Public Support for Aid Conditionality: Evidence from a Factorial Survey in Germany, Japan and the U.S.

Why do donor publics support conditionality mechanisms whose developmental efficacy remains contested? We introduce the enforcement-volatility tradeoff to explain public preferences: credible enforcement requires aid suspensions, yet suspensions generate volatility that can undermine development outcomes. This leads to selective rather than uniform conditionality preferences: donor publics support aid suspensions when moral stakes are high and humanitarian costs are low but prefer positive conditionality and the status-quo when recipient context raises developmental concerns. Using a preregistered multi-factorial vignette experiment with 4,700 respondents across the United States, Germany, and Japan, we present the first cross-national comparison of positive and negative conditionality across policy domains and recipient contexts, finding robust support for aid suspensions over the status-quo and weaker but significant support for performance-based rewards. Donor citizens favor suspensions against countries with corruption and human rights abuses, whereas poverty, democratic status, and trade ties shift preferences toward positive conditionality and status-quo maintenance.