Foreign aid projects and trust in political institutions
研究外国援助项目是否削弱公民对地方和国家政治制度的信任，利用尼日利亚、塞内加尔和乌干达的地理定位调查数据，发现活跃的援助项目平均降低了人们对总统、议会和地方政府的信任。
Abstract Do foreign aid projects undermine citizens' trust in local and national political institutions? Drawing on institutional theories of political trust, I hypothesize that foreign aid projects reduce trust in political institutions by lowering citizens' perceptions of government performance and raising perceptions of corruption. To analyze the impact of aid projects on trust, this article utilizes geolocated survey data on citizens' trust in political institutions from Afrobarometer Rounds 2–5 (2003–2012) and data on the location of foreign aid projects from AidData's Aid Information Management Systems datasets for Nigeria, Senegal, and Uganda. Using a spatial difference‐in‐difference strategy, the empirical results find that active aid projects are on average associated with decreased trust in the president, parliament, and local government council. An exploratory sectoral analysis suggests that the negative average treatment effect is driven by projects in the transportation, agriculture, education, and civil society sectors.