Domestic politics and the motives of emerging donors: evidence from Turkish foreign aid

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Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912917750783

Why do developing countries give foreign aid? Although emerging donors are gaining importance in development finance, lack of systematic data on their aid allocation limits our understanding of their motives. We address this gap using detailed data on a major new donor, Turkey, since 1992. We show that domestic politics has had a large impact on Turkey’s priorities in giving aid. Turkish aid used to be determined by international alignments and coethnicity, but after the Islamic AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) took power, political ties lost importance. Turkey began to give more economic aid to trade partners and more humanitarian aid to Muslim nations. While this new focus on trade ties makes Turkey more similar to traditional donors, the growing role of cultural ties sets Turkey apart. The broader lesson of this study on Turkey is that government change can significantly influence the way emerging donors give aid and these changes can vary in predictable ways across different types of aid.