The rise of populism
Right-wing populism is on the rise across the globe, as documented by researchers here, for example. For instance, in Europe right-wing populist parties only recently celebrated electoral success in France (Rassemblement National), the Netherlands (Partij voor de Vrijheid), Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs) and the German federal states (Alternative für Deutschland). In Hungary, the Fidesz party government under Viktor Orbán is in power since 2010 and Italy has since 2022 had a center-right coalition government under Giorgia Meloni, leader of the populist right-wing Fratelli d’Italia. The U.K. had its right-wing populist moment in 2016 when the “Leave EU“ campaign – led by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) – resulted in Brexit, followed by Boris Johnsons stint as the UK’s Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. And in the U.S. at time of writing, Donald Trump once again has the opportunity to become President.
The effect of populist rhetoric on public support for foreign aid
Right-wing populist parties and politicians do not only focus on migration, national identity and traditional visions of society. They often also target foreign aid, in particular its reduction. In this recent article „Manipulating the masses? Right-wing populist messages, political ideology, and public support for multilateral development aid in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom,” my co-authors A. Burcu Bayram (University of Arkansas, U.S.A), Jörg Faust (DEval, Germany), Catarina Thompson (University of Exeter, UK), and I examined the effect of populist anti-aid rhetoric on public support for foreign aid and how it might vary across individuals’ ideological political orientations (i.e. self-placement on the left-right scale). As political orientation has emerged as a key predictor of public attitudes towards foreign aid in many scholarly works (e.g., Bodenstein and Faust, 2017; Milner and Tingley, 2013), we investigated how people on the left, right or in the center of the political spectrum react to populist anti-aid discourse.
Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine, the public may have become even more susceptible to populist rhetoric.
To gauge the causal effect of right-wing populist anti-aid rhetoric on public support for foreign aid, we fielded a survey experiment in Germany (2019), the U.S. (2017) and UK (2018-2019). In each experiment, we presented respondents with a hypothetical vignette that contained a request for funding from a well-known multilateral aid organization (UNICEF) aimed at the national government. We then randomly assigned participants to four different experimental conditions that included the government’s response to the funding request.
The responses corresponded to one of three key dimensions of populism – namely people-centrism, anti-elitism, and in-group favoritism – or to a neutral response saying that the government will let a committee review the request (see Table 1). Subsequently, respondents were asked to indicate how strongly they support or oppose granting UNICEF the requested funding.
Table 1. Experimental design (U.S., for illustrative purposes)
| Vignette introduction (presented to all respondents)
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has publicly denounced American, British government. Mr. Jean Morton, the head of regional operations made the following statement on television: “The United States is not contributing enough funds to UNICEF, and what funds they provide are being earmarked for pet projects. We really need them to change course and increase America’s commitment of funds, so we can deliver help to children in need across the globe.” |
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| Introduction government response (presented to all respondents)
The President responded by saying |
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| Experimental treatment (randomly assigned) | |||
| People condition
The American people, the men and women on the street, prefer to take care of American children first. |
Anti-elite condition
The media and these humanitarian aid groups are exaggerating the situation to manipulate American people. |
In-group favoritism condition
It is not our responsibility to help those people. Who should help these children are those countries that are more like them, not our people. |
Control condition (without populist rhetoric)
We will assemble a congressional committee to examine the issue and see whether they recommend giving more funding to UNICEF. |
Note: Table taken and adapted from the Online Appendix of Bayram et al. (2024)
Populist anti-aid rhetoric shrinks public support for foreign aid
Summed up, our study shows that in Germany, the U.S., and the UK, right-wing, populist and anti-aid messages reduce public support for aid spending. However, the substantial size and statistical significance of this negative effect varies. To illustrate this, in Figure 1, all dots to the left of the dashed line indicate diminishing probability for granting UNICEF the funding (compared to the control group). Note that in Germany, two frames did not yield statistically significant results: “People” in the Merkel scenario and “Anti-elite” in the government official scenario.
Figure 1. Average effect of populist rhetoric on support for foreign aid
Note: Figure taken from Bayram et al. (2024, p. 2713). * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.05, *** p < 0.01. Unstandardized logit coefficients obtained from ordinal logistic regression models. 95% confidence intervals. Covariates (ideology, education, income, age, gender) included but omitted from the figure. Negative (positive) coefficients indicate a negative (positive) effect of populist anti-aid rhetoric on support for giving UNICEF the requested funds. P-values indicate whether the effect is statistically significant, i.e. the probability of getting results at least as extreme as the observed result assuming that the null hypothesis is correct. A low p-value implies that the probability of the null hypothesis being true (i.e. no effect) is low.
Crucially, individuals’ political orientations do influence their sensitivity to populist anti-aid rhetoric. But our results show that the role of political orientation is significantly different across the three countries we studied.
In Germany, populist anti-aid rhetoric decreases aid support among respondents with centrist ideological preferences and among those without a clear ideological position (i.e. those who chose “don’t know” when asked for their self-placement on the left-right scale). In the U.S., populist anti-aid rhetoric diminishes the support for aid disbursements among the ideological left, a surprising result we hope to pursue further. In the UK, the effect of populist anti-aid rhetoric, interestingly, does not vary as a function of political ideology. What’s more, in all three settings populist anti-aid messages do not systematically sway those already opposed to aid, i.e., political right-wingers, towards an even stronger anti-aid stance.
Implications for the aid sector
The implications for the aid sector are two-fold: First, aid practitioners need to be aware that right-wing populist attacks on foreign aid commonly observed in aid donor countries indeed pose a threat to public support for aid. Importantly, it must be kept in mind that the data for our study was collected before the Covid-19 pandemic and before the Russian war against the Ukraine commenced, i.e. before the economy and public budgets in many countries began to strain under the weight of these events. Against this backdrop, the public may have become even more susceptible to populist rhetoric.
Second, the varying role of ideological orientation indicates that the political setting in which populist anti-aid rhetoric is deployed is important. Although populist rhetoric does not make aid-opponents even more opposed to aid, depending on the context such rhetoric may make those usually endorsing the provision of foreign aid change their mind and become less supportive. Put differently, right-wing populist anti-aid rhetoric may damage the public cornerstones of foreign aid support – i.e. people in the center and on the left of the political spectrum. In light of growing electoral success of right-wing populist parties across Europe and Trump’s non-negligible chances of becoming once again the President of the U.S., the context for the provision of official development assistance (ODA) to the Global South is already fierce and may become even fiercer in the near future. The recent heated debate in Germany about ODA-funded bikeways in Peru is an indicative example (see BMZ, 2024). Thus, the development sector is advised to track public opinion in different ideological sectors closely.
What development communicators can do
Communicators, as always, need to be prepared for concisely communicating which aid programs are undertaken and why and disseminating their effectiveness (for evidence regarding the effect of effectiveness-related information on aid attitudes see here and here. The heated “Peru debate” mentioned above showed deficits in this regard. Second, communicators should highlight contributions of foreign aid to goals that many segments in the populace could support. By contrast, addressing progressive concepts in development communications, for instance – as in Germany since 2022 – feminist development policy, needs to be carefully considered, as they may polarize. However, survey data shows that even those who support feminist development policy to a lesser degree do not completely reject its goals. Whenever possible, communicators should focus on concrete goals and content instead of simply emphasizing labels.
