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Western donors attempting to promote democracy across the globe face a dilemma. Democracy is a highly valued policy goal, but they are fearful that the path to democ¬racy will undermine another highly valued goal – political stability – and potentially cause widespread violence in the recipient countries or beyond. We ask whether these fears have empirical support and how donors can balance the potentially conflicting objectives of democratisation and stability when intervening in governance matters. Recent research at the German Development Institute shows that fears about the destabilising effects of democratisation do indeed have some empirical support (Leininger et al 2012; Ziaja 2013). But these fears deflect attention from the bigger problem of "getting stuck in the middle". Hybrid regimes that exhibit authoritarian traits under a façade of formal democratic institutions constitute, in the long run, a larger security risk than attempts to make these countries more democratic. Hybrid regimes also hamper economic development, thus constituting an additional, indirect, risk of violent conflict. The promotion of democracy is hence a laudable effort, but it may itself carry risks. A recent DIE study of 47 African countries suggests that support for democracy increases popular mobilisation in the short run, leading to increased demonstrations and riots. However, the same study produced no evidence that democracy support is likely to spark civil wars. Increased mobilisation is thus rather a sign of aid effectiveness than a reason to worry. Yet, to be effective in the long run and to help steer popular demands into peaceful channels, democracy support must assist domestic actors in building institutions that fit the needs of their society. In the past, the potentially de¬stabilising consequences of popular participation have seduced would-be engineers of social change into re¬stricting competition in young democracies. This is a bad idea, as our recent research shows: narrow, elite pacts have, on average, led to worse political outcomes than open competition. The best contribution that donors can make from the out¬side is to enable marginalised groups to participate in crea¬ting the institutional setup. This is best achieved when many donors promote democracy simultaneously. Only then can they avoid the "blueprint trap", which snaps shut when donors try to impose – advertently or inadvertently – an institutional setup on the partner country that does not fit its society's needs. Diversity on the donor side increases the chances of finding a context-adequate institutional design. These findings suggest that an overly cautious sequencing approach to democracy promotion – stability first, only then democracy – has little empirical support. Most countries in the world embarked on a (formally) democratic path more than two decades ago. A gradualist approach that builds institutions while at the same time encouraging mobilisation is thus the more viable approach. Recommendations in brief: Promote democracy now Keep democracy aid diverse Encourage endogenous, inclusive polity design Enforce conditionality on conflict resolution mechanisms in institutional design Balance trade-offs of democratic transitions.

We review the aid effectiveness literature to assess whether foreign aid given to areas of limited statehood can be expected to promote economic and social outcomes in the recipient country. We distinguish different types of aid, motives for granting it, recipient country policies and characteristics, and modalities by which aid is delivered, as these factors have been argued to influence the effectiveness of aid. In short, aid is most likely to be successful if given for non-strategic motives, and if given to recipient countries with "good" policies and democratic institutions. Fragmented aid and aid amounts that exceed the absorptive capacity of the recipient reduce the effectiveness of aid. We then compare these properties between recipients most affected by limited statehood and those least affected. This allows us to assess the relative effectiveness of aid in countries with areas of limited statehood. We conclude that on average aid given there is less likely to be effective than elsewhere.

AbstractAid effectiveness is widely understood to suffer when multiple donors operate in the same space, but recent studies indicate benefits of fragmentation. We posit that these mixed findings may reflect differences across aid sectors — and also show how the level of implementation can condition the interpretation of results. Cross-national time-series analysis of 152 countries implies aid fragmentation can promote child survival and improve governance. However, analysis of subnational variation in Sierra Leone and Nigeria suggests the presence of more donors is associated with worse health outcomes, but better governance outcomes. Having more donors in a locality may thus be beneficial when they are working to improve the systems through which policies are implemented, but harmful if they target policy outcomes directly. A survey of Nigerian civil servants suggests potential mechanisms: fragmentation in health aid may lead to internal "brain drain" and pressure to alter projects, whereas diversity in governance aid might promote meritocratic behavior.

Aid fragmentation is widely denounced, though recent studies suggest potential benefits. To reconcile these mixed findings, we make a case for studying differences across aid sectors and levels of analysis. Our cross-national time-series analysis of data from 141 countries suggests aid fragmentation promotes child survival and improves governance. However, just looking across countries has the potential to blur important within-country differences. We analyse subnational variation in Sierra Leone and Nigeria and find that the presence of more donors is associated with worse health outcomes, but better governance outcomes. This suggests that having more donors within a locality can be beneficial when they are working to improve the systems through which policies are implemented, but harmful when they target policy outcomes directly. A survey of Nigerian civil servants highlights potential mechanisms. Fragmentation in health aid may undermine civil servants' morale, whereas diversity in governance aid can promote meritocratic behaviour.

Motivation: The COVID‐19 pandemic is the most recent instance of global development problems being liable to occur anywhere, challenging the assumption of a world divided into "developed" and "developing" countries. Recent scholarship has increasingly opted for the term "global development" to capture this changing geography of development problems. Purpose: Our article contributes to these debates by proposing a novel empirical approach to localize global development problems in country contexts worldwide. Methods and approach: Our approach rests on a universal understanding of "development." We identify countries that are particularly relevant for global problem‐solving and consider not only the problem dimension but also countries' capacities to address these problems. Findings: Our results show that countries with the most severe combinations of problems cover a range as broad as Afghanistan, Nigeria, and the United States. Two thirds of countries with above‐average contributions to global problems are governed by authoritarian regimes. We also find that middle income countries, whether lower‐middle or upper‐middle as defined by the World Bank, have little in common apart from their income level. Policy implications: Our analysis shows that traditional development concepts of a binary world order and of foreign aid as financial transfer to remedy imbalances are not enough to address constellations of global problems and capacity that have long evolved beyond rich and poor.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, empirically, state fragility – con­ceptualised as a multi-dimensional phenomenon along the categories of authority, capacity and legitimacy – comes in several distinct configurations, yet that the number of such configurations is rather limited. We suggest that this finding has useful, previously unexplored implications for policy design vis-à-vis fragile states. We do not intend to call into question the necessity of country-specific analysis. A better grasp of "typical" forms of fragility, however, should help development agencies to better prepare for the types of situations they are most likely to be confronted with. The final section of the paper explores some of the practical implications that can be derived from our classification.

Most actors in the field of foreign aid agree with the call for coordinated engagement in fragile states in order to more effectively counter the consequences and origins of state failure. However, despite such demands, governments from OECD countries as well as multilateral agencies engaged in fragile states often continue to act in an uncoordinated manner and fail to reach higher levels of harmonisation. Why is effective coordination so hard to achieve? This article argues that three major challenges explain the persistent problems of donor harmonisation in fragile states: (1) the cognitive challenge of explaining the origins of state fragility and deducing effective instruments and interventions, (2) the political challenge of reconciling divergent political motives for engagement, as well as (3) the bureaucratic challenge related to the organisational logic of competing aid agencies.

This paper examines official country selection and resource allocation of German aid after the end of the Cold War and embeds the analysis into the broader debate about German foreign policy. Based on new data, we take into account several peculiarities of the German aid system. Overall, we find that neediness and democracy levels of recipients have been guiding principles in both, country selection and resource allocation. Nevertheless, geo-strategic considerations and the avoidance of conflict-affected countries also impacted on country selection but less on resource allocation. Moreover, non-linear estimation techniques identify a relatively high threshold of income levels below which the poverty orientation disappears; a finding that refines previous studies identifying a middle-income-country bias of German aid allocation. Finally, official selection decisions to concentrate aid on a reduced number of countries did not have the intended concentration effect. This strong path dependency and development-orientation is compatible with research that sees German foreign policy after re-unification as being subject only to very gradual changes and led by the role model of a Civilian power.