Book

Targeted Development: Industrialized Country Strategy in a Globalizing World (Oxford University Press, 2018)

Articles

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett. 2017. “Aid Allocation and Targeted Development in an Increasingly Connected World.” International Organization, 71:4 (Fall): 735-766.

Abstract: Aid donors pursue a strategy of targeted development with regard to recipient states. The determinants of aid allocation have shifted significantly. Industrialized states are increasingly unable to insulate themselves from spillovers caused by underdevelopment abroad. Donors attempt to use aid to decrease these spillovers, targeting developing countries where the effects on the donor are anticipated to be large. Once a recipient is chosen, concern for recipient government capacity guides the composition of aid. Empirical analysis of aid allocation from 1973 to 2012 demonstrates that, while explanations based on security and economic ties to the donor explain allocation well in the Cold War, the post-2001 period is best understood by incorporating a role for targeted development. This framework helps synthesize various findings in the aid allocation literature and has important implications for studying aid effectiveness.

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett. 2016. “Aid is Not Oil: Donor Preferences, Heterogeneous Aid, and the Aid-Democratization Relationship.” International Organization, 70:1 (Winter): 1-32.

Recipient of the Robert O. Keohane award for the best article published by an untenured scholar in International Organization, 2016.

Abstract: Recent articles conclude that foreign aid, like other nontax resources, inhibits political change in authoritarian regimes. This article challenges both the negative political effects of aid and the similarity of aid to other resources. It develops a model incorporating changing donor preferences and the heterogeneity of foreign aid. Consistent with the model’s predictions, an empirical test for the period 1973–2010 shows that, on average, the negative relationship between aid and the likelihood of democratic change is confined to the ColdWar period. However, in the post–Cold War period, nondemocratic recipients of particular strategic importance can still use aid to thwart change. The relationship between oil revenue and democratic change does not follow the same pattern over time or across recipients. This supports the conclusion that aid has different properties than other, fungible, resources.

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett and David Leblang. 2015. “Migration and Foreign Aid.” International Organization, 69:3 (Summer): 627-657.

Abstract: When it comes to linkages between migration and the global allocation of foreign development assistance, the size of the immigrant population from a recipient country residing in a donor country is an important determinant of dyadic aid commitments. Two complementary hypotheses probe this relationship. First, donors use foreign aid to achieve their broader immigration goals, targeting migrant-sending areas to increase development and decrease the demand for entry into the donor country. Second, migrants already residing in the donor country mobilize to lobby for additional aid for their homeland. Empirical tests on a large sample of country pairs made up of twenty-two donors and more than 150 recipients over the period 1993 to 2008 show robust support for these hypotheses.

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett. 2011. “Foreign Aid and Regime Change: A Role for Donor Intent.” World Development 39:11 (November): 2021-2031. (Reprinted in Milner, Helen V. and Dustin Tingley. Geopolitics of Foreign Aid. Edward Elgar, 2013).

Abstract: This paper uses data from the AidData project to analyze the association between foreign aid and the likelihood of democratization in aid recipients. Previous studies have argued that aid can entrench dictatorships, making a transition less likely. I find evidence that the relationship between aid and democratization depends on characteristics of the aid donor. During the period from 1992 to 2007, aid from democratic donors is often found to be associated with an increase in the likelihood of a democratic transition. This is consistent with a scenario in which aid promotes democratization and/or a situation in which democratic donors reward countries that take steps in a democratic direction. In either case, it suggests that democratic donors use scarce aid resources to encourage democracy. During the same period, aid from authoritarian donors exhibits a negative relationship with democratization. This suggests that the source of funding matters, with donor preferences regarding democracy helping to determine the link between aid and democratization.

Davis, Christina and Sarah Blodgett Bermeo. 2009. “Who Files? Developing Country Participation in GATT/WTO Adjudication.” Journal of Politics 71:3 (July): 1033-1049.

Abstract: The potential for international law to reduce power asymmetries depends on weaker countries learning to navigate the legal system. This paper examines the use of courts by developing countries to defend their trade interests. Power relations and low capacity may prevent these countries from fully participating in the international trade system. Yet some developing countries have been among the most active participants in GATT/WTO adjudication. We argue that high startup costs for using trade litigation are a barrier to developing country use of the dispute settlement process. Analysis of dispute initiation from 1975 to 2003 shows that past experience in trade adjudication, as either a complainant or a defendant, increases the likelihood that a developing country will initiate disputes. As weaker countries overcome these initial capacity constraints they will increasingly benefit from the international legal structures they have joined.

Work in Progress/Working Papers

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett. Complementary Multilateralism: Development Institutions for a Global World. Book manuscript under contract, Oxford University Press.

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett. 2017. “Complements or Substitutes? Bilateral and Multilateral Actions for Development.” Paper presented at the American Political Science Association 2017 annual meeting and International Political Economy Society 2017 annual meeting.

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett and David Leblang. 2017. “Climate Migration.” Paper presented at the 2017 Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting.

Bermeo, Sarah Blodgett. 2010. “Development and Strategy: Aid Allocation in an Interdependent World.” Unpublished manuscript, Duke University. Note: This is an unpublished working paper. For a more up-to-date analysis, see my book, Targeted Development or the article, “Aid Allocation and Targeted Development in an Increasingly Connected World.”

Abstract: This paper develops and tests the argument that industrialized countries pursue an agenda of strategic development in their relations with developing countries. In an increasingly interdependent world, wealthy states have an interest in promoting development abroad. This leads them to focus on development, but disproportionately in the poorer states where the benefit from development to the wealthy states is higher. Hypotheses are tested in the area of foreign aid, where evidence is found that donors alter the composition of aid across recipients to account for different levels of government capacity to use aid for development, but also increase the volume of aid flows to developing countries with which they have strong existing connections. The attention to government capacity is new, suggesting that in an interdependent world relations between industrialized and developing countries have evolved, with development promotion becoming an important, strategic goal for industrialized states.//