ABSTRACT
Political conditionality in connection with development aid is now widely practised by major Western donor countries. Its application means that the amount of aid allocated to a recipient country is linked to respect for human rights and progress towards democracy in that country. Whereas in the early phase of its application the controversy was mainly about its legitimacy - interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations - the focus has now shifted to questions such as ‘does political conditionality really work?’ and ‘are there better alternatives to conditionality, like the so-called positive measures?’ [Uvin, 1993, Robinson, 1993a\.
