Explaining Variations in the Control of Authoritarian Regimes: The Impact of Foreign Aid on Subnational Regime Control

The aim of autocratic leaders is to remain in power for as long as possible. Key strides in the field have given us a detailed view of the tools which autocrats use to protect and extend their survival. Studies have pointed to the effect of foreign aid flows on autocratic regimes, with several concluding that aid does little to help with democratisation. In fact, aid can have an adverse effect on democratisation, sustaining autocracy. However, such studies have examined the relationship between aid and autocratic longevity at a national level. This project aims to move the debate on aid effectiveness forward by examining how foreign aid can be used as a mechanism for regime control at a subnational level. To do so, it develops a new measure of regime control at a sub-national level to assess the effect of aid distribution on subnational politics. This will help us understand the political outcomes of aid at a local, fine-grained level. To do so, this project looks at the effect of foreign aid on subnational regime control. To that end, this dissertation focuses on two questions. The first is how can we conceptualise regime control from a subnational perspective? Second, what effect does aid have on subnational regime control? The findings suggest that aid does not increase subnational control in the aggregate, but this varies from state to state. This points to the diverse characteristics of each state and how aid is managed at a subnational level. This work contributes to our understanding of the state and autocratic behaviour by three means: 1) It allows us to understand the vast variations in subnational politics within autocratic states with a new tool to analyse subnational regime control for researchers; 2) It provides a more fine-grained analysis of how aid is managed and its effects on subnational control; 3) it provides a more localised insight into how aid flows are managed at a subnational level in autocratic regimes.