IDD Guest Seminar Series: Does transparency improve public opinion?

How does transparency by public-sector organizations affect public opinion? In this paper, we explore whether transparency reforms by bilateral aid agencies increase support for foreign aid, drawing on both observational data from the Citizen Aid Transparency Dataset and two survey experiments with a representative sample of 2,058 citizens of The United Kingdom. In both the observational and experimental data, we find strong support for the argument that increased transparency increases public support for foreign aid. These results have important implications for the policy debate on organizational reforms in public agencies, as well as a burgeoning literature on transparency in public administration, international relations and international development.

Speaker's bio:

Haley J. Swedlund is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Centre for International Conflict Analysis and Management (CICAM) at Radboud University in The Netherlands. Her research focuses on international actors in the Global South. She is the author of The Development Dance: How Donors and Recipients Negotiate Foreign Aid (Cornell University Press, 2017) and has published on her research in journals such as African Affairs, Review of International Political Economy, International Affairs, and European Journal of International Relations.

Host or Publisher International Development Department (IDD), University of Birmingham