Are democratising countries ‘rewarded’ with higher levels of foreign aid?

The paper examines how flows of foreign aid have reacted to events of democratisation in developing countries. Using a panel dataset of 136 aid-receiving countries between 1980 and 2009, aid allocation regressions reveal that Western donors in general have tended to react to visible, major democratic transitions by increasing aid to the partner country, but no significant increases can be identified in the case of countries introducing smaller democratic reforms. The increases in aid flows are not sustained over time, implying that donors do not provide long-term support to nascent democracies. Also, democratisations in Sub-Saharan Africa do not seem to have been rewarded with higher levels of aid.

Internationalisation as a democratic tool:revisiting Mexico's double transition

Mexico's double transition—democratisation and internationalisation—offers a good case study to analyse the interaction between internationalisation processes and domestic developments during transitions to democracy. This article explains how the specific way in which Mexico linked with North America worked as a causal mechanism during the country's democratisation. In the end, an inadequate project of internationalisation—spearheaded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)—failed to fulfill its democratising potential.