'Aid or Snub? When Allies Get More Foreign Aid, and When They Get Less'

The Global Studies Seminar presents “Aid or Snub? When Allies Get More Foreign Aid, and When They Get Less” by Denison University’s Visiting Assistant Professor Miles Williams.

On paper, international aid given by wealthy countries to developing countries is all about development promotion. But researchers have long recognized that which countries receive aid, and how much, goes hand-in-hand with the strategic interests of wealthy countries. In particular, many have observed that countries like the United States give allies like Pakistan disproportionately more aid as an incentive to remain a loyal security partner. But when we look at all the available data, the story is more complicated. Some developing countries get more aid for being allies, but others get snubbed. Why? The devil is in the details of the alliance promises made between wealthy and developing countries. In this talk, Williams discusses a new theory of aid-for-alliance exchange and novel empirical evidence explaining why some allies get more foreign aid, and others get less.

Williams earned his Doctor of Philosophy from the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and currently is a visiting assistant professor in Data for Political Research at Denison University. His research covers a range of topics, including the geopolitics of foreign aid, statistical methodology, and policy evaluation. Williams also serves as a Fellow with the U.S. Office of Evaluation Sciences where he serves as a statistical methods specialist.