Democracies cut aid to elected governments whose policies they dislike (e.g., Hamas in the Palestinian Authority) because voters prefer cutting money to inducing better policies over funding abhorrent ones — making it anti-democratic for a re-election-seeking leader to fund foreign agendas their constituents reject.

causalpending

Speaker

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita

Evidence Quote

what we see is that the voters choose the latter so it would be anti-democratic for a democratically elected leader who hopes to get reelected to use foreign aid to advance an agenda that does not benefit his or her constituents

Source

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on Democracies and Dictatorships 2/12/2007EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:20:39 AM

My Notes

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