Semuhi Sinanoglu (2025). “Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe, and support for authoritarianism.” IDOS Discussion paper.
Strategic framing of humanitarian aid, communicated as such, increases trust in European organizations, partly by reducing conspiracism.
How does international assistance impact public attitudes towards donors in the recipient country when tied to strategic interests? European leaders highlight more and more the strategic and transactional nature of international assistance. Yet, we still do not know much about how such shifts in framing of international assistance are perceived by the recipient public, especially in contexts with prevalent anti-Western attitudes and propaganda that dismisses aid as hypocritical and disingenuous. I conducted an online survey experiment in Turkey to assess the attitudinal and quasi-behavioral effects of different types of international assistance post-disaster -- conditional, unconditional, and strategic -- and whether they help sway public attitudes in the face of authoritarian propaganda. Contrary to my expectations, strategic aid decreased trust in the government as a defender of national interest among conservative, nationalist, and Eurosceptic regime supporters, and also increased trust in European organizations. It did so partly by mitigating conspiracism and evoking positive emotions among pro-government voters whose views are hard to change. However, this comes at a cost: increased trade skepticism and less engagement with foreign media outlets among regime opponents. The findings have significant implications for international assistance strategies for increasing European soft power and their unintended consequences.