From domestic to international justice: the welfare state and foreign aid

Alain Noël and Jean-Philippe Thérien

International Organization, 1995, vol. 49, issue 3, 523-553

Abstract: Foreign aid often is interpreted as an international projection of domestic income redistribution mechanisms, and many authors suggest that differences between welfare states account for variations in donor behavior. A new understanding of the welfare state can improve traditional explanations of this linkage. Existing studies of the welfare–aid relationship use two welfare state indicators: domestic spending and partisan politics. We propose a third type of indicator—the institutional attributes of the welfare state—and demonstrate its relevance. The level of foreign aid provided by a country varies with social spending, but even more so with the degree to which its welfare state embodies socialist attributes. This finding helps explain how domestic political institutions influence the evolution of international cooperation and, specifically, how welfare principles institutionalized at the domestic level shape the participation of developed countries in the international aid regime.

Date: 1995
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:intorg:v:49:y:1995:i:03:p:523-553_03

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Organization from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().