Israel’s Foreign Aid to Africa & UN Voting: An Empirical Examination
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Carmela Lutmar
und
Leah Mandler
Abstract
According to International Relations scholarship, the main formal motivation for foreign aid is usually the unexpressed expectation for improvement of bilateral relations and overall international support. There is an anticipation that aid recipients will not “forget” their donors on the international stage, in particularly during important sessions at the UNGA. We test this assertion empirically on the case of Israeli foreign aid to African countries, using data on Israeli Official Development Aid provisions between 1997 and 2014, and data on voting patterns of aid recipients in the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Our results testify that Israeli bilateral humanitarian foreign aid not only has not provided its expected diplomatic revenues, but may perhaps even hindered African states’ support in the UN. Concomitantly, our results testify that Israeli Official Development Aid (ODA) does not have the anticipated long term effects on international support towards Israel, but instead only a short-lived influence. The results are informative about the usefulness of foreign aid as a diplomatic tool, with important policy implications for decision makers in Israel and worldwide.
Appendix
Descriptive statistics, correlations and multicollinearity results.
Descriptive statistics.
| Statistic | N | Mean | SD | Min | Pctl (25) | Pctl (75) | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNGA annual vote | 846 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| OPEC membership | 846 | 0.04 | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Bilateral trade (USDM) | 736 | 22.8 | 79.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 10.0 | 582.3 |
| Islam Majority Religion | 846 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Politically relevant diad | 846 | 0.02 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GDP (USDM) | 697 | 18,764.6 | 48,289.7 | 72.2 | 1576.1 | 12,065.1 | 403,894.0 |
| Polity index | 774 | 0.8 | 5.4 | −9.0 | −4.0 | 6.0 | 10.0 |
| Official development aid (USDM) | 846 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 29.9 |
| Contiguity | 828 | 4524.0 | 1401.0 | 401.0 | 3711.0 | 5627.0 | 6829.0 |
Correlations.
| UNGA annual voting | OPEC membership | Bilateral trade (UDSM) | Majority Religion Islam | Politically relevant dyad | GDP (USDM) | Polity index | ODA (USDM) | Contiguity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNGA annual voting | 1.00 | −0.09** | −0.14*** | −0.16*** | −0.11** | −0.19*** | −0.16*** | −0.03 | 0.00 |
| OPEC membership | −0.09** | 1.00 | −0.03 | 0.07* | −0.03 | −0.03 | −0.18*** | −0.04 | −0.20*** |
| Bilateral trade (UDSM) | −0.14*** | −0.03 | 1.00 | −0.09* | 0.20*** | 0.81*** | 0.24*** | 0.06 | 0.07 |
| Majority Religion Islam | −0.16*** | 0.07* | −0.09* | 1.00 | 0.21*** | 0.06 | −0.18*** | −0.09* | −0.30*** |
| Politically relevant dyad | −0.11** | −0.03 | 0.20*** | 0.21*** | 1.00 | 0.44*** | −0.15*** | 0.00 | −0.44*** |
| GDP (USDM) | −0.19*** | −0.03 | 0.81*** | 0.06 | 0.44*** | 1.00 | 0.09* | 0.02 | −0.13*** |
| Polity index | −0.16*** | −0.18*** | 0.24*** | −0.18*** | −0.15*** | 0.09* | 1.00 | −0.10** | 0.48*** |
| ODA | −0.03 | −0.04 | 0.06 | −0.09* | 0.00 | 0.02 | −0.10** | 1.00 | −0.22*** |
| Contiguity | 0.00 | −0.20*** | 0.07 | −0.30*** | −0.44*** | −0.13*** | 0.48*** | −0.22*** | 1.00 |
VIF multicolinearity test.
| ODA | GDP (USDM) | Bilateral trade (USDM) | OPEC membership | Majority Religion Islam | Politically relevant dyad | Polity index | Contiguity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.073 | 4.047 | 3.656 | 1.029 | 1.140 | 1.780 | 1.299 | 1.741 |
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Editorial
- Introduction to the Proceedings of the 19th Jan Tinbergen European Peace Science Conference
- Letters and Proceedings
- Let’s Call their Bluff: The Politics of Econometric Methodology
- Winner of the 2019 Lewis Fry Richardson Award, Jean-Paul Azam
- Introducing the “Religious Minorities at Risk” Dataset
- Introducing the Human Rights Violations Dataset for the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey, 1990–2018
- The Civilian Side of Peacekeeping: New Research Avenues
- The Security and Justice Approach in Liberia’s Peace Process: Mechanistic Evidence and Local Perception
- Violence and Avoidance Behavior: The Case of the Mexican Drug War
- Four Ways We Know the Democratic Peace Correlation Does Not Exist in the State of Knowledge
- Israel’s Foreign Aid to Africa & UN Voting: An Empirical Examination
- Could the literature on the economic determinants of sanctions be biased?
- Trade and Military Alliances: Evidence from NATO
- The United States and European Defense Cooperation European Strategic Autonomy and Fighter Aircraft Procurement Decisions
