Haley J Swedlund
Biographic Data
| ID | 169086 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Haley J Swedlund |
| GIVEN NAMES | Haley J |
| FAMILY NAME | Swedlund |
| SIGNATURE | SWEDLUND H J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Radboud University Nijmegen |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7700-1501 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 112 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Aid and armed actors
In conflict-affected contexts, the presence of armed actors—including state security forces, international peacekeeping missions, and non-state armed groups—means that aid organisations may need to cooperate with these actors to deliver foreign aid. Yet the conditions under which this cooperation happens remain underspecified. In this article, we use novel mixed methods data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to study these condition…
Fact or fear? Elite and public opinion on the misuse of foreign aid
This article investigates how information on the misuse of foreign aid affects support for aid among citizens and politicians. It draws on original survey data and experiments with a representative sample of 2,205 UK citizens and 117 UK parliamentarians. The findings show a significant public backlash against foreign aid when misuse is revealed. This backlash is not confined to the country where the scandal occurred but spills over to other aid r…
The Political Economy of Receiving Aid
In this introduction to the special issue, ‘The Political Economy of Receiving Aid’, we argue for moving beyond disciplinary silos and the narrow question of whether foreign aid is effective. Instead, we argue for better theorizing the political and economic impacts of the aid system on receiving societies. By aid system, we mean the complex network of relationships, norms and incentives between a broad constellation of actors and institutions, b…
Forum
Debates on “bridging the gap” in international relations have often focused on the ways in which academics try to influence policymakers in the USA and to a lesser extent in Europe, Canada, and Australia. There has been a tendency to overlook the nature of collaborations between academics and practitioners in other global spaces. This forum brings together leading thinkers, who have engaged with and in policy spaces across several different Afric…
Localization Through Coordination? Implementing the Humanitarian‐Development‐Peace Nexus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
As a global concept and initiative, the Humanitarian‐Development‐Peace Nexus (HDPN) aims to improve integration across the traditionally siloed humanitarian, development, and security sectors, while foregrounding the involvement of local actors. Using original empirical data on the implementation of the HDPN in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we show how and why the approach has not delivered substantive localization in the Congolese …
Transparency and citizen support for public agencies
Can public agencies boost support for their mandate by being more transparent? We examine this important question in the context of foreign aid. Skepticism about foreign aid spending is common among citizens. This article argues that bilateral aid agencies can increase support for foreign aid by enhancing transparency. The article presents findings from three survey experiments involving a representative sample of 2058 British citizens, as well a…
Foreign aid withdrawals and suspensions
In this introduction to the special issue, “Foreign Aid Withdrawals and Suspensions: Why, When and Are They Effective,” we both summarize the current state of the literature and outline a robust new agenda for studying aid suspensions and withdrawals. A common contribution of the papers in this special issue is that they emphasize that donors and aid-recipient states have more options available to them than previous literature has allowed and tha…
How transparent are aid agencies to their citizens? Introducing the Citizen Aid Transparency Dataset
Existing measures of aid transparency overwhelmingly focus on how much information donor agencies are willing to share with the international donor community, overlooking that transparency is about increasing citizens' access to information in order to improve government accountability. In this article, we present the Citizen Aid Transparency Dataset (CATD). Using factor and correlation analysis, we show that the CATD captures a different dimensi…
Stop Calling Me a Youth
The African 'youth' population is growing at a fast and steady pace, attracting attention from scholars, policymakers, and politicians. Yet, we know relatively little about this large and heterogeneous segment of the population. This paper presents data from 110 interviews and ten focus groups with youth engaged in commercial agriculture across all four regions of Uganda. Capitalising on this ethnographic data, we provide an analytical framework …
To understand the implications of different aid modalities, we need to analyse the bargaining logic between donors and recipient governments
Budget support has given rise to vigorous debates among practitioners and academics. Scholars have sought to analyse why this aid modality was adopted (e.g. Clist et al., 2012; Dietrich, 2013); whether or not it is effective (e.g. Dijkstra, 2018; Koeberle et al., 2006; IDD and Associates, 2006; Ronsholt, 2014); and under what conditions it is likely to be abandoned and/or suspended (e.g. Koch et al., 2017; Molenaers et al., 2015). Beyond budget s…
How to make elite experiments work in International Relations
For decades, many International Relations (IR) scholars did not engage in elite experiments, because they viewed it as too risky, too costly, or too difficult to implement. However, as part of a behavioral turn in IR, a growing number of scholars have begun to adopt the method in their own research. This shift raises important questions. Under what conditions do elite experiments add value to IR scholarship? How can scholars overcome the logistic…
The rise and fall of budget support
Discrimination and ethnic conflict
The literature on political exclusion and conflict tends to treat grievance-based mechanisms with broad-brush strokes and does not differentiate between types of political exclusion. This study disaggregates politically-excluded groups into two subgroups: groups that experience political discrimination from the state, and groups without political power that are not explicitly discriminated against. We posit that discriminated groups are more like…
The 'Dark Side' of Social Capital
Research and policy circles often emphasize the importance of social capital in achieving social transformation and economic development. There is also, however, potentially a 'dark side' to social capital. This study investigates the relationship between two different types of social capital-structural and cognitive-using two different measures of political violence: self-reported support for political violence and self-reported participation in…
Rwanda’s post-genocide foreign aid relations
This article studies donor–government relations in Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide. The notion that Rwanda enjoyed or enjoys exceptional relations with donors because of guilt regarding their inaction during the genocide is widespread in the literature and in policy circles. To assess this myth, the article first looks at aid trends for Rwanda and comparable countries, and then takes an in-depth look at aid relations with two average-si…
Inequality and Ethnic Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
Theories of ethnic conflict predict that between-group inequality should be associated with a greater likelihood of violent conflict, but empirical results have been mixed. One reason might be that different types of inequalities have opposing effects on the likelihood of conflict. In this article, we posit that educational inequalities are likely to incentivize collective action by inducing grievances, while economic and demographic inequalities…
The Development Dance
The Development Dance is about how donor countries and recipient governments negotiate the delivery of foreign aid. The book provides a conceptual framework for understanding donor-government relations and a theory for explaining the sustainability of aid delivery mechanisms. Drawing on extensive in-country fieldwork in four sub-Saharan African countries, as well as an original survey of development practitioners in twenty countries, the book poi…
Can foreign aid donors credibly threaten to suspend aid? Evidence from a cross-national survey of donor officials
Under what conditions are foreign aid donors willing to suspend foreign aid to punish political transgressions, such as election fraud, corruption scandals or political repression? Prior scholarship has emphasized that political sanctions, including foreign aid suspensions, are constrained by the geostrategic considerations of donor countries. However, foreign aid suspensions often occur in strategically important countries, and donors respond di…
Is China eroding the bargaining power of traditional donors in Africa
The growing presence of China on the African continent has stimulated vibrant and often polarizing debates on the impact of Chinese financing on both socioeconomic development and foreign policy decision-making in Africa. In these debates, European and American actors are often depicted as being left out in the cold. In the field of international development, it is often assumed that China's increased involvement in sub-Saharan Africa is decreasi…
The domestication of governance assessments
In this paper, I consider the strengths and weaknesses of including local actors in governance assessments through an analysis of the Rwandan Joint Governance Assessment (JGA) and its supporting institutions. The JGA is the first and only governance assessment produced and approved by donors and a recipient country. The approach is seen by many as a model to replicate elsewhere, because it combines donors' need to assess governance in the countri…
Non-Governmental and Not-for-Profit Organizational Effectiveness
NGO/NPO effectiveness remains a prominent concern for scholars and practitioners, but the literature on this issue is increasingly fragmented along disciplinary lines. We address this problem by presenting a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the literature on NGO and NPO effectiveness using citation analysis. In order to uncover commonalities across disciplines concerned with similar questions, we deploy a structured literature review…
Non-Governmental and Not-for-Profit Organizational Effectiveness
NGO/NPO effectiveness remains a prominent concern for scholars and practitioners, but the literature on this issue is increasingly fragmented along disciplinary lines. We address this problem by presenting a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the literature on NGO and NPO effectiveness using citation analysis. In order to uncover commonalities across disciplines concerned with similar questions, we deploy a structured literature review…
Can foreign aid donors credibly threaten to suspend aid? Evidence from a cross-national survey of donor officials
Under what conditions are foreign aid donors willing to suspend foreign aid to punish political transgressions, such as election fraud, corruption scandals or political repression? Prior scholarship has emphasized that political sanctions, including foreign aid suspensions, are constrained by the geostrategic considerations of donor countries. However, foreign aid suspensions often occur in strategically important countries, and donors respond di…
How to make elite experiments work in International Relations
For decades, many International Relations (IR) scholars did not engage in elite experiments, because they viewed it as too risky, too costly, or too difficult to implement. However, as part of a behavioral turn in IR, a growing number of scholars have begun to adopt the method in their own research. This shift raises important questions. Under what conditions do elite experiments add value to IR scholarship? How can scholars overcome the logistic…
The 'Dark Side' of Social Capital
Research and policy circles often emphasize the importance of social capital in achieving social transformation and economic development. There is also, however, potentially a 'dark side' to social capital. This study investigates the relationship between two different types of social capital-structural and cognitive-using two different measures of political violence: self-reported support for political violence and self-reported participation in…
Foreign aid withdrawals and suspensions
In this introduction to the special issue, “Foreign Aid Withdrawals and Suspensions: Why, When and Are They Effective,” we both summarize the current state of the literature and outline a robust new agenda for studying aid suspensions and withdrawals. A common contribution of the papers in this special issue is that they emphasize that donors and aid-recipient states have more options available to them than previous literature has allowed and tha…
Is China eroding the bargaining power of traditional donors in Africa
The growing presence of China on the African continent has stimulated vibrant and often polarizing debates on the impact of Chinese financing on both socioeconomic development and foreign policy decision-making in Africa. In these debates, European and American actors are often depicted as being left out in the cold. In the field of international development, it is often assumed that China's increased involvement in sub-Saharan Africa is decreasi…
Discrimination and ethnic conflict
The literature on political exclusion and conflict tends to treat grievance-based mechanisms with broad-brush strokes and does not differentiate between types of political exclusion. This study disaggregates politically-excluded groups into two subgroups: groups that experience political discrimination from the state, and groups without political power that are not explicitly discriminated against. We posit that discriminated groups are more like…
Transparency and citizen support for public agencies
Can public agencies boost support for their mandate by being more transparent? We examine this important question in the context of foreign aid. Skepticism about foreign aid spending is common among citizens. This article argues that bilateral aid agencies can increase support for foreign aid by enhancing transparency. The article presents findings from three survey experiments involving a representative sample of 2058 British citizens, as well a…
Rwanda’s post-genocide foreign aid relations
This article studies donor–government relations in Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide. The notion that Rwanda enjoyed or enjoys exceptional relations with donors because of guilt regarding their inaction during the genocide is widespread in the literature and in policy circles. To assess this myth, the article first looks at aid trends for Rwanda and comparable countries, and then takes an in-depth look at aid relations with two average-si…
The domestication of governance assessments
In this paper, I consider the strengths and weaknesses of including local actors in governance assessments through an analysis of the Rwandan Joint Governance Assessment (JGA) and its supporting institutions. The JGA is the first and only governance assessment produced and approved by donors and a recipient country. The approach is seen by many as a model to replicate elsewhere, because it combines donors' need to assess governance in the countri…
Non-Governmental and Not-for-Profit Organizational Effectiveness
NGO/NPO effectiveness remains a prominent concern for scholars and practitioners, but the literature on this issue is increasingly fragmented along disciplinary lines. We address this problem by presenting a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the literature on NGO and NPO effectiveness using citation analysis. In order to uncover commonalities across disciplines concerned with similar questions, we deploy a structured literature review…
The domestication of governance assessments
In this paper, I consider the strengths and weaknesses of including local actors in governance assessments through an analysis of the Rwandan Joint Governance Assessment (JGA) and its supporting institutions. The JGA is the first and only governance assessment produced and approved by donors and a recipient country. The approach is seen by many as a model to replicate elsewhere, because it combines donors' need to assess governance in the countri…
The Development Dance
The Development Dance is about how donor countries and recipient governments negotiate the delivery of foreign aid. The book provides a conceptual framework for understanding donor-government relations and a theory for explaining the sustainability of aid delivery mechanisms. Drawing on extensive in-country fieldwork in four sub-Saharan African countries, as well as an original survey of development practitioners in twenty countries, the book poi…
Can foreign aid donors credibly threaten to suspend aid? Evidence from a cross-national survey of donor officials
Under what conditions are foreign aid donors willing to suspend foreign aid to punish political transgressions, such as election fraud, corruption scandals or political repression? Prior scholarship has emphasized that political sanctions, including foreign aid suspensions, are constrained by the geostrategic considerations of donor countries. However, foreign aid suspensions often occur in strategically important countries, and donors respond di…
Is China eroding the bargaining power of traditional donors in Africa
The growing presence of China on the African continent has stimulated vibrant and often polarizing debates on the impact of Chinese financing on both socioeconomic development and foreign policy decision-making in Africa. In these debates, European and American actors are often depicted as being left out in the cold. In the field of international development, it is often assumed that China's increased involvement in sub-Saharan Africa is decreasi…
Inequality and Ethnic Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa
Theories of ethnic conflict predict that between-group inequality should be associated with a greater likelihood of violent conflict, but empirical results have been mixed. One reason might be that different types of inequalities have opposing effects on the likelihood of conflict. In this article, we posit that educational inequalities are likely to incentivize collective action by inducing grievances, while economic and demographic inequalities…
Rwanda’s post-genocide foreign aid relations
This article studies donor–government relations in Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide. The notion that Rwanda enjoyed or enjoys exceptional relations with donors because of guilt regarding their inaction during the genocide is widespread in the literature and in policy circles. To assess this myth, the article first looks at aid trends for Rwanda and comparable countries, and then takes an in-depth look at aid relations with two average-si…
The rise and fall of budget support
Discrimination and ethnic conflict
The literature on political exclusion and conflict tends to treat grievance-based mechanisms with broad-brush strokes and does not differentiate between types of political exclusion. This study disaggregates politically-excluded groups into two subgroups: groups that experience political discrimination from the state, and groups without political power that are not explicitly discriminated against. We posit that discriminated groups are more like…
The 'Dark Side' of Social Capital
Research and policy circles often emphasize the importance of social capital in achieving social transformation and economic development. There is also, however, potentially a 'dark side' to social capital. This study investigates the relationship between two different types of social capital-structural and cognitive-using two different measures of political violence: self-reported support for political violence and self-reported participation in…
To understand the implications of different aid modalities, we need to analyse the bargaining logic between donors and recipient governments
Budget support has given rise to vigorous debates among practitioners and academics. Scholars have sought to analyse why this aid modality was adopted (e.g. Clist et al., 2012; Dietrich, 2013); whether or not it is effective (e.g. Dijkstra, 2018; Koeberle et al., 2006; IDD and Associates, 2006; Ronsholt, 2014); and under what conditions it is likely to be abandoned and/or suspended (e.g. Koch et al., 2017; Molenaers et al., 2015). Beyond budget s…
How to make elite experiments work in International Relations
For decades, many International Relations (IR) scholars did not engage in elite experiments, because they viewed it as too risky, too costly, or too difficult to implement. However, as part of a behavioral turn in IR, a growing number of scholars have begun to adopt the method in their own research. This shift raises important questions. Under what conditions do elite experiments add value to IR scholarship? How can scholars overcome the logistic…
Stop Calling Me a Youth
The African 'youth' population is growing at a fast and steady pace, attracting attention from scholars, policymakers, and politicians. Yet, we know relatively little about this large and heterogeneous segment of the population. This paper presents data from 110 interviews and ten focus groups with youth engaged in commercial agriculture across all four regions of Uganda. Capitalising on this ethnographic data, we provide an analytical framework …
How transparent are aid agencies to their citizens? Introducing the Citizen Aid Transparency Dataset
Existing measures of aid transparency overwhelmingly focus on how much information donor agencies are willing to share with the international donor community, overlooking that transparency is about increasing citizens' access to information in order to improve government accountability. In this article, we present the Citizen Aid Transparency Dataset (CATD). Using factor and correlation analysis, we show that the CATD captures a different dimensi…
Foreign aid withdrawals and suspensions
In this introduction to the special issue, “Foreign Aid Withdrawals and Suspensions: Why, When and Are They Effective,” we both summarize the current state of the literature and outline a robust new agenda for studying aid suspensions and withdrawals. A common contribution of the papers in this special issue is that they emphasize that donors and aid-recipient states have more options available to them than previous literature has allowed and tha…
Localization Through Coordination? Implementing the Humanitarian‐Development‐Peace Nexus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
As a global concept and initiative, the Humanitarian‐Development‐Peace Nexus (HDPN) aims to improve integration across the traditionally siloed humanitarian, development, and security sectors, while foregrounding the involvement of local actors. Using original empirical data on the implementation of the HDPN in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), we show how and why the approach has not delivered substantive localization in the Congolese …
Transparency and citizen support for public agencies
Can public agencies boost support for their mandate by being more transparent? We examine this important question in the context of foreign aid. Skepticism about foreign aid spending is common among citizens. This article argues that bilateral aid agencies can increase support for foreign aid by enhancing transparency. The article presents findings from three survey experiments involving a representative sample of 2058 British citizens, as well a…
Aid and armed actors
In conflict-affected contexts, the presence of armed actors—including state security forces, international peacekeeping missions, and non-state armed groups—means that aid organisations may need to cooperate with these actors to deliver foreign aid. Yet the conditions under which this cooperation happens remain underspecified. In this article, we use novel mixed methods data from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to study these condition…
Fact or fear? Elite and public opinion on the misuse of foreign aid
This article investigates how information on the misuse of foreign aid affects support for aid among citizens and politicians. It draws on original survey data and experiments with a representative sample of 2,205 UK citizens and 117 UK parliamentarians. The findings show a significant public backlash against foreign aid when misuse is revealed. This backlash is not confined to the country where the scandal occurred but spills over to other aid r…
The Political Economy of Receiving Aid
In this introduction to the special issue, ‘The Political Economy of Receiving Aid’, we argue for moving beyond disciplinary silos and the narrow question of whether foreign aid is effective. Instead, we argue for better theorizing the political and economic impacts of the aid system on receiving societies. By aid system, we mean the complex network of relationships, norms and incentives between a broad constellation of actors and institutions, b…
Forum
Debates on “bridging the gap” in international relations have often focused on the ways in which academics try to influence policymakers in the USA and to a lesser extent in Europe, Canada, and Australia. There has been a tendency to overlook the nature of collaborations between academics and practitioners in other global spaces. This forum brings together leading thinkers, who have engaged with and in policy spaces across several different Afric…
Political science (16 works) · Economics (14 works) · International Development and Aid (14 works) · Politics (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Business (7 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Economic growth (5 works)