Political Context and the Consequences of Naming and Shaming for Human Rights Abuse

Does being named and shamed for human rights abuse influence the amount of foreign aid received by the shamed state? Recent research suggests that the impact of public censure may depend on the political relationship between donor and recipient. We argue that donors deriving a direct political benefit from the aid relationship (such as a military advantage or the satisfaction of a domestic political audience) will ignore or work against condemnation, but donors with little political interest in the recipient (who give aid for symbolic or humanitarian reasons) will punish condemned states. We also argue that the size of prior aid packages can be used as a holistic measure of the donor’s political interest in the aid relationship because mutually beneficial aid packages are subject to a bargaining process that favors recipients with more to offer. We find that condemnation for human rights abuse by the United Nations is associated with lower bilateral aid levels among states that previously received small aid package, and with equal or higher bilateral aid to states already receiving a great deal of aid. The source of shaming also matters: We find that public shaming by human rights NGOs is not associated with decreased aggregate bilateral aid.因侵犯人权而被点名羞辱，是否会影响受羞辱国家获得的对外援助规模？现有研究表明，公开谴责的影响可能取决于援助捐赠国与受援国之间的政治关系。我们认为，若捐赠国从援助关系中获取直接政治收益（例如军事优势或取悦国内政治受众），则会无视或反对此类谴责；而对受援国缺乏政治利益、仅出于象征性或人道主义原因提供援助的捐赠国，则会惩罚被谴责的国家。此外，我们提出，过往援助项目的规模可作为衡量捐赠国对援助关系政治兴趣的综合指标，因为互利型援助项目需经过议价流程，而该流程更青睐能提供更多回报的受援国。我们发现，联合国针对人权侵犯行为的谴责，与此前仅获得少量援助的国家的双边援助规模下降相关；而对于此前已获得大量援助的国家，此类谴责与双边援助规模持平或上升相关。羞辱的来源同样具有影响：我们发现，人权非政府组织（Non-Governmental Organization，NGO）的公开羞辱，与双边援助总规模的下降并无关联。