Foreign Aid and Democratization: Benin and Niger Compared

Abstract

Abstract:This article compares the democratization process in Benin and Niger in the decade from 1989 to 1999 and emphasizes the influence of external donors with regard to their economic support of democratization. The task is twofold. First, I try to understand why, though these two aid-dependent countries share many initial similarities, the former received more external financial assistance than the latter. I build upon New Institutionalist concepts such as timing, sequence, and path dependency to demonstrate that the probability and continuity of foreign aid depend both on the timing and on sequences of the transition—a combination that may or may not produce a path-dependent phenomenon with regard to the donors. Second, I argue that the capacity of foreign aid to foster democratization depends largely on its timing, particularly in critical moments of the democratic process.