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Despite extensive literature examining human rights decoupling between treaty commitments and practices, little research has addressed how to fill these empty promises. This paper proposes a mechanism neglected in prior studies that might play an important role in narrowing human rights decoupling and improving world society model compliance: foreign aid. Using longitudinal analysis on a sample of 120 aid-receiving countries between 1981 and 2011, we find: total aid has a significant effect on reducing human rights decoupling; aid to good governance shows a similar pattern but the impact is much weaker; by contrast, aid to human rights has limited influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the institutionalist literature on decoupling. Based on that literature, it proposes an analytic framework to consider state characteristics that lead to decoupling: commitment, capacity and context, or 'the 3Cs'. Then, using this framework, it assesses what sorts of aid initiatives we would expect to see to answer the question 'How can aid reduce or increase decoupling gaps?' Finally, it presents several possible combinations of the 3Cs and examples of how the presence or absence of one or all of these components have increased or reduced decoupling in ongoing or concluded aid interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of bilateral foreign aid in supporting the diffusion and enactment of common models and institutions of the rule of law among aid‐recipient low‐ and middle‐income countries. We ask whether aid targeted at security‐sector reform and the rule of law influences the adoption of constitutional and legal reforms over time (institutional diffusion), and whether aid also supports more effective implementation of the rule of law, writ large (legal reach). We use event history and fixed‐effects panel regression models to examine a sample of 154 countries between 1995 and 2013 to answer these questions. Our findings suggest that aid does increase the likelihood of adopting several rule of law reforms, but its effect on increasing the depth or quality of rule of law over time within countries is much less substantial. These findings suggest that though aid may play a role in supporting the diffusion of models contributing to state isomorphism among countries, it is less effective at increasing the pervasiveness and quality of such model's implementation. This discrepancy between the effectiveness of bilateral aid in promoting law on the books versus law in action in aid recipient countries calls into question the current approach to rule of law reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Government of Canada introduced its new Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) to guide its foreign aid programming in June 2017. This feminist turn mirrors earlier adoptions of feminist aid and foreign policy by Sweden and echoes the current Canadian government's feminist rhetoric. This paper examines the FIAP and its Action Areas Policies to ask what kind(s) of feminism are reflected in the policy and what groups of people it prioritizes. The paper examines the values, goals, and gaps of the policy in order to understand what feminist values and goals are being operationalized and pursued and what gaps and contradictions exist. By examining the FIAP's Action Area Policies using a discourse network analysis of the groups represented in the policies, we demonstrate the failings of the FIAP to incorporate an intersectional approach. Our results show that the FIAP adopts a mainstream liberal feminism that excludes many peoples and groups from the core of Canada's aid efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, the G8 placed renewed focus on maternal health via the Muskoka Initiative by committing to spend an additional $5 billion on maternal, newborn, and child health before 2015. Following the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the advent of the Sustainable Development Goals, maternal health issues have continued to feature prominently on the global health agenda. Despite these substantial investments of foreign aid over the past decade, there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of foreign aid in reducing maternal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Development Indicators and the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, this study analyzes the effects of aid on maternal health in a sample of 130 LMICs from 1996 through 2015. Our results show that the effects of total foreign aid on maternal mortality are limited, but that aid allocated to the reproductive health sector and directly at maternal health is associated with significant reductions in maternal mortality. Given these targeted effects, it is important to channel more donor assistance to the promotion of reproductive health and contraceptive use among women as it serves as a tool towards the reduction of maternal mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines competing explanations for foreign aid allocation on the global level and argues for a new approach to understanding aid from an institutionalist perspective. Using network data on all official bilateral aid relationships between countries in the period from 1975 through 2006 and data on recipient country ties to world society, the article offers an alternative explanation for the allocation of global foreign aid. Fixed effects negative binomial regression models on a panel sample of 117 developing countries reveal that global ties to world society in the form of non-governmental memberships and treaty ratifications are strong determinants of the network centrality of recipient countries in the global foreign aid network. Countries with a higher level of adherence and connection to world society norms and organizations are shown to be the beneficiaries of an increased number of aid relationships with wealthy donor countries. The findings also suggest that prior explanations of aid allocation grounded in altruist or realist motivations are insufficient to account for the patterns of aid allocation seen globally in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central tenet of economic sociology is that social ties among actors can both facilitate and constrain economic exchanges between them. Recent scholars have extended these ideas to the global system by examining how social ties formed through international organizations enable or inhibit economic exchanges between countries. Similarly, this paper examines the relationship between shared organizational memberships and bilateral aid flows between donor and recipient countries from 1978 to 2010. We propose that joint membership in international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) facilitates aid flows from donor to recipient. However, we also suggest that this relationship is contingent upon the level of development in the recipient country. Results from a multistage analysis of more than 61,000 donor-recipient dyads show that while shared memberships strongly increase the likelihood of an aid relationship between countries, they tend to predict increased volumes of aid only for recipient countries at the lowest levels of development as measured by GDP. Findings suggest that an institutional approach is needed to fully understand the relational dynamics of aid flows in the contemporary period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights an emerging research agenda for the study of foreign aid through a World Society theory lens. First, it briefly summarizes the social scientific literature on aid and sociologists' earlier contributions to this research. Next, it reviews the contours of world society research and the place of aid within this body of literature. Finally, it outlines three emergent threads of research on foreign aid that comprise a new research agenda for the sociology of foreign aid and its role in world society globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term ‘aid orphan’ refers to a developing country forgotten or abandoned by the development community. This metaphor has featured prominently in the development assistance policy and research literature over the past decade. Development practitioners, policy makers and researchers have defined aid orphans in manifold ways and often expressed concern over the potential fate or impact of such countries. In this paper we first examine the many definitions of aid orphans and then review the main concerns raised about them. Next we empirically examine more than 40 years of bilateral aid data to identify aid orphan countries and their common characteristics. Our findings suggest that very few countries meet the definition of aid orphan and fewer still raise the concerns collectively expressed about the orphan phenomenon. We conclude by suggesting researchers and practitioners abandon the orphan metaphor and instead focus on issues of equitable aid allocation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the effects of gender on the leadership of bilateral development aid agencies, particularly their official development assistance (ODA) allocations toward gender-related programming. Drawing on earlier research on gendered leadership, the article tests the hypothesis that female director generals (DGs) and ministers responsible for aid agencies will allocate more ODA than their male counterparts toward gender programming. This existing literature on gendered leadership is divided: some scholars argue that women and men have distinct leadership styles on account of their gender, while others argue that the only distinguishing factor is the institutional context in which they lead. Drawing on data collected on aid flows and agency leadership within the major Western aid donors of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) over the period from 1995 through 2009, we use pooled time series analysis to examine the effects of gendered leadership on aid allocation. Our analysis reveals a tendency for female DGs and ministers to focus ODA on gender-mainstreaming programs, while male DGs focus ODA on gender-focused programs. We argue that these divergent priorities reflect the women's desire to reform gendered power structures within their respective aid agencies, and the men's desire to maintain existing gender power structures from which they benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]