With friends like these, who needs enemies? Aiding the world's worst dictators.

• Author: Coyne, Christopher J.
• Position: Essay

On April 2, 2008, the Zimbabwe Election Committee publicly confirmed that President Robert Mugabe and his party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), had lost control of the Parliament to the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai. At the time, Mugabe had been the leader of Zimbabwe since 1980, first as the country's prime minister (1980-87) and then as president (1987-present). During his reign, he acquired a reputation as one of the world's most brutal dictators. The reputation was well deserved because his government engaged in a wide array of human rights violations (see Human Rights Watch 2007, 4, 10, 171-77). As one would expect from someone of Mugabe's ilk, he refused to respect the election results and cede his power. Instead, he and his followers responded by arresting and violently brutalizing his opposition.

Despite claims of victory by Tsvangirai and his party, the ruling ZANU-PF announced on April 4 that a runoff election would determine the winner. On May 2, among claims of vote fraud and manipulation, the Zimbabwe Election Committee seconded the calls for a runoff between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Although the runoff did take place in late June, Tsvangirai was not present because he had been forced to flee the country owing to threats against his life. His supporters were likewise threatened by violence, imprisoned, or killed by Mugabe's supporters. In late June 2008, Mugabe won the sham runoff, which in reality was a one-person race.

Leaders around the world quickly denounced Mugabe for his actions during the election process. Yet, despite denouncing him and his brutality, governments of developed countries have provided billions of dollars in aid (a combination of official development assistance [ODA] and military aid) to his government during his reign. This aid has ironically contributed to his ability to stay in power, even though his regime is the antithesis of liberal democracy and is characterized by widespread corruption and brutality against Zimbabwe's citizens, as illustrated by his actions in the recent election.

Mugabe is not the only dictator to receive significant aid from the governments of developed countries. Indeed, a consideration of the world's worst dictators indicates that world leaders, even while publicly condemning these dictators' gross violations of basic civil, human, and political rights, have been generous with foreign aid to the most brutal dictators. As in the case of Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the aid allows these dictators to consolidate their positions, remain in power, and sustain their brutal and corrupt methods. This assistance ultimately imposes significant costs on ordinary citizens in the countries these dictators rule. As Mugabe's case illustrates, dictators tend to rule through brute force. They also make few, if any, investments in their citizens and their countries. Therefore, citizens suffer not only through the constant threat of physical violence, but also through continued economic stagnation and underdevelopment.

In this article, we review and analyze the foreign aid delivered to the world's top living dictators. Also considered is why aid to these dictators fails to generate change for the better. At least rhetorically, the governments of developed countries provide aid to poor countries to facilitate development and movement toward liberal institutions that protect basic rights. Despite these good intentions, aid has failed to generate sustainable change in the countries that the world's worst dictators rule.

The tyrants we consider are the worst of the worst. They are corrupt and engage in gross violations of basic civil, property, and political rights. They rule through violence and are subject to few, if any, constraints on their behavior. As such, they impose significant costs on the citizens of the countries they rule and provide few, if any, benefits. Further, even though leaders of developed countries around the world are very aware of these regimes' brutal and oppressive nature and speak out strongly against their actions, they continue to send development assistance and military aid to them. This aid not only rewards the dictators' behavior, but freezes the status quo and prevents change. If the governments of developed countries are truly committed to spreading liberal values and institutions (that is, economic, social, and political institutions), an important step in doing so is to stop providing aid to the world's worst dictators. (1)

Making the World Safe for Autocracy

Aiding Dictatorships

Calls for increased foreign aid have long been motivated by a desire to generate change in economic, social, and political institutions, with the related goal of spreading liberal values. Most recently, U.S. president George W. Bush stated: "[I]t is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." (2) Governments and international organizations around the world (for example, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, and regional development banks) voice similar support for the spread of liberal democracy and freedom. Despite this rhetoric, delivery of foreign aid to the world's worst dictators has instead actually undercut the goal of spreading liberal values and institutions. Instead of making the world safe for liberalism, the provision of aid has made many countries safe for autocracy.

We begin by considering the ODA and military aid that members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) provide to the worst dictators in the world. The DAC is the main body through which OECD members interact with developing countries. It allows bilateral donors to coordinate their assistance to developing countries in order to maximize the return on those efforts. Not all OECD members belong to the DAC. The committee currently has twenty-three members, including the European Commission, which holds full membership rights on the committee, although it is not a member state. All committee members except the European Commission are members of the OECD, and the World Bank classified each of these countries as a "high-income country" in 2006. Table i lists the DAC members as well as their dates of membership.

We focus on the DAC because it includes governments from developed countries around the world. These governments are typically both the strongest advocates, at least rhetorically, of the spread of liberal values and institutions as well as the largest aid presence within these developing nations.

The general goals of DAC efforts include focusing on "how international development cooperation contributes to the capacity of developing countries to participate in the global economy, and the capacity of people to overcome poverty and participate fully in their societies." (3) Along these lines, the DAC seeks to foster a wide array of rights (civil, political, and so forth), equality of the sexes, political participation, economic development, and poverty reduction. On the face of it, these goals seem noble. However, DAC members are undermining their organization's broader goals by providing aid to the world's worst dictators.

To compile a list of dictators, we utilized Parade magazine's annual list of the "world's worst dictators." A dictator is defined as a head of state who cannot be removed from power through the legal system. These rankings are based on a variety of factors, including the protection of human rights, individual as well as civil and media freedoms, the right to a fair trial, freedom to criticize the government, and freedom to choose elected representatives. Also taken into account is the brutality dictators use against citizens and political opponents (Wallechinsky 2006). We combined the lists for 2006 and 2007 for a total of twenty-three dictators, although, of course, there is much overlap between the two years.

Although one might take issue with certain aspects of the methodology used in the annual Parade survey, it would be difficult to argue that the dictators listed are not among the worst in the world. Further, we are not concerned with the ordinal relationship between the dictators presented by Parade; number five may or may not be a "worse dictator" than number fifteen, however judged, but both names are of equal value to us. We are simply interested in an independent listing of the world's worst dictators to utilize for our analysis.

Table 2 lists the ODA that all DAC members have provided to dictators during their respective reigns. We consider net disbursements as well as total commitments. Detailed data descriptions and sources for these categories appear in appendix 1. Net disbursements provide one measure of assistance to date, whereas commitments provide an indication of continued future support. The commitments indicate that the governments of developed counties, besides having assisted the world's worst dictators in the past, plan to continue to support them in the future as well. For each dictator, the ODA figure reflects the total amount of funding received from DAC members from the year he initially assumed power through 2006. As table 2 indicates, DAC members supplied in total nearly $105 billion in net disbursements and made almost $144 billion in total commitments to the world's worst dictators.

Table 3 presents a subset of the development and military aid provided to the listed dictators specifically by the United States. The U.S. government has been extremely vocal in condemning the worst dictators' practices. This rhetoric has only sharpened with the broader "war on terror," the Darfur tragedy, and the aforementioned elections in Zimbabwe. However, despite claims of support for liberal values and...