Research note: Budget support suspensions as a sanctioning device
“Budget support” is a form of aid whereby a donor provides direct financial support to a recipient government’s budget. It could also be used as a tool for punishing governments that fail to fight corruption, respect human rights, or meet other good governance norms. But how often is this tool used for such purposes? Nadia Molenaers, Anna Gagiano and Lodewijk Smets describe a new database that covers all budget support suspensions between 1999 and 2014. A preliminary analysis shows that forty percent of suspensions fall in the “democracy and human rights” category. The data set can be downloaded by researchers. Read the research note.
