Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe and support for authoritarianism

Sinanoglu, Semuhi Working Paper Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe and support for authoritarianism IDOS Discussion Paper, No. 28/2025 Provided in Cooperation with: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Bonn Suggested Citation: Sinanoglu, Semuhi (2025) : Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe and support for authoritarianism, IDOS Discussion Paper, No. 28/2025, ISBN 978-3-96021-273-7, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), Bonn, https://doi.org/10.23661/idp28.2025 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/327980 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Strategic Humanitarian Aid, Trust in Europe and Support for Authoritarianism Semuhi Sinanoglu IDOS DISCUSSION PAPER 28/2025 Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe and support for authoritarianism Semuhi Sinanoglu Bonn 2025 Dr Semuhi Sinanoglu is a Researcher in the research department “Transformation of Political (Dis-)order” at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn. Email: [email protected] The German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) is institutionally financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), based on a resolution of the German Bundestag, and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) as a member of the Johannes-Rau-Forschungsgemeinschaft (JRF). Suggested citation: Sinanoglu, S. (2025). Strategic humanitarian aid, trust in Europe and support for authoritarianism (IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025). German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). https://doi.org/10.23661/idp28.2025 Disclaimer: The analyses expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). Except otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0). You are free to copy, communicate and adapt this work, as long as you attribute the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) gGmbH and the author(s). IDOS Discussion Paper / German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) gGmbH ISSN 2751-4439 (Print) ISSN 2751-4447 (Online) ISBN 978-3-96021-273-7 (Print) DOI: https://doi.org/10.23661/idp28.2025 © German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) gGmbH Tulpenfeld 6, 53113 Bonn Email: [email protected] https://www.idos-research.de Printed on eco-friendly, certified paper. IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 III Acknowledgements The research design has been approved by the IDOS Ethics Committee with the following protocol number: 2024-D-011. The pre-analysis plan is registered on OSF.1 I thank the MPSA (2025) Affective Polarization and Depolarization Mini-Conference, ECPR Joint Sessions (2025) “External Influences on Democratisation and Autocratisation” workshop, and SISP “Political Regimes and their Search for Legitimacy” workshop (2025) participants for useful advice. I also thank Julia Leininger, Anita Breuer, Armin von Schiller and Christine Hackenesch for their feedback. 1 How international solidarity backfires. OSF. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Z837M IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 IV Abstract How does international assistance impact public attitudes towards donors in the recipient country when tied to strategic interests? European leaders increasingly highlight the strategic and transactional nature of international assistance. Yet, we still do not know much about how such shifts in the 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-behavioural effects of different types of international assistance postdisaster – conditional, unconditional, and strategic – and whether they help sway public attitudes in the face of authoritarian propaganda. Strategically distributed humanitarian 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 organisations. 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 scepticism and decreased engagement with foreign media outlets among regime opponents. The findings have significant implications for international assistance strategies for increasing European soft power. Keywords: propaganda, polarisation, foreign aid, public support, post-disaster relief, conspiracism, experimental research, Turkey IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 V Contents Acknowledgements Abstract Abbreviations 1 Introduction 1 2 Strategically distributed international assistance 3 3 Micro-level foundations 4 4 Authoritarian counterpropaganda 6 5 The Turkish context 7 6 Empirical setting 9 7 Main findings 12 8 External validity 15 9 Discussion 16 References 18 Appendix A: Other results 25 Appendix B: Treatments 33 Propaganda treatment 33 Unconditional solidarity treatment 33 Conditional solidarity treatment 34 Strategic solidarity treatment 34 Appendix C: Descriptive statistics 35 Covariate balance 36 Figures Figure 1: Effects on regime supporters regarding trust in government, trust in Europe and trade scepticism. Pairwise contrasts with bias adjustment 13 Figure 2: Effects on regime opponents regarding trust in government, trust in Europe and trade scepticism. Pairwise contrasts with bias adjustment 13 Figure 3: Causal pathways: Conspiracism, positive and negative emotions among regime supporters 14 IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 VI Figures in Appendix Figure A1: Trust in government among regime supporters 25 Figure A2: Trust in Europe among regime supporters 26 Figure A3: Trade scepticism among regime supporters 27 Figure A4: Trust in government among regime opponents 28 Figure A5: Trust in Europe among regime opponents 29 Figure A6: Trade scepticism among regime opponents 30 Figure A7: Positive emotions among regime supporters 31 Figure A8: Predicted probability of reposting foreign media outlets among regime opponents 32 Figure C1: Political polarisation in 2014 and 2024 with regime type. The figure labels the countries with the highest level of polarisation according to V-DEM data 35 Tables in Appendix Table C1: Covariate balance for pro-government respondents 36 Table C2: Covariate balance for anti-government respondents 36 Table C3: Descriptive statistics 37 IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 VII Abbreviations BMZ Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) CEB Council of Europe Development Bank EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development EIB European Investment Bank ERMA Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund EU European Union GIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (German Agency for International Cooperation) GNI gross national income MRAA Migration and Refugee Assistance Act ODA Official Development Assistance UK United Kingdom UN United Nations US United States IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 7 exemplified by the criticism of the EU in 2016 by President Erdogan of Turkey that €3 billion pledged for a deal on migration was never sent (Goulard, 2016). To what extent would such autocratic counter-propaganda be effective? Pan et al. (2022) show that autocratic regimes can use propaganda tools effectively to shift people’s views to adopt divergent foreign policy positions in line with the government’s framing. Beyond framing effects, propaganda also often serves as an affective, identity-consistent affirmation for the regime’s core support groups (Shirikov, 2024). In Georgia, for instance, Georgian Dream officials assert that there is a “Global War Party” – a shadow force manipulating Western governments and undermining Georgian interests. Viewers of pro-government channels are more likely to believe such conspiracy theories and, in turn, support anti-Western narratives (Civil Georgia, 2025). In such contexts, strategic aid may confirm nativist sceptical opinions (Singh & Williamson, 2022) and prop up propaganda by reinforcing the perception that the government serves as the defender of national interests. To summarise, foreign aid in the form of humanitarian assistance may have different ramifications for public opinion in recipient countries with a certain degree of state capacity, partisan cleavage along pro/anti-regime lines and a strong propaganda apparatus. First, I hypothesise that unconditional and strong disaster relief directly disbursed to affected areas may positively sway the opinion of regime opponents towards Western donors by invoking feelings of solidarity. On the other hand, strategic engagement with the regime may appear, to this group, as though the donor countries are taking the government’s side, and may therefore undermine regime opponents’ willingness to support economic engagement with donor countries. Government propaganda in the recipient country would be largely ineffective for this group. Second, in this type of recipient contexts, baseline support for Western donors is often relatively low, and there is cynicism and scepticism of their motivations, especially among regime supporters. In addition, governments often circulate messages to their core base discrediting international assistance, driving normative support for their regime and prompting conspiratorial thinking. Therefore, I hypothesise that strategic humanitarian assistance may be counterproductive and confirm cynical prior beliefs about the motivation behind aid. It may reinforce the government’s talking points and add to the regime’s scoreboard. In the next section, I trace these factors in the Turkish context by elucidating Western foreign aid and humanitarian assistance in Turkey, and government counterpropaganda. 5 The Turkish context Turkey is listed as an upper-middle income country on the ODA-eligible list (OECD, n.d.), and received $1.46 billion net in foreign aid in 2023 (Our World in Data, n.d.). As a non-DAC country, Turkey also offers development assistance, especially to sub-Saharan Africa, which is a strategic target for German and European development cooperation. Turkey has the largest NATO army in Europe, an expanding influence in conflict-prone regions such as Syria, an increased geostrategic role in the defence of Ukraine, and European military capabilities. In fact, Europe’s security architecture is likely to rely more and more on Turkey. Therefore, understanding Turkish public opinion would be key to strengthening these cooperations. Turkey also presents a good candidate through which to examine the effectiveness of international assistance in shifting attitudes, because of the country’s extensive government propaganda apparatus, deeply entrenched partisan and ethnic cleavages, and prevalent anti-Western public sentiments. IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 8 The AKP regime under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has forcefully taken over the mainstream media over the years (Arat & Pamuk, 2019, p. 129). Pro-government outlets largely dominate the media landscape, including digital platforms, populated by a sizable number of pro-regime trolls and bots. A growing scholarship explores the effectiveness of this propaganda apparatus (Aytaç, 2021; Öztürk, 2023) – the government has deployed it to consolidate its voter base and improve normative support for the regime that remains inelastic to economic downturns and political crises (Neundorf et al., 2024). They did so by deepening polarisation and fuelling religious and nationalist sentiments (Somer, 2022), so much so that Turkey has one of the highest political polarisation levels globally, according to the V-DEM data (see Figure C1). One major target of regime propaganda was Western/European organisations and countries. The regime frames any type of international intervention and engagement as foreign meddling, weaponising them to fuel nationalist sentiments, erode trust in Western institutions, and feed conspiratorial narratives among its voter base. For instance, in 2021, when ambassadors from ten countries, most of them European, publicly condemned the unlawful imprisonment of Osman Kavala – a prominent businessperson and human rights defender – and called for compliance with the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling to release him, the regime launched a fullscale propaganda campaign, portraying the criticism as Western interference in the Turkish legal system (Deutsche Welle, 2021). The ambassadors’ public statement played into the regime’s hands, eventually forcing them to backtrack. The waning European soft power in Turkey is evident in polling data. Despite a recent uptick in trends, more Turks have unfavourable than favourable views of the EU (Clancy et al., 2024). Turkish citizens have grown disillusioned with the EU, partly due to viewing its approach to Turkey’s accession process as inconsistent and discriminatory. The regime, in turn, has exploited European double standards – particularly on the selective enforcement of international norms – to undermine the EU’s credibility. For example, Aydin-Duzgit and Turhan (2025) show that Germany has taken a cautious, often reluctant, stance on the rule of law issues in Turkey, acting only when Ankara’s moves threatened core German or EU interests. Very recently, one of Erdogan’s top advisers criticised the European Parliament’s Turkey Rapporteur on the grounds that EU should not view Turkey solely in terms of Europe’s security needs and that EU is “arrogant”, “colonialist” and “ill-intended” (Haberler, 2025). The government has also exploited the Syrian refugee crisis as a bargaining chip against the EU and to showcase European double standards on human rights. On the one hand, the Turkish government has instrumentalised the refugee crisis and vowed to “flood Europe with refugees” to extract concessions from European leaders (Euractiv, 2016). In March 2016, the European Council and Turkey signed an agreement to prevent the flow of irregular migration via Turkey to Europe. Accusing European leaders of being two-faced and hypocritical, Erdogan said he agreed to sign such a deal only to “save Syrian refugees from derogatory treatment at European borders” (Chadwick, 2016). Yet, the government has repeatedly threatened the EU to revoke this deal as leverage in diplomatic negotiations. In 2020, there was even a show-down at the Greek border, following Turkey’s statement that it would open the path to Europe, as thousands of refugees rushed toward the border (Ergin, 2020). Such politicisation of humanitarian needs and international assistance can be observed following natural disasters as well. One such incident was the wildfires in 2021 in southern coastal cities that left hundreds of square miles of forest burnt and dozens hospitalised. The government was harshly criticised for failing to combat the wildfire. The government, in turn, blamed anti-government celebrities who joined the “#HelpTurkey” hashtag on Twitter to plead for help from the international community for portraying the Turkish state as weak and incapacitated (Sinanoglu & Donnelly, 2024). In 2023, southern Turkey and northwestern Syria were struck by deadly twin earthquakes that killed thousands of people and displaced millions. The government was overwhelmed and IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 9 unable to respond and, given the sheer scale of it, framed the earthquakes as “the catastrophe of the century” to justify such incapacitation. That is why, due to the severity of the crisis, they did not refuse international aid, and instead welcomed and encouraged it, though they tried to take ownership of foreign aid with government branding (Bellini & Sauter, 2025). Different types of post-disaster relief aid were offered by European governments and the EU: unconditional, conditional and strategic. First, right after the earthquakes, European governments unconditionally provided emergency aid. In addition to bilateral aid, the EU mobilised its largest ever search and rescue operations through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, with over 1,500 rescue workers. Also, a total of €400 million was disbursed to Turkey through the European Union Solidarity Fund – the largest amount ever awarded to a candidate country (ECHO, 2023). Second: conditional aid. After the International Donors’ Conference, EBRD, CEB and EIB pledged post-disaster relief aid worth €2.5 billion in the form of loans to help with reconstruction that comes with strings attached (EEAS [European External Action], 2023). These concessional loans were tied to reconstruction efforts in quake-hit areas, requiring compliance with lending standards and public procurement rules. Finally, the EU earmarked €78.2 million of its humanitarian funding to Turkey for Syrian refugees impacted by the earthquake, which was delivered through the EU’s humanitarian partner organisations. This strategic funding aimed to increase the funding for cash cards distributed to some of the more than 4 million registered refugees in Turkey to prevent further irregular bordercrossing to the EU, though it is unclear whether aid reached these targeted groups (Euronews, 2024). This major disaster coincided with a time of heated debates within the EU on how to fight irregular migration (Mathieson, 2023). I conducted an experimental survey to probe the effects of these different types of international humanitarian assistance on support for authoritarian government, trust in European organisations, and support for international trade. 6 Empirical setting I hired a reputable Turkey-based survey research company to conduct an online survey (N≈1,400) from 19 December 2024 to 20 January 2025. The firm used quota samples from 26 NUTS-2 regions, with respondents balanced on gender, age and education. The respondents are all adult Turkish citizens. Participants were compensated for their participation through the company that provided access to the panel. I designed a between-subject, vignette-based experiment. I used block randomisation, where participants were stratified based on their party identification – whether they are supporters of the incumbent electoral alliance or of the opposition.5 Then I randomly assigned them to treatment conditions. The reason behind this choice of randomisation is that democracy– authoritarianism cleavage is the new defining feature of party politics in Turkey following the 2017 constitutional referendum (Selçuk & Hekimci, 2020) – that is why the effect of propaganda would be conditional on the respondent’s support for the incumbent. 5 I identified respondents’ party positions using two questions. First, I asked which party they would vote for if an election were held this Sunday. For those who left this question unanswered, I followed up by asking which party they feel closest to, regardless of voting intentions. I then classified the sample based on whether the identified party is part of the incumbent electoral coalition. IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 10 During the online field conducted on Qualtrics, I implemented several data quality controls to identify potential bot responses and fraudulent completions with different protocols, including but not limited to: removing repeated responses from the same IP address, responses with failed geo-location controls, failed pre-treatment attention checks, suspicious use of AI, and inconsistent and non-serious response patterns. The design includes five arms (see Appendix). The treatments are designed based on a compilation of real news articles and data. There was a timer that did not allow respondents to skip the question for a fixed time. The pure control group did not receive any information. All other groups received the propaganda vignette, which serves as a baseline priming condition emphasising anti-Western narratives. In addition to the propaganda vignette, some respondents were also treated with unconditional, conditional and strategic-aid vignettes. I used such a nested design to probe the effects of different assistance in the face of government propaganda. On the one hand, government propaganda apparatus is quite strong and extensive in Turkey, exerting almost complete control over the public and private traditional media landscape. That is why it is very difficult to be immune to or avoid government framing. That said, I included both a pure control, and a baseline control with a government propaganda vignette. The treatment arms were as follows: • Propaganda treatment: The propaganda treatment, a curated news article vignette, consists of pieces of information from the regime’s different propaganda materials that highlight the West’s “hypocrisy”, how they instrumentalise foreign aid for strategic/intelligence purposes, how duplicitous Western organisations are in their treatment of human rights, and how little they do in terms of financial support. This is a strongly reinforced treatment that primes the regime’s main talking points, discrediting the Western countries/ organisations overall. • Propaganda + Unconditional solidarity treatment: In addition to the propaganda treatment, a set of respondents received a post-disaster recovery aid treatment highlighting millions of euros donated by multiple European countries, and tens of technical aid crews arriving in Turkey with tons of equipment to help in impacted areas. Showcasing the personnel on the ground from Germany, France and Greece, this is a strongly reinforced solidarity treatment. The order of propaganda and aid vignettes was randomised.6 • Propaganda + Conditional solidarity treatment: In addition to the propaganda treatment, a set of respondents received a post-disaster recovery solidarity treatment highlighting its conditionality, and the fact that it was credit rather than grants. The order of propaganda and aid vignettes was randomised. See also Findley, Harris et al. (2017). • Propaganda + Strategic solidarity treatment: In addition to the propaganda treatment, a set of respondents received a different aid treatment that highlights Western financial support for refugees impacted by the earthquake in Turkey. This treatment underscores aid to refugees because it has been presented as a strategic priority by both American and European counterparts. The order of propaganda and aid vignettes was randomised. The survey starts with a demographics module that comprises questions on age, gender, city of residence, level of education, religiosity, income and political ideology. I measure party identification with two questions: if there was an election this Sunday, which party would they vote for, and which party they feel closest to, regardless of whether they vote or not. 6 The design does not differentiate bilateral and multilateral aid in order to prime international solidarity overall. IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 11 Pre-treatment, I asked whether they or their close kin had ever experienced a natural disaster. I included a battery of questions that measure their perception of government responsiveness, trust in public institutions, and satisfaction with social delivery services. I also measured their risk assessment regarding other countries, including France, Germany, Greece and the USA. I added a module to measure their contact with Syrian refugees in their daily life. I also asked a thermometer question about how a respondent feels toward different political parties’ supporters on a scale of 0 to 100 to measure pre-treatment polarisation. Lastly, I asked a question on concerns over globalisation and dependence on foreign markets. Following the treatment, there was a short question module to distract respondents and a manipulation check. As for the dependent variables, I asked the following sets of questions. In the modules, I included both positive and negative items to mitigate agreement bias. I measured respondents’ attitudes towards each question item separately, but also created a unidimensional graded response model to construct a latent index for each module: support for authoritarian government, trust in Europe, and trade scepticism. • Government evaluation: A battery of questions that measures their perception of the government and incumbent electoral alliance as the defender of national interests: the government defends Turkey’s national interests against foreign interference; the government’s foreign policy choices enhance national pride and dignity; the government is not transparent about its dealings with foreign countries and international organisations; the government does not manage international affairs in ways that prioritise the needs of Turkish citizens; the government ensures that Turkey’s partnerships with foreign countries are fair and mutually beneficial. • Trust in European organisations and countries: A battery of questions that measures their trust in Western/European organisations, and whether they would support these organisations to operate in Turkey: Western organisations like the EU are biased against Turkey in their policies and actions; Turkey should rely on the EU to deal with the repercussions of the major earthquake; European organisations should monitor and report on human rights conditions in Turkey; European organisations are not transparent about their goals and actions in Turkey; European organisations should be allowed to operate freely in Turkey to support development and humanitarian efforts; European countries apply double standards to Turkey, criticising it unfairly while ignoring their own mistakes. • Support for trade protectionism and self-sufficiency: A battery of questions on attitudes towards trade and national self-sufficiency: Turkey should strengthen its open trade relations with the EU countries; Turkey should strive to be as self-sufficient as possible, even if it means higher costs or fewer choices for consumers; depending on trade with other countries weakens Turkey’s economy and sovereignty; Turkey does not need help from other countries, it should rely on itself to solve its problems. There were also two quasi-behavioural outcomes. First, showing a preview of a call for volunteers from different donor organisations, USAID, the Turkish Red Crescent and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) for online support in disaster-afflicted areas, I asked whether they would repost this call on their social media accounts or not. Second, showing four alternative sources of information, the government-controlled Anadolu Agency, the official presidential office website, an official EU website and Deutsche Welle, which is currently banned in Turkey, I asked which source they would suggest a friend reads for further information on post-disaster relief aid. I probed two causal pathways by which the international solidarity treatments may impact respondents’ attitudes. Following Chaudoin et al. (2021), I randomised the order of modules of mediator and outcome variables. First, especially among the core support groups of the regime, strategic or conditional solidarity may prompt emotions and considerations that this aid is IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 12 disingenuous and humiliating, and make them feel angry, while among opposition voters, unconditional aid would be perceived as solidarity. Second, foreign aid may confirm their prior beliefs, prop up government propaganda, and further conspiratorial thinking among core support groups that is perceived as an attack on Turkey’s national sovereignty. I included a battery of questions to measure conspiracism: There is a coordinated effort among powerful countries to keep Turkey from becoming a strong and independent nation; Turkey is alone in the world; it cannot rely on any other country for genuine support. 7 Main findings Following my pre-registration, I ran pairwise contrasts with Tukey-adjusted p-values for bias correction. Figure 1 visualises pairwise contrasts for treatments for latent index scores of each dependent variable for the subset of regime supporters (for disaggregated individual items, see Figures A1, A2 and A3). Overall, the results demonstrate that, contrary to my expectations, strategic solidarity treatment helped decrease trust in the government among regime supporters, but also increased their trust in European organisations and support for international trade. An analysis of individual items reveals that strategic aid, communicated as such, has significant effects on four out of five attitudinal measures. First, it decreased trust in government as the defender of national interests, and the difference in marginal means is considerable (≈ 0.5, half standard deviation). To put things in perspective, the average support for government as defender of national interest is quite high, 4.37 out of 5, among those exposed to the baseline propaganda treatment, while it drops to 3.85 among those treated with the strategic-aid vignette. Pro-government voters were also less likely to think that the government prioritises Turkish citizens in international affairs and improves national pride with foreign policy once they had been exposed to the strategic-aid treatment. The effect size is substantive, 0.65, compared to the propaganda baseline. Interestingly, on average, the strategic-aid treatment increased the perception that the government is not transparent in its foreign policy, while it had the exact opposite effect for European organisations. Strategic solidarity treatment has statistically significant and positive effects among regime supporters on all individual attitudinal measures for trust in Europe/European organisations. Exposed to strategic aid, they, on average, become more likely to support allowing EU organisations to monitor human rights in Turkey, and operate freely. The effect sizes are substantive for a partisan group whose attitudes are hard to shift: compared to baseline propaganda treatment, the differences in marginal means correspond to approximately 1.02 and 1.32, respectively. Considering the very low baseline trust in European organisations among this particular group (ranging from 0.9 to 1.8 based on different attitudinal measures), the positive effect sizes are pronounced. Unconditional solidarity also has significant and positive effects for three out of five measures of trust in European organisations. IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 13 Figure 1: Effects on regime supporters regarding trust in government, trust in Europe and trade scepticism. Pairwise contrasts with bias adjustment Source: Author On the other hand, as for regime opponents, the treatments were largely insignificant, with two notable exceptions. Figure 2 visualises pairwise contrasts for treatments for the subset of regime opponents (for disaggregated individual items, see Figures A4, A5 and A6). In line with hypotheses, on average, unconditional solidarity boosted their support for international trade, while strategic aid exacerbated their trade scepticism. Unconditional international solidarity made regime opponents less likely to think that Turkey should try to be self-sufficient and does not need help from others. On the other hand, strategic aid, transparent about self-interest motivations behind it, shifted regime opponents’ attitudes toward self-sufficiency. This is in line with what I expected to find, as the effects of side-taking on economic engagement (Bush & Prather, 2020). Figure 2: Effects on regime opponents regarding trust in government, trust in Europe and trade scepticism. Pairwise contrasts with bias adjustment Source: Author There are three potential explanations for unexpected findings for effects on regime supporters. First, it may be associated with audience costs in foreign policy. Respondents may think that the government succumbs to international pressure by accepting strategic aid, and consider IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 14 government propaganda as cheap talk (Li & Chen, 2020). That may be the reason why they, on average, tend to think that the government does not prioritise Turkish citizens in its foreign affairs and protect national reputation. Second, voters may prefer transparency in public communication about both the provision and receipt of international assistance (Gafuri, 2024). Making the strategic intent behind aid allocation explicit confirmed their priors. That is why strategic aid communicated as such reduces conspiracism and cynicism about European aid, while it renders the government propaganda ineffective, as it creates the impression that it is not the Europeans but the government itself not being transparent in its dealings. Figure 3 illustrates pairwise contrasts for conspiracism and confirmed it as a potential causal pathway. The third and final mechanism could be affective. International solidarity, in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, may evoke positive sentiments towards the European organisations among the regime’s core support groups, even though some was strategically distributed. The results suggest that unconditional aid reduced the effectiveness of government propaganda, and strategic-aid treatment also induced positive emotions among this group (Figure 3), though the treatments are insignificant for measures of negative emotions (Figure 3). Figure A7 illustrates results for each individual affective measure. The strategic-aid treatment, on average, significantly decreases their hopefulness about the future, which might explain their evaluation of the government. On the other hand, both unconditional and strategic aid make them significantly more likely to feel touched by the international solidarity. Figure 3: Causal pathways: Conspiracism, positive and negative emotions among regime supporters Source: Author How about quasi-behavioural outcomes? To put things in perspective, roughly 17 per cent of the overall sample were willing to share foreign outlets, whether it’s German or European, and repost calls from foreign donors, including French, German and American development agencies. There was considerable variation based on partisan identity: Only 3 per cent of regime supporters picked a foreign news outlet, only 7 per cent chose a call from a foreign agency to be reposted, while among regime opponents, the share is much higher, corresponding to 24 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively. The results display no significant effects on quasi-behavioural outcomes in terms of either reducing reposting/engaging with government propaganda, or increasing engagement with foreign outlets and agencies, with one important exception: regime opponents on average become significantly less likely to share foreign media outlets following the strategic-aid treatment (Figure A8). IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 15 8 External validity What are the scope conditions of these findings? The results may apply to other countries across different regions that experience disasters and receive humanitarian assistance, and that BMZ identifies as candidate countries for bilateral development cooperation. They may also apply more generally to other middle-income ODA-eligible electoral autocracies with widespread antiWestern attitudes and partisan polarisation. One illustrative example is Indonesia, an electoral autocracy with a relatively high degree of polarisation and government censorship. The Indonesian government has been coping with the Rohingya refugee crisis, and has pleaded with the international community to intervene more responsibly to resolve the crisis (Tarigan & Saifullah, 2023). Indonesia also has a history of politicised humanitarian assistance – after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Indonesia accepted substantial Western aid but was also wary of foreign presence, especially in Aceh, where there was an ongoing separatist conflict at the time (Deutsche Presse, 2005). Pakistan was also critical of the underwhelming international solidarity following devastating floods in 2022. The humanitarian aid agencies were partly demobilised, as new laws have made registration and funding access difficult, with several domestic NGOs deregistered in 2019. To put things in perspective, only $267 million in official humanitarian aid had been allocated in 2022: roughly ten times less than the $3.2 billion provided after the 2010 floods (Harvey et al., 2022). The government was also unable to quickly access concessionary climate funds, because nearly 90% of the aid pledged to Pakistan at the Geneva conference consisted of project loans spread over three years, and disbursement depended on how fast projects were designed (Nabi, 2023). This underwhelming international response generated grievances around climate justice, and was also leveraged by government officials to shift blame. In Venezuela, another electoral autocracy with a high level of polarisation and strong propaganda messaging, the government aims to discredit the international humanitarian space. In 2019, Maduro denied entry to humanitarian agencies and said: “With humanitarian aid, they want to treat us like beggars.” (Lapatilla, 2019) The government passed ‘anti-NGO law’ that subscribes to the government’s interpretation of international cooperation with a clear intention to control and punish organisations collaborating with international development cooperation actors (Amnesty International, 2022). Given such politicisation of the humanitarian landscape with anti-Western government propaganda, transparent communication of strategic aid may have similar implications. In Kazakhstan, an electoral autocracy with a strong regime apparatus, even though Europe is recognised as a potential economic partner it is also perceived as a potential threat against political stability and cultural norms (Arynov, 2022). And it has been dealing with floods and droughts recently, necessitating an international humanitarian response. In 2024, severe floods hit Kazakhstan, displacing thousands of people, and causing millions of dollars in damage. While the government’s disaster recovery was skewed and inadequate, the EU provided €200,000 in humanitarian funding to assist the most affected families (Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2024). However, the EU’s contributions could not keep up with the Chinese “generosity” (Times of Central Asia, 2024). Though there is no scholarly evidence that measures the effect of this post-disaster relief aid in the context of such geopolitical competition, interestingly, European High Representative Mogherini asserts that “We as Europeans are not here for geopolitical interests or games. You know that well. This is not what drives our foreign policy. [...] This is the core of our new Strategy on Central Asia.” (EEAS, 2019) Instead, in such a context, where Europe is recognised as a potential strategic partner with reservations, transparent communication of strategic intent may be the key to strengthening cooperation in the face of geopolitical rivalry. IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 16 9 Discussion How does international assistance tied to strategic interests impact the recipient public’s sentiments towards donors against the backdrop of heavy authoritarian counterpropaganda? There are good reasons to be worried about its potential negative repercussions on public perception of the donors. First, donors’ focus on strategic interests may play into autocratic propaganda. Under tightening fiscal constraints, donors may increasingly prioritise their geostrategic interests over humanitarian needs. As instrumentality takes over international solidarity, autocratic governments may exploit these trends to undermine trust in donors, fuel scepticism of the international community, and harness ideological legitimacy for their own regime. Second, strategic priorities may result in increased Western cooperation with authoritarian regimes, deepen partisan cleavages, and tarnish the donor’s reputation in the recipient country, especially among pro-EU, pro-democracy partisan groups. I conducted an online survey experiment in Turkey, a middle-income electoral autocracy with high polarisation and widespread anti-Western attitudes, to probe the effects of different types of international assistance post-disaster – unconditional, conditional and strategic – in the face of government propaganda that aims to dismiss it as disingenuous, hypocritical and sinister. Contrary to my expectations, making the strategic and transactional intent behind foreign assistance explicit increased trust in European organisations and support for international trade among regime supporters, who are overall conservative, nationalist and Eurosceptic, and whose attitudes are often very difficult to sway. To give a clearer picture about the government’s support base, their average religiosity is 4.67, and baseline trust in EU is 2.03 out of 5.00. Eighty-four per cent of pro-government respondents identify themselves as conservative, Islamist or Turkish nationalist. They constitute the backbone of the regime’s main support group, vital for its resilience. That is why these substantive shifts in their attitudes are critical to efforts for democratisation and for regaining trust in liberal order. There may be several reasons for these unexpected findings. First, it may be a type of audience cost effect. Pro-government voters may perceive the receipt of strategic aid as a sign of government weakness under international pressure, and consider government propaganda as cheap talk. Second, strategic aid, communicated transparently as such, renders the “rules of the game” clear for the regime supporters, mitigating their conspiratorial thinking, while reducing trust in the government as the defender of national interests, as they perceive it as less transparent in its foreign affairs. In other words, transparency pays off and government propaganda backfires (see Gafuri, 2024). Third, there may be an affective mechanism at play: international solidarity, especially after the devastating earthquake, may have evoked positive emotions even among core regime supporters. However, positive shifts in pro-government voters’ attitudes come at a cost. While unconditional aid improves anti-government voters’ support for international trade, strategic aid that is transparent about the instrumental motivations behind it shifts regime opponents’ attitudes toward trade protectionism. It may also have potential behavioural outcomes – they may be less trusting of, and less likely to engage with, foreign media outlets. Why does this matter in the general scheme of things? First, the available statistical evidence suggests that these natural disasters may exacerbate polarisation (Sinanoglu & Donnelly, 2024). With the increased frequency of climate-related disasters globally, even a least-likely case such as international solidarity in the form of post-disaster recovery aid may further politicise a society, discredit international organisations, and be exploited by autocrats for political gains. 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Journal of Conflict Resolution, 68(5), 875–902. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027231183945 IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 25 Appendix A: Other results Figure A1: Trust in government among regime supporters Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 26 Figure A2: Trust in Europe among regime supporters Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 27 Figure A3: Trade scepticism among regime supporters Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 28 Figure A4: Trust in government among regime opponents Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 29 Figure A5: Trust in Europe among regime opponents Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 30 Figure A6: Trade scepticism among regime opponents Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 31 Figure A7: Positive emotions among regime supporters Source: Author IDOS Discussion Paper 28/2025 32 Figure A8: Predicted probability of reposting foreign media outlets among regime opponents Source: Author