Human Rights and Dutch Foreign Aid

Erin SielaffKristen Skillman

INAF 339

AbstractSmall donor nations are largely considered to be altruistic donors, allocating aid based on

humanitarian concerns rather than foreign policy goals. Consider the example of the Netherlands, whose government has consistently expressed a commitment to human rights, and has formally linked this goal to its development aid program. However, previous studies of Dutch aid are inconclusive as to the true relationship between aid received and human rights records. We therefore conduct a focused analysis, testing the relationship between Dutch foreign aid and a country’s physical integrity rights and empowerment rights. Ultimately, we find that the Netherlands rewards countries with better empowerment rights, but not those with better integrity rights. In other words, the Dutch strategically allocate funds to promote those human rights that they deem most important. This suggests that small donors, even when behaving altruistically, may in fact make strategic choices in their aid allocation to support certain foreign policy goals.

I. Introduction

Small donors are altruistic donors. This mantra has been widely accepted—and repeated

—throughout the existing literature on foreign aid (Hoadley 1980, Kilby 2006: 175, Stokke

1989, Alesina and Dollar 2000). Scholars often assume that small donors do not use their aid

dollars to "invest" in certain foreign policy goals, and choose instead to distribute aid based on

altruistic criteria. While these donors might selectively allocate funds towards countries with

higher rates of poverty or better records of human rights, they do not do so in order to achieve

specific foreign policy goals (beyond alleviating poverty and reducing repression), in the way

that large donors might buy votes in the United Nations Security Council (Vreeland 2014).

We aim to test both of these widely held beliefs about small donors—that they are

altruistic and that they are not strategic in their aid allocation—by considering the example of the

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Netherlands. The Dutch foreign aid program is generally regarded as altruistic in nature

(Hoadley 1980, Kilby 2006: 175, Stokke 1989, Alesina and Dollar 2000). However, scholars

debate whether the Dutch truly use their aid euros to back up their consistent rhetorical

commitment to human rights. If the Netherlands rewards states with better human rights records,

and if they target specific categories of rights, it may indicate that the Dutch government uses its

limited aid budget strategically to support the humanitarian-oriented goals of its choosing.

The Netherlands has long prided itself on its support and promotion of human rights at

home and abroad. By hosting a number of international human rights bodies, including the

International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and

Yugoslavia, the country has gained an international reputation for its commitment to human

rights. This commitment appears to permeate many aspects of Dutch policy, including

development aid distribution. In 1979, the Dutch Foreign Minister issued a policy memo

formalizing the relationship between aid and human rights (Baehr et. al 2002). However, despite

this rhetoric, foreign aid allocation involves consideration of a multitude of political and

economic factors. Given their limited aid budget, it is possible that the Dutch have to prioritize

some aid goals over others, raising the question of whether the Netherlands might make strategic

choices in allocating aid to human rights supporters.

We use Dutch official development assistance data and the Cingranelli and Richards

human rights dataset to analyze the relationship between Dutch foreign aid and two classes of

human rights: empowerment and physical integrity rights. To test the robustness of our results

we employ both country and year fixed-effects models, in addition to our preliminary OLS

regressions. We show that the Netherlands provides more foreign aid to countries with better

empowerment rights records, but not to those with better physical integrity rights. We therefore

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argue that the Dutch choose to prioritize the human rights goals they find most important,

suggesting that even altruistic donors strategically allocate funds.

Our paper is structured as follows. The next section outlines background information on

the Netherlands’ aid policies, including a case study of its historic aid relationship with

Indonesia. It also reviews the existing literature on human rights, foreign aid, and the

Netherlands. The third section describes our data, and the fourth, our methodology. The fifth

section discusses our results, and we conclude with an analysis of the implications of our paper

and areas for further research.

II. Background and Theory

The promotion of human rights around the world is, in fact, one of the main tenants of the

Netherlands' stated foreign policy, as was made clear in the 1979 policy memorandum (Baehr et.

al 2002). This memorandum emphasized “an indissoluble connection between human rights and

development policy,” although it did not contend that the Netherlands would necessarily use

development aid to reward or punish countries for their human rights records (Baehr et. al 2002:

17).

Since 1979, human rights promotion has remained a “cornerstone of Dutch foreign

policy” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2013, Baehr et. al 2002, Brysk 2009: 119). According to the

Netherlands’ government website, the country’s top three priorities when promoting human

rights on the international stage are all empowerment rights: protection of human rights

defenders, women’s rights, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people’s rights.

The Netherlands also gives special mention to the serious integrity rights violations of the death

penalty and torture, as well as to free speech and freedom of religion (Ministry of Foreign

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Affairs 2014). As such, it seems that the Netherlands has made—at the very least—a rhetorical

commitment to human rights abroad.

One illustration of this commitment is the story of the turbulent relationship between the

Netherlands and Indonesia, a former Dutch colony. Violations of human rights by General

Suharto’s New Order administration strained relations between the Dutch government and

Indonesia (van den Ham 1993: 532, Stokke 1995: 140). The tension between the two countries

came to a boiling point in 1990, when Suharto made grave threats against the lives of four

political prisoners (Stokke 1995: 140). The Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation

responded by cutting 27 million guilders of aid to Indonesia (Stokke 1995: 140). This action, and

the continuing human rights violations in Indonesia, sparked a widespread debate in the

Netherlands over the relationship between development aid and human rights. The Dutch

government wondered which violations of rights merited the cutting of aid, and whether the

actions of Indonesia met this threshold (Stokke 1995: 145).

The 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre in East Timor brought the issue to a head once again

(Stokke 1995: 153). As Dutch ministers seriously considered cutting aid to Indonesia in response

to the massacre, their linking of human rights and humanitarian aid was also called into question.

Suharto himself “referred to the ‘reckless use of development aid as an instrument of

intimidation or as a tool to threaten Indonesia’” (Baehr 1997: 369). However, before the

Netherlands could make a decision regarding allocation of funds to Indonesia, Suharto decided to

block aid from the Netherlands, turning the tables on the relationship (van den Ham 1993: 532,

Stokke 1995: 155).

The case of Indonesia, where, in the early 1990s, human rights violations resulted in a

cessation of Dutch aid, motivates our examination of the broader aid allocation trends in the

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Netherlands. In this paper we examine whether this positive correlation between human rights

and aid holds for the Netherlands' distribution of development aid to other countries. As

background to this research, we first discuss the existing scholarship surrounding human rights,

foreign aid, and the Netherlands.

In keeping with the prevailing scholarly consensus, we distinguish between two

categories of human rights. Neumayer (2003) argues that a critical distinction exists between

integrity rights and empowerment rights (also known as civil and political rights), which requires

that the two be analyzed separately. Physical “integrity rights violations are without doubt

[inexcusable] and [unlike empowerment rights] are not subject to the relativist challenge”

(Neumayer 2003: 652). Violations of physical integrity rights, then, are generally condemned by

world leaders. Empowerment rights, on the other hand, are sometimes considered a Western

construction, making them inapplicable to other regions of the world (Neumayer 2003: 652).

They therefore simply “do not carry quite the same status” on the international stage as integrity

rights (Neumayer 2003: 652). Thus, breaking the broader concept of human rights into these two

categories might provide us with greater insight into the aid priorities of the Netherlands.

With this understanding of human rights in mind, we now turn to the relationship

between human rights and foreign aid allocation. Literature on this topic tends to make

distinctions between different kinds of donors. First, multilateral institutions are much more

likely to reward good human rights practices than individual donor nations are (Neumayer

2003a, Lebovic and Voeten 2009). Among donor nations, “small” donors, like the Netherlands,

are believed to follow more altruistic giving patterns than “large” donors like the United States.

A small donor, therefore, is more likely to allocate aid based on the recipient-need model, taking

into account poverty or humanitarian concerns, than on the donor-interest model, which

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emphasizes the political and economic motivations of the donor (Hoadley 1980, Kilby 2006:

175, Stokke 1989, Alesina and Dollar 2000).

The Netherlands in particular has been included in regressions in several larger studies

about overall trends in foreign aid allocation (Neumayer 2003, Berthélemy 2006, Alesina and

Dollar 2000). As discussed, on the whole this literature tends to group the Netherlands with other

small, altruistic donors.1 In addition, the seminal study by Alesina and Dollar (2000) finds that

the recipient country’s level of democratization plays an important role in Dutch aid allocation

(Alesina and Dollar 2000: 18).

A number of papers examine more specifically the role that human rights have

historically played in the Netherlands’ foreign aid allocation.2 Scholars, looking at the

Netherlands’ development aid policies both quantitatively and qualitatively, have had mixed

findings regarding the humanitarian motivations behind Dutch aid. Stokke’s (2006) and Baer’s

(2010) qualitative studies of the Netherlands’ aid policies suggest that the country rewards

human rights with development aid. Neumayer (2003) and Alesina and Dollar (2000) support

this finding with regression analysis, claiming a positive correlation between empowerment

rights and receipt of Dutch aid.

That said, Baehr (2002) writes, “the [Dutch] government rejects the idea that aid should

be used to reward countries with respect (to) human rights,” calling into question the real

relationship between Dutch aid and human rights records (Baehr 2002: 17-18). Similarly,

Hoebink (1999) argues that the Netherlands’ commitment to human rights exists only in rhetoric,

and does not extend to the reality of aid allocation. Neumayer (2003) offers some support for this

hypothesis: his regression results show a negative correlation between physical integrity rights 1 See, for example: Stokke 1989: 133; Hoebink 1997; Neumayer 2003; Gates, Scott and Hoeffler 2004; Berthélemy 2006; Younas 2008; Kilby 2006: 175. 2 See, for example: Baehr 1982; van den Ham 1993; Baehr 1997; Baehr, Castermans-Holleman, and Grünfeld 2002; Gates, Scott and Hoeffler 2004.

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and Dutch aid.

Thus, there is some disagreement in the literature regarding the Netherlands’ aid policies,

and no single study exists quantitatively examining the Netherlands’ aid program and providing

an in-depth examination of their aid policy. Our paper offers such a focused econometric

analysis. In addition, we utilize robustness checks for our results that have not been put in use in

relation to Dutch foreign aid.

Before we begin our econometric analysis of Dutch aid, we look at the rhetoric of the

Netherlands in order to develop a hypothesis about their aid distribution patterns. Given that the

Netherlands is a small country, with limited aid resources, we expect that they privilege certain

sets of human rights over others, to make their aid euros go further. The content of the Dutch

government’s website indicates that, while the Netherlands attempts to promote all human rights,

it tends to focus its efforts on civil and political rights (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014). We

therefore develop the following hypotheses regarding Dutch aid distribution:

H1: The Netherlands gives more foreign aid to countries with better human rights records.

H2: The Netherlands gives more foreign aid to countries with better empowerment rights

records.

We now turn to an empirical analysis of Dutch aid data in order to test our hypotheses.

III. Data

We take Dutch official development assistance (ODA) data from Vreeland’s (2011)

analysis of Swiss foreign aid. The original source of this data is the Development Assistance

Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

(Vreeland 2011: 374). We take the log of the Dutch ODA data to normalize the distribution of

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the data, measuring the variable in constant US 2001 millions of dollars.

Our measurement of human rights comes from the Cingranelli-Richards (CIRI) Human

Rights Data Project. Following Neumayer (2003), we examine both integrity rights and civil and

political rights (Neumayer 2003: 652). Like Neumayer, however, we do not address economic or

social rights in this paper, because it is difficult to determine whether economic rights violations

stem from poor government policy or from poverty (Neumayer 2003: 652).

CIRI scores countries on their respect for human rights using a combination of the US

Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and the Annual Reports from

Amnesty International (Cingranelli et. al 2013: 3). The CIRI database includes a range of

variables, which fall into two main categories: physical integrity rights and empowerment rights.

We choose to use CIRI instead of other measures of human rights because it provides a

comprehensive assessment of the main human rights indicators which we are interested in

testing: civil and political rights and integrity rights.3

CIRI’s physical integrity rights index variable is composed of the following: political and

extrajudicial killings, deprivation of life, disappearances, torture, and political imprisonment

(Cingranelli et. al 2013: 1). Physical integrity rights scores range from 0 to 8, with a score of 0

reserved for those countries with the worst rights records.

The new empowerment rights index variable includes freedom of speech and press,

freedom of religion, freedom of domestic movement, freedom of foreign movement, freedom of

assembly and association, electoral self-determination, worker’s rights, independent judiciary

and three women’s rights variables: political rights, economic rights and social rights

(Cingranelli et. al 2013: 1). New empowerment rights is coded from 0 to 14, with 0 again

3 Note that Neumayer (2003) uses the Purdue Political Terror Scales and the Freedom House rights index (Neumayer 2003: 654).

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indicating the worst violators.

With this understanding of the data in mind, let us turn to descriptive statistics. To begin,

we break the aid data into three groups for each variable. First, we examine the amount of aid

allocated for those countries that scored between 0 and 4, 5 and 10, and 10 and 14 for the

empowerment rights variable. Then, we look at the amount of aid allocated to countries based on

their physical integrity rights scores, once again breaking them into three groups: 0-2, 3-5, 6-8.

The descriptive statistics are shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for Empowerment Rights

Empowerment Rights Score Mean aid received Median aid received Standard Deviation

0-4 1.553979 1.111858 1.574587

5-9 1.945333 1.850811 1.554388

10-14 1.35785 .7178398 1.482602

Table 2: Descriptive Statistics for Physical Integrity Rights

Physical Integrity Rights Score Mean aid received Median aid received Standard Deviation

0-2 2.395806 2.601949 1.515005

3-5 .8838442 .2468601 1.257274

6-8 1.032598 .2623643 1.341778

This initial evaluation of the descriptive data reveals the following: For the empowerment

rights variable, it seems that the mid range of countries (scores from 5 to 9) receives the largest

amount of foreign aid from the Netherlands. For the physical integrity rights variable, we see

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that, interestingly, countries with the worst scores receive substantially more aid from the

Netherlands. These descriptive statistics support the findings of Neumayer (2003), who argues

that physical integrity rights are negatively correlated with aid allocation (Neumayer 2003: 664).

As is the case for many other states that claim to support human rights abroad, it appears at first

glance that the Dutch promise is hollow.

IV. Method

However, it is important to recognize that these descriptive statistics fail to take into

account many other factors that can influence foreign aid allocation, and it is possible that a set

of countries is driving these numbers. We therefore turn to using multivariate regression analysis

to determine the true relationship between Dutch foreign aid and human rights. We take our

baseline specification from Vreeland4 (2011), who controls for post-communism, GDP per capita

(in millions of US 2000 dollars), population, democracy, trade, FDI, oil, ethnic fractionalization,

religious fractionalization, and former British and French colony status. We substitute two new

variables, exports to the Netherlands and imports from the Netherlands, in constant millions of

US 2005 dollars, for Vreeland’s trade variable. We also replace former British and French

colony with a dichotomous variable for former Dutch colony, given our country of study. In

addition, we lag all control variables, as well as our independent variables (empowerment rights

and physical integrity rights) by one year, because aid allocation decisions are generally made

using information from the preceding year (Neumayer 2003: 654).

We include GDP per capita because the Netherlands is generally described as an altruistic

donor, allocating aid based on recipient need. Democracy5 and population are variables that are

4 We used Vreeland’s (2011) specification instead of Neumayer’s (2003) because Neumayer’s work investigated a broad selection of countries, while Vreeland’s, like ours, is tailored to one specific country.5 We use Cheibub et. al.’s (2010) dichotomous democracy indicator.

10

almost universally considered important in the literature on foreign aid (Alesina and Dollar

2000). Trade, FDI, post-communism, and colony status are used as indicators of donor-interest

motivated aid. Keeping with Vreeland (2011) and Alesina and Dollar (2000), we also control for

ethnic and religious fractionalization.

Before beginning our analysis, it is important to address the issue of endogeneity. It is

possible that foreign development aid is improving the human rights records of violators, though

we doubt that Dutch foreign aid has a large enough impact on a country’s economy to encourage

them to stop their violations or to allow them to build the institutional capacity to improve

empowerment rights. Regardless, we include country fixed effects to capture any unobserved

heterogeneity across countries, and we also lag our independent variables to help address the

problem of endogeneity. However, we remain cognizant of this issue as we move forward, since

endogeneity has the potential to undermine any correlation we find between human rights and

receipt of Dutch aid.

We examine both physical integrity rights and new empowerment rights, first using OLS

regressions and controlling for the factors discussed above. This initial approach mirrors

Neumayer’s (2003) work on the relationship between human rights and foreign aid. However,

Neumayer looks at many countries, and gives an overview of general patterns worldwide. In our

more focused study of the Netherlands, we are concerned with patterns within recipient

countries. We therefore use a country fixed-effects model, and then a country and year fixed-

effects model, for our second and third sets of regressions. When country fixed-effects are

included, the colonial status, oil, ethnic fractionalization and religious fractionalization variables

are omitted due to collinearity.

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In addition to our examination of the physical integrity rights and empowerment rights

indices, we perform a similar analysis for each of the component variables of these indices.6

V. Results

Our initial regression analysis of the relationship between empowerment rights and the

allocation of Dutch aid calls the Netherlands' rhetoric into question. As shown in column 1 of

Table 3, under the OLS regression model, we find no statistically significant relationship

between empowerment rights and receipt of Dutch aid. However, when we control for country

and year fixed-effects (shown in columns 2 and 3 of Table 3), the Dutch are exonerated. In these

models, the effect of better empowerment rights on the logged amount of Dutch aid is positive

and significant at the 0.05 level. In their aid allocation, therefore, the Dutch live up to their

rhetoric of supporting empowerment rights.

6 The individual components variables, as described in Section III, are: political and extrajudicial killings or deprivation of life, disappearances, torture, and political imprisonment, freedom of speech and press, freedom of religion, freedom of domestic movement, freedom of foreign movement, freedom of assembly and association, electoral self-determination, worker’s rights, independent judiciary and two women’s rights variables: political rights and economic rights.

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Table 3: Effect of New Empowerment Rights Index on Log of Dutch Aid

Variable (1) (2) (3)New Empowerment Rights 0.001 0.065*** 0.061**

(0.011) (0.021) (0.023)Democracy 0.255*** -0.009 -0.001

(0.082) (0.233) (0.227)GDP per Capita -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000***

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Population 0.000*** 0.000 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Post-Communist -0.613*** -0.027 -0.377

(0.092) (0.500) (0.554)Dutch Colony 0.273*** omitted omitted

(0.086)Exports to Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Imports from Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Oil -0.796*** omitted omitted

(0.105)Ethnic Fractionalization 0.620*** omitted omitted

(0.128)Religious Fractionalization 0.142 omitted omitted

(0.157)FDI -0.678** -0.363** -0.289

(0.304) (0.163) (0.182)Year Fixed Effects No No YesCountry Fixed Effects No Yes Yes_cons 1.854*** 2.124*** 1.783***

(0.121) (0.401) (0.432)Number of observations 1844 1844 1844Adj. R-squared 0.25 0.04 0.13

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Many of the control variable effects merit discussion as well. The only control variable

that remains significant after controlling for country and year fixed-effects is GDP per capita,

which has a negative effect on Dutch aid, significant at the 0.01 level. This is the effect

anticipated by the literature, and confirms that the Netherlands allocates aid based on recipient

need.

One of our control variables, democracy, is accepted throughout the literature as having

a significant positive effect on foreign aid (Alesina and Dollar 2000, Vreeland 2011, Bermeo

2008: 11). However, we find that Cheibub et. al.’s (2010) minimalist conception of democracy,

based on the alternation of power through contested elections, has no significant effect on Dutch

foreign aid when controlling for country and year fixed-effects. This is particularly surprising

because one component of CIRI’s new empowerment rights index is an indicator for “electoral

self-determination,” which essentially rates the level of a country’s democratization on a zero to

two scale. The lack of effect observed with the democracy variable is likely because Cheibub et.

al.’s dichotomous indicator does not change in value for countries which deepen their democratic

institutions once they already exist at a minimum level.

In addition, CIRI’s electoral self-determination takes into account citizens’ experiences

of democracy (such as violence during election times), rather than just the presence of

democratic institutions (like the existence of competitive elections). This suggests that the

Netherlands is concerned with the reality of democracy on the ground in recipient countries,

rather than simply the legal basis of democracy, a perspective that is likely related to their focus

on human rights.

Population, post-communism, exports, and imports are also all insignificant when we

control for country and year fixed-effects, which suggests that the Netherlands is indeed an

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altruistic donor state that does not allocate aid according to political or economic interests.

In our initial OLS regression, shown in column 1 of Table 4, physical integrity rights

have a negative effect on Dutch aid, significant at the 0.01 level. This suggests that countries

with worse physical integrity rights records receive more Dutch aid—a surprising result for a

country that claims to actively combat torture and extrajudicial killings. However, we suspect

that this result is driven by cases like Dutch aid to Indonesia7 and India. After controlling for

country and year fixed-effects, physical integrity rights do not have a statistically significant

effect on aid. All of the control variables have the same effects as when we test empowerment

rights. It is thus clear that receipt of Dutch aid is correlated with empowerment rights, but not

with integrity rights.

7 As discussed earlier, aid to Indonesia was suspended after the 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre. However, with the exception of the years 1992-1998, Indonesia has continually received large amounts of foreign aid despite low physical integrity rights.

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Table 4: Effect of Physical Integrity Rights Index on Log of Dutch Aid

Variable (1) (2) (3)Physical Integrity Rights -0.127*** 0.005 0.001

(0.016) (0.021) (0.019)Democracy 0.369*** 0.077 0.097

(0.066) (0.251) (0.249)GDP per Capita -0.000*** -0.000** -0.000**

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Population 0.000*** -0.000 -0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Post-Communist -0.482*** 0.016 -0.347

(0.091) (0.502) (0.562)Dutch Colony 0.228*** omitted omitted

(0.085)Exports to Netherlands -0.000 0.000 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Imports from Netherlands -0.000 -0.000 0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Oil -0.856*** omitted omitted

(0.100)Ethnic Fractionalization 0.621*** omitted omitted

(0.125)Religious Fractionalization 0.219 omitted omitted

(0.155)FDI -0.475 -0.366** -0.284

(0.299) (0.153) (0.174)Year Fixed Effects No No YesCountry Fixed Effects No Yes Yes_cons 2.273*** 2.568*** 2.119***

(0.109) (0.354) (0.409)Number of observations 1847 1847 1847Adj. R-squared 0.27 0.02 0.11

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Table 5 presents the results of our regressions for each of the component variables in the

CIRI human rights dataset. First, addressing the variables contained in the physical integrity

rights category (see Table 5a), we find that extrajudicial killings and torture are both statistically

significant at the p<.05 level, indicating that violators of these rights receive less aid.

Interestingly, these results match the rhetoric of the Dutch government website, which, though it

primarily focuses on empowerment rights, highlights torture and killing as two other important

human rights issues (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014). We find, however, that disappearance

and political prisoners do not have a statistically significant relationship with receipt of Dutch

aid.

Turning now to empowerment rights, Tables 5b and 5c show our results for this set of

variables. Freedom of speech, religious freedom, domestic movement, foreign movement,

freedom of association, electoral self determination, and worker’s rights all have a positive,

statistically significant relationship with Dutch aid allocation, indicating that countries with

better records on these issues are rewarded with more aid. Once again, these rights reflect the

rhetoric of the Dutch government website—religious freedom and freedom of speech are

highlighted as two of the top human rights priorities for the Netherlands. In contrast, the

regressions for women’s economic and political rights and freedom of the judiciary do not

produce a statistically significant relationship.8

8 We hypothesize that no relationship is found between CIRI’s women’s economic and political rights variables and Dutch foreign aid because of the Dutch priorities surrounding women’s rights. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Dutch government focuses more on the topic of women, peace and security, and on preventing violence against women, rather than on women’s empowerment rights. The CIRI variables are focused on the empowerment of women in the economic and political realm, not on the protection of women from violence, or their inclusion in post-conflict peacebuilding.

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Table 5a: Effect of Component Human Rights Variables on Log of Dutch Aid

VariableExtrajudicial

Killings Disappearance TorturePolitical

PrisonersComponent Variable 0.009** 0.000 0.009** 0.002

(0.004) (0.001) (0.004) (0.001)Democracy 0.098 0.079 0.098 0.082

(0.238) (0.236) (0.238) (0.237)GDP per Capita -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000***

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Population -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000

(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)Post-Communist -0.340 -0.341 -0.343 -0.342

(0.560) (0.560) (0.560) (0.559)Dutch Colony omitted omitted omitted omitted

Exports to Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Imports from Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Oil omitted omitted omitted omitted

Ethnic Fractionalization omitted omitted omitted omitted

Religious Fractionalization omitted omitted omitted omitted

FDI -0.295* -0.270 -0.296* -0.273 (0.159) (0.172) (0.160) (0.171)

Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes YesCountry Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes_cons 2.117*** 2.146*** 2.126*** 2.141***

(0.410) (0.414) (0.410) (0.413)Number of observations 1886 1886 1886 1886Adj. R-squared 0.12 0.11 0.12 0.11

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Table 5b: Effect of Component Human Rights Variables on Log of Dutch Aid (continued)

Freedom of Speech and

PressReligious Freedom

Freedom of Domestic

Movement

Freedom of Foreign

MovementFreedom of Assembly

Component Variable 0.009** 0.009** 0.009** 0.009** 0.007* (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004) (0.004)

Democracy 0.098 0.099 0.098 0.097 0.095 (0.238) (0.239) (0.239) (0.238) (0.238)

GDP per Capita -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Population -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Post-Communist -0.338 -0.338 -0.343 -0.344 -0.337 (0.558) (0.561) (0.560) (0.560) (0.560)

Dutch Colony omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

Exports to Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Imports from Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Oil omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

Ethnic Fractionalization omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

Religious Fractionalization omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

FDI -0.295* -0.292* -0.288* -0.290* -0.304* (0.159) (0.162) (0.161) (0.162) (0.157)

Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes YesCountry Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes_cons 2.122*** 2.117*** 2.114*** 2.116*** 2.115***

(0.410) (0.406) (0.407) (0.407) (0.411)Number of observations 1886 1894 1896 1896 1886Adj. R-squared 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12 0.12

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Table 5c: Effect of Component Human Rights Variables on Log of Dutch Aid (continued)

Electoral Self-Determination

Worker's Rights

Women's Economic

Rights

Women's Political Rights

Independent Judiciary

Component Variable 0.009** 0.009** -0.000 0.000 0.001 (0.004) (0.004) (0.000) (0.000) (0.001)

Democracy 0.094 0.098 0.076 0.079 0.078 (0.238) (0.239) (0.236) (0.236) (0.237)

GDP per Capita -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** -0.000*** (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Population -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 -0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Post-Communist -0.343 -0.340 -0.336 -0.339 -0.341 (0.559) (0.560) (0.559) (0.559) (0.560)

Dutch Colony omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

Exports to Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Imports from Netherlands 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000 (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)

Oil omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

Ethnic Fractionalization omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

Religious Fractionalization omitted omitted omitted omitted omitted

FDI -0.297* -0.292* -0.263 -0.270 -0.275 (0.158) (0.159) (0.174) (0.173) (0.170)

Year Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes YesCountry Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes_cons 2.119*** 2.123*** 2.143*** 2.145*** 2.137***

(0.409) (0.410) (0.412) (0.414) (0.411)Number of observations 1886 1886 1885 1885 1896Adj. R-squared 0.12 0.12 0.11 0.11 0.11

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VI. Conclusion

In the case of the Netherlands, we find that rhetoric matches reality. The Dutch

government has pledged to maintain a commitment to human rights in its foreign policy, and

from our regression analysis, it is clear that they have done so. In the context of civil and

political rights, the Dutch have either rewarded those countries with the best records of rights or

cut aid to the worst violators. In the future, we would like to do more research to parse out this

relationship, since the direction of the relationship is unclear from our current data set. A related

question concerns whether the practice of rewarding good human rights records is effective in

meeting the Dutch government’s goal of improving rights abroad. This question lies outside the

scope of this paper, but provides another avenue for future research.

Our results show that while the Netherlands supports civil and political rights, the same

relationship between physical integrity rights and aid does not exist. Perhaps this is because, as a

small country and a small donor, the Netherlands has limited resources. It therefore prefers to use

its aid dollars to reinforce the human rights priorities of the Dutch government, which are

generally empowerment rights. We hypothesize that this is because, while integrity rights

violations are taken seriously on the world stage—nearly all world leaders decry a dictator's

killing of civilians—empowerment rights do not receive the same treatment. These rights are less

readily accepted as universal norms, and are subject to the challenge of cultural relativism. As

one prominent example, the Netherlands makes a point of promoting LGBT rights, which today

are still fairly controversial in the international community. In this way, the Dutch government

appears to use its limited euros to support those rights that the international community gives less

attention—namely, empowerment rights.

The Netherlands’ apparent decision to selectively support certain human rights through

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foreign aid allocation may have broader implications for the foreign aid literature. On the one

hand, our results indicate that GDP per capita plays a role in aid distribution decisions, thereby

supporting the literature’s conception of the Netherlands as an altruistic donor. However, we

have also shown that the Netherlands distributes its limited aid budget selectively, in order to

promote those human rights that is deems most important. The Netherlands, therefore, is an

example of how even small, altruistic donors may use their aid dollars strategically.

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