Invalid leverage? Reassessing the ‘aid-for-votes’ mechanism amid U.S.–China competition

Despite billions in annual foreign aid to Africa, evidence that aid “buys” political support remains inconclusive. Using panel data for 49 sub-Saharan African countries (2000–2021) and case studies of Ethiopia and Djibouti, we distinguish between two influence logics: transactional flows (annual aid disbursements) and structural stocks (cumulative infrastructure financing and trade integration shaping long-term economic ties). We found that annual aid flows from both China and the United States showed no significant relationship with United Nations General Assembly voting alignment. By contrast, cumulative Chinese infrastructure finance stocks and bilateral trade dependence significantly predicted alignment even controlling for annual flows, while donor competition further eroded transactional leverage. These findings challenge principal-agent models of aid diplomacy and suggest that, amid U.S.–China rivalry, influence increasingly derives from embedded economic relationships rather than annual aid disbursements.