The UK government and the 0.7% international aid target: Opinion among Conservative parliamentarians

Heppell, Timothy, Crines, Andrew ORCID: 0000-0002-6878-5030 and Jeffery, David ORCID: 0000-0002-9064-5544 (2017) The UK government and the 0.7% international aid target: Opinion among Conservative parliamentarians. BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, 19 (4). pp. 895-909.

Text BJPIR Resubmitted Draft paper.docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (78kB)

Abstract

<jats:p> This is the first article to use a detailed dataset of the 2010 - 2015 Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) to identify the drivers of MPs’ positions on legally enshrining a commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on foreign aid. We position every Conservative parliamentarian into three different categories on international aid - (1) aid critics, who openly opposed and/or voted the 0.7% target; (2) aid sceptics, who abstained in parliamentary divisions on the 0.7 target and (3) aid advocates, who voted for the 0.7% and spoke out for it. We then draw on a range of political and ideological variables to determine drivers of support or opposition to aid. By doing so we identify that Cameron achieved remarkable success in transforming opinion towards aid amongst Conservative parliamentarians. This article represents a quantitative challenge to the prevalent qualitative assumption in the academic literature, which claims Cameron’s modernistion project was a failure. </jats:p>

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	British foreign policy, British overseas development aid, Conservative Party, parliamentary behaviour, Prime Minister David Cameron
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	22 Aug 2017 08:52
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 06:57
DOI:	10.1177/1369148117726247
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3009085