Are we Making Promises without Proof? : An empirical analysis of the impacts that democracy support and aid targeting education have on democratization

Abstract: As democracy promotion has become an increasingly important aspect on the agenda of foreign aid donors, and since such prioritization of funding comes at the expense of other development areas, it is arguably of interest for donors as well as researchers to investigate its actual impact on democratization. This study endeavors to examine the influence of two types of foreign assistance that could potentially contribute to a democratic development, directlythrough democracy support and indirectly through aid focused on education. Four models of regression analysis are applied on a data set of 65 developing countries receiving Official Development Assistance (ODA), during the period of 2006–2018. The findings of this study are inconclusive in determining the influence of these aid types, as the main results show no significant effects on the Freedom House grading of the recipient countries. Yet, when using an alternative measurement, the Democracy Index, directly focused democracy support appears to have a slight positive and significant impact on democratization. These results should however be interpreted with caution due to the risk of reversed causality.