe a sharp decline in human rights scores captured by both the Physical Violence Index and the Civil Liberties Index. While the Physical Violence Index seems to have improved more significantly over time, the subsequent decrease has been sharper.

Figure 1.

Physical violence index and civil liberties index over time, 2002–2021.

Looking at foreign aid trends, the OECD reports that between 2002 and 2021, DAC countries’ bilateral ODA almost tripled in volume while multilateral ODA doubled (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Average score per year across all countries for “foreign aid per capita” over time, 2002–2021.

When it comes to the question what countries received most foreign aid from Western donors, Figure 3 shows the amount of foreign aid by political regime as defined by the Regimes of the World typology: closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies (See Lührmann et al. 2018a). The largest amount of aid goes to electoral autocracies and electoral democracies. This is sensible, as these are contexts in which Western donors are likely to have more leeway to make a change (cf. Lührmann et al. 2018b).

Figure 3.

Total foreign aid per year by regime, between 2002 and 2021.

Figures 4 and 5 show the relationship between foreign aid and human rights (respect for physical integrity and civil liberties, respectively) for the period 2002–2021, revealing a positive correlation between the two factors. We ran additional analyses excluding the four outlier countries as shown in Figures 4 and 5, namely, São Tomé and Príncipe, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Cape Verde, and our results did not change (see Tables A10–A11 in the Appendix).

Figure 4.

Physical integrity/foreign aid per capita.

Figure 5.

Civil liberties/foreign aid per capita.

Results

The results from the time-series cross-sectional statistical analysis point to a positive influence of foreign aid on human rights, using the physical integrity and civil liberty indices, respectively, as the main dependent variables (Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1.

The association between foreign aid per capita and physical violence index (lagged by one year)

	Dependent variable
	Physical violence index
	(1)	(2)	(3)
Aid per capita (t-1)	0.164^**	0.179^***	0.116^**
Aid per capita (t-1)	(0.067)	(0.066)	(0.048)
GDP growth (t-1)		0.0004	−0.0001
GDP growth (t-1)		(0.001)	(0.001)
Log GDP per capita (t-1)		0.062	0.004
Log GDP per capita (t-1)		(0.043)	(0.037)
Gov. effectiveness (t-1)			−0.111
Gov. effectiveness (t-1)			(0.096)
Free/fair elections (t-1)			0.263^***
Free/fair elections (t-1)			(0.049)
Conflict dummy (t-1)			−0.026^**
Conflict dummy (t-1)			(0.013)
Infant mortality (t-1)			−0.001
Infant mortality (t-1)			(0.001)
World Bank:Corruption control (t-1)			0.059^**
World Bank:Corruption control (t-1)			(0.025)
State control territority (t-1)			0.003^***
State control territority (t-1)			(0.001)
N	2,359	2,279	2,275
R2 (within)	0.018	0.03	0.189
Observations	2,359	2,279	2,275
R²	0.018	0.030	0.189
Adjusted R²	−0.048	−0.037	0.130
F statistic	2.093^*** (df = 19; 2,211)	3.087^*** (df = 21; 2,131)	18.268^*** (df = 27; 2,121)

Note. ^*p < .1; ^**p < .05; ^***p < .01.

All models include country and year fixed effects. Year dummies are omitted from the table.

Table 2.

The association between foreign aid per capita and civil liberties index (lagged by one year)

	Dependent variable
	Civil liberties index
	(4)	(5)	(6)
Aid per capita (t-1)	0.143^***	0.148^***	0.069^**
Aid per capita (t-1)	(0.046)	(0.047)	(0.031)
GDP growth (t-1)		0.0001	−0.0002
GDP growth (t-1)		(0.0004)	(0.0003)
Log GDP per capita (t-1)		0.002	−0.015
Log GDP per capita (t-1)		(0.043)	(0.033)
Gov. effectiveness (t-1)			−0.124^*
Gov. effectiveness (t-1)			(0.069)
Free/fair elections (t-1)			0.276^***
Free/fair elections (t-1)			(0.041)
Conflict dummy (t-1)			−0.021^**
Conflict dummy (t-1)			(0.010)
Infant mortality (t-1)			0.001
Infant mortality (t-1)			(0.001)
World Bank: Corruption control (t-1)			0.027
World Bank: Corruption control (t-1)			(0.017)
State control territority (t-1)			0.001
State control territority (t-1)			(0.001)
N	2,359	2,279	2,275
R2 (within)	0.053	0.051	0.276
Observations	2,359	2,279	2,275
R²	0.053	0.051	0.276
Adjusted R²	−0.010	−0.015	0.224
F statistic	6.547^*** (df = 19; 2,211)	5.433^*** (df = 21; 2,131)	29.976^*** (df = 27; 2,121)

Note. ^*p < .1; ^**p < .05; ^***p < .01.

All models include country and year fixed effects. Year dummies are omitted from the table.

Table 1 presents the results of fixed-effects regressions with respect for physical integrity as the main dependent variable, using 1-year lags. In the Appendix, we additionally include regression models with 1–4-year lags (see Tables A1–A4).

Model 1 shows the bivariate relationship between aid per capita and the physical integrity index, indicating a positive and statistically significant effect (p < .05) of foreign aid on human rights. Even after adding more control variables across Models 2 and 3, the association between foreign aid and human rights remains positive and statistically significant. Model 3, which is our main model and includes all controls, demonstrates that an increase in foreign aid per capita is associated with a 0.116 increase in respect for physical integrity. Substantially speaking, this means that a 1,000 USD increase in foreign aid per capita is associated with an 11.6 percent increase in respect for physical integrity over time.

The results moreover indicate that democratic governance (free and fair elections), state control over territory, and control of corruption all have a positive effect on respect for physical integrity. In contrast, conflict has a modest negative impact, while GDP per capita, gpd growth rate, state capacity, and infant mortality, do not show any significant effect.

Table 2 displays the results for our second key dependent variable; respect for civil liberties. Models 4–6 indicate that an increase in foreign aid per capita from 1 year before is associated with improvements in the civil liberties index over time. Model 6, which includes all control variables, suggests that an increase by 1,000 USD in foreign aid per capita is associated with a 6.9 percent increase in civil liberties, significantly robust at p < .05.

Additionally, Model 6 shows that democracy, measured by free and fair elections, is positively associated with improvements in respect for civil liberties, revealing a strong and statistically significant effect (p < .01). In contrast, the presence of an ongoing conflict is associated with lower respect for civil liberties (significant at p < .05), as well as is state capacity (significant at p<.1).

In sum, whether we focus on human rights in terms of physical integrity or civil liberties, the results of the time-series cross-sectional analysis reveal a positive and statistically significant association between foreign aid on human rights, even if the association is even more pronounced with regard to physical integrity rights. In addition to revealing the importance of foreign aid for the protection and promotion of human rights, quite in line with the expectations stemming from previous work, our analysis moreover reveals that democracy is indeed strongly and consistently associated with greater protection of human rights.

Robustness Checks and Alternative Model Specifications

For robustness checks, we use alternative statistical estimators. In the Appendix, we present models with both respect for physical integrity and civil liberties as dependent variables for one to 4 years (see Table A4–A9). The results of the analysis remain about the same; there is a positive and statistically significant effect of foreign aid on human rights for both indicators. The analysis however suggests that the effect decreases over time.

We also run regressions excluding four outliers; Sao Tome and Principe, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Cape Verde (see Tables A10–A11 in the Appendix), and the results remain substantively the same. We additionally present results using the log of aid per capita; Tables A12–A13 show that the findings remain substantively unchanged.

Moreover, using the CIRIGHTS Data Project, including the Overall Human Rights Index and the Physical Integrity Index, we find results similar to those of our main models based on indicators from the V-Dem dataset (see Tables A21–A25 in the Appendix). From the Fariss dataset, we include only variables that match our time span, as many variables come from earlier periods, resulting in substantial missing data and preventing us from running the regression (see Table A25 in the Appendix). Using the International SERF Index as the main dependent variable, we do not observe any significant positive results (see Table A24). Moreover, we create one variable using the International SERF Index by merging the data for both low- and middle-income countries and construct a single indicator. Yet, the benchmarking varies slightly across countries depending on their socioeconomic level, which could partly explain why we do not observe significant results. In the Appendix we provide a detailed description of these alternative human rights indicators, as well as instructions for interpreting the associated regression results.

Additionally, we subset the data by five different regions—Eastern Europe and Central Asia; Latin America and the Caribbean; Middle East and North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; and Asia and the Pacific—and re-run our main models with each subset (see Tables A18–A19). The association between foreign aid and physical integrity and civil liberties index, respectively, is positive across different regions. However, our results are significant only for Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the low number of observations across regions, it is however challenging to draw inferences regarding whether or not this relationship is indeed present in certain regions.

We moreover conduct tests with subset data across four regime types, using the Regimes of the World typology, which classifies countries into closed autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies, and liberal democracies (see Table A20 in the Appendix; Lührmann et al. 2018a). The results show that foreign aid from 2 years prior is positively associated with improvements in both the physical violence index and the civil liberties index only in electoral autocracies, the results being significantly robust at p < .001.

Concluding Discussion: Foreign Aid for Human Rights

At the same time as human rights violations seem to have reached new levels, our insights regarding the role of foreign aid in preventing such violations remain limited. And this even though donors typically claim foreign aid to play a key role in the protection and promotion of human rights (cf. Furuoka 2005; Sida 2024; World Bank 1998).

Against this backdrop, this paper has contributed a theoretical framework and empirical assessment of how foreign aid influences the respect and promotion of human rights in recipient countries. Conceptualizing aid as a foreign policy tool, we provide a dynamic model of the aid allocation cycle, emphasizing how Western foreign aid can positively be expected to influence the promotion of human rights in the pre-allocation (initial) as well as post-allocation (subsequent) phase(s). We propose two main mechanisms through which this occurs—ex-ante and ex-post conditionality (as a form of hard power) and norm diffusion (as a form of soft power).

By investigating the influence of foreign aid—as measured in terms of gross disbursements of official development assistance (ODA)—on human rights—as measured in terms of respect for physical integrity as well as civil liberties—across 121 countries and 20 years, our study offers the so far most comprehensive study on the association between foreign aid and human rights. The results of our time-series, cross-sectional statistical analysis reveal that donors are indeed right in emphasizing the importance of foreign aid for the effective protection and promotion of human rights. The positive effect of foreign aid remains robust even with the introduction of controls. However, robustness checks indicate that the effect might diminish over time, as well as vary across regions.

This diminishing effect over time may suggest that foreign aid has a greater potential to positively influence human rights in the pre-allocation phase, in which (potential) recipient countries are expected to increase the protection and promotion of human rights in an anticipatory response to donor ex-ante conditionality and norm diffusion. This is to be compared to the post-allocation phase, in which we instead expect aid recipients to promote and protect human rights in a direct response to donor threats of aid withdrawal or suspension if such rights are not respected, as well as a result of norm diffusion, through channels such as socialization, mainstreaming, and projects directly aimed at promoting human rights. Yet, in the end, due to methodological limitations, our empirical strategy limits our ability to test whether this is indeed the case. Future studies should aim at exploring the role of these two phases of aid disbursement in greater depth.

Other interesting findings that deserve further attention include the variation in influence of aid across regions and political regimes. For instance, in Eastern Europe, the post-Soviet region, and MENA, the effect of foreign aid on respect for physical integrity rights is not significant but the association is robust only for sub-Saharan Africa. Regarding political regimes, the association is robust only for electoral autocracies.

There are a few potential limitations to take into consideration. We stipulate in our theory that there is reason to expect that foreign aid can play a positive role in promoting human rights in both the pre- and post-allocation phase of the aid disbursement cycle. The relationship can also be dynamic over time. This potentially multifaceted and seemingly partly endogenous reality is not possible to “control” away within the framework of the analysis conducted in this study and should be a focus of future studies.

An additional finding that does not directly pertain to the effects of foreign aid but which is still interesting for the further development of the field is the observation that democracy has indeed a positive and significant effect on human rights, such as has previously been suggested. Moreover, our analysis reveals a positive and significant effect of state authority and lower levels of corruption on the respect for at least physical integrity rights. This is an interesting finding in the light of discussions about the relationship between state capacity and human welfare and development, as well as about whether the strong state can indeed be understood as the “good” state (cf. Fukuyama, 2013). From what our analysis suggests, the strong state is in fact in general also a better state—at least in terms of the protection and promotion of human rights.

Based on the positive influence even of these other factors on the respect for human rights—and with the backdrop of that previous research has already pointed to such factors as democracy as potentially important for the effective implementation of foreign aid—future research should continue the search for scope conditions for successful foreign aid. The search for such scope conditions could potentially help explain some puzzling outcomes as well, such as why some regions and political regimes seem to be immune to the positive influence of foreign aid on human rights.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Foreign Aid for Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework and Evidence From 121 Aid-Receiving Countries, 2002–2021

Supplemental Material for Foreign Aid for Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework and Evidence From 121 Aid-Receiving Countries, 2002–2021 by Adea Gafuri, Nora E. Olmås, and Anna Persson in Political Research Quarterly

Footnotes

Author Notes

The authors are listed in alphabetical order and have contributed equally to the work.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Amy Alexander and three anonymous reviewers for excellent comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We would moreover like to extend our thanks to all the participants at the Quality of Government (QoG) Institute’s annual winter conference in Oslo 2024, who gave us much appreciated feedback and suggestions.

ORCID iDs

Adea Gafuri

Anna Persson

Ethical Considerations

Since the data is statistical observational data derived from established databases, the study did not need any ethical approval or informed consent statement.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

The data used in this article is publicly available. Data on foreign aid were obtained from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database (https://data-explorer.oecd.org/). Key human rights-related indicators were sourced from the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) dataset (). The merged dataset and replication materials can be made available by the author upon request.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

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Supplementary Material

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Foreign Aid for Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework and Evidence From 121 Aid-Receiving Countries,2002–2021

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

State of the Art: Previous Studies on Foreign Aid and Human Rights

Foreign Aid and Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework

Method, Measurements, and Data

Operationalizations and Measurements

Dependent Variable: Respect for Human Rights

Independent Variable: Foreign Aid

Control Variables

Data Descriptives and Correlations

Results

Robustness Checks and Alternative Model Specifications

Concluding Discussion: Foreign Aid for Human Rights

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Foreign Aid for Human Rights: A Theoretical Framework and Evidence From 121 Aid-Receiving Countries, 2002–2021

Footnotes

Author Notes

Acknowledgments

ORCID iDs

Ethical Considerations

Funding

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Data Availability Statement

Supplemental Material

Notes

References

Supplementary Material