Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP13290
Authors: Axel Dreher; Valentin Lang; B. Peter Rosendorff; James Raymond Vreeland
Abstract: We show how major shareholders can exploit their power over international organizations to hide their foreign-policy interventions from domestic audiences. We argue that major powers exert influence bilaterally when domestic audiences view the intervention favorably. When domestic audiences are more skeptical of a target country, favors are granted via international organizations. We test this theory empirically by examining how the United States uses bilateral aid and IMF loans to buy other countries’ votes in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Introducing new data on voting behavior in the UNSC over the 1960-2015 period, our results show that states allied with the US receive more bilateral aid when voting in line with the United States in the UNSC, while concurring votes of states less allied with the US are rewarded with loans from the IMF. Temporary UNSC members that vote against the United States do not receive such perks.
Keywords: United Nations Security Council; Voting; Aid; IMF; World Bank
JEL Codes: O11; O19; F35
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| U.S. voting alignment in the UNSC (D72) | bilateral aid distribution (F35) |
| U.S. voting alignment in the UNSC (D72) | IMF loans distribution (F35) |
| Voting in favor of the U.S. (K16) | increased bilateral aid (F35) |
| Voting against the U.S. (D72) | no increased bilateral aid (F35) |
| Political distance from the U.S. (F59) | type of aid received (F35) |
| Bilateral aid (F35) | influence on voting behavior (D72) |