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Terrorist Threats, Foreign Aid, and State Capacity

Yoshimoto, Iku
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1574841729915737

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.
Since the end of the Cold War, the international community has dealt with problems of state fragility in the developing world, partly as their own "security" issue. Their approaches to address it have been varied, and more direct interventions such as external state-building has drawn more attention, but this dissertation focuses on a less "direct" form of assistance: foreign aid and its different modalities. Particularly, I theorize that general budget support (GBS), which is most fungible and gives the recipient the largest financial discretion, will have positive effects on the recipient state capacity when the latter also perceives terrorist threats on their own, because then donors can engage its local willingness to counter such threats by building institutional capacity. I test the implications of my theoretical argument both quantitatively and qualitatively. In Chapter 3, I explore how OECD donors as a donor community and the major donors among them have allocated their aid, depending on terrorist threats posed to either or both of the international community and the recipient. Then, in Chapter 4, I examine at how foreign aid and terrorist threats interact in their effects on state capacity of recipient countries, using an annual dataset as well as one divided into five-year periods. In order to examine the mechanisms specified in my theoretical argument, in Chapter 5 I conduct case studies with three countries in East Africa -- Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. There, I try to verify the following mechanisms: (1) does presence of domestic terrorist threats lead to willingness on the part of the government to build institutional capacity to counter these threats?; (2) when the government is willing to build its institutional capacity, does it face a problem of signaling -- communicating its intention behind its effort -- vis-a-vis its domestic audience?; and (3) is donor involvement in the form of GBS provision helpful in overcoming such signaling problems, and amenable to institution-building? The results from the three empirical chapters provide some supporting evidence for my theoretical arguments that terrorist threats shared by a recipient and the donor community affect GBS provision and that GBS and terrorist threats interact in ways that enhance state capacity, but also offer a more complex picture regarding long-term consequences and the distinction between domestic and transnational terrorist threats. Finally, the concluding chapter will present a summary of my results and then discuss their implications and possibilities of future research. I test the implications of my theoretical argument both quantitatively and qualitatively. In Chapter 3, I explore how OECD donors as a donor community and the major donors among them have allocated their aid, depending on terrorist threats posed to either or both of the international community and the recipient. Then, in Chapter 4, I examine at how foreign aid and terrorist threats interact in their effects on state capacity of recipient countries, using an annual dataset as well as one divided into five-year periods. In order to examine the mechanisms specified in my theoretical argument, in Chapter 5 I conduct case studies with three countries in East Africa -- Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. There, I try to verify the following mechanisms: (1) does presence of domestic terrorist threats lead to willingness on the part of the government to build institutional capacity to counter these threats?; (2) when the government is willing to build its institutional capacity, does it face a problem of signaling -- communicating its intention behind its effort -- vis-a-vis its domestic audience?; and (3) is donor involvement in the form of GBS provision helpful in overcoming such signaling problems, and amenable to institution-building? The results from the three empirical chapters support my theoretical arguments that terrorist threats shared by a recipient and the donor community affect GBS provision and that GBS and terrorist threats interact in ways that enhance state capacity, but also offer a more complex picture regarding long-term consequences and the distinction between domestic and transnational terrorist threats. Finally, the concluding chapter will present a summary of my results and then discuss their implications and possibilities of future research.
Christopher Gelpi (Committee Chair)
Daniel Verdier (Committee Member)
Alexander Thompson (Committee Member)
182 p.
International Relations; Political Science
Foreign aid; terrorism; state capacity; state-building

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yoshimoto, I. (2019). Terrorist Threats, Foreign Aid, and State Capacity [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1574841729915737

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yoshimoto, Iku. Terrorist Threats, Foreign Aid, and State Capacity. 2019. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1574841729915737.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yoshimoto, Iku. "Terrorist Threats, Foreign Aid, and State Capacity." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1574841729915737

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1574841729915737
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.