Who Supports International Development Cooperation in Times of Crisis? Public Opinion in Rural Spain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
From the formal and design point of view of the research, the article is fine. It is right. The design and interpretation of the survey and data collection is also very professional.
However, the reason for this investigation is not adequately explained. Is the rural category or rural population relevant to assess the relevance of cooperation in development? If it is, why? What does it contribute to the topic? How it allows to make progress the knowledge in a subject so relevantre? If it is not justified, it seems that we are facing a useless investigative artifice. The justification is fundamental to consider the investigation.
On the other hand, what is rural? The category is not clearly defined. Is the province of Zaragoza a good place to calibrate rural opinions on cooperation? It is not very influenced by the weight of a great next city.
In short, the work is correct, but if there are no convincing explanations it seems that we are facing a rather useless scientific execution.
Finally, the conclusions are very descriptive. They must introduce reflection. And the references would have to be expanded with the scientific proposal that we propose.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: From the formal and design point of view of the research, the article is fine. It is right. The design and interpretation of the survey and data collection is also very professional.
Response 1: Thank you
Point 2: However, the reason for this investigation is not adequately explained. Is the rural category or rural population relevant to assess the relevance of cooperation in development? If it is, why? What does it contribute to the topic? How it allows to make progress the knowledge in a subject so relevantre? If it is not justified, it seems that we are facing a useless investigative artifice. The justification is fundamental to consider the investigation.
Response 2: The reviewer is right. The reasons for the research are not adequately explained. This research is of great interest from both a political and an academic perspective. Firstly, because rural public opinion on these issues provides an insight into social inclusion in country areas, a priority area in European rural policies. In its rural development programme for 2014-2020, the EU established a series of common priorities such as agriculture, forestry, food, water, animal welfare and preserving ecosystems, along with the need to promote “social inclusion, poverty reduction and economic development in rural areas" . Research into public opinion in rural areas can help improve social inclusion and education for development and global citizenship. In 2015, the EU launched a project called Rural DEAR (Development, Education and Awareness Raising) Agenda - EYD 2015 the aim of which was to support projects that engage the European Union public in worldwide issues of social, economic and environmental development (EuropeAid/134863/C/ACT/Multi).
Point 3: On the other hand, what is rural? The category is not clearly defined. Is the province of Zaragoza a good place to calibrate rural opinions on cooperation? It is not very influenced by the weight of a great next city. In short, the work is correct, but if there are no convincing explanations it seems that we are facing a rather useless scientific execution.
Response 3: The reviewer is right. The category is not clearly defined in the paper. The National Institute of Statistics of Spain, which defines rural municipalities as those with less than 10,000 inhabitants. Our survey included a statistical sample of 21 municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. The province of Zaragoza is a good place to assess rural opinions. While Spain as a whole has a population density of 91 People/Km2, the province has 55 People/Km2, and if we remove the five most populated municipalities in the metropolitan area of the city of Zaragoza, the density drops to 36 People/Km2.ational Institute of Statistics of Spain defined rural as municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants. Our survey included a statistical sample of 21 municipalities in the province of less than 10,000 inhabitants.
Point 4: Finally, the conclusions are very descriptive. They must introduce reflection. And the references would have to be expanded with the scientific proposal that we propose.
Response 4: We agree with this suggestion and have provided more detailed conclusions. These final ideas will help politicians design specific policies targeting the two less active groups.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Who supports International Development Cooperation in times of crisis? Attitudes and opinions of people from rural areas of Spain
This paper examines the attitudes held by local population in a Spainish region on global problems, their causes, and related priorities that foreign aid should address. Beyond description of the survey results from 403 respondents in rural Spain, the paper uses cluster analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the survey data. It identifies three groups of individuals -- the aware-but-not-involved, the not-interest-and-passive, and the proactive-and-convictive groups of individuals -- and uncovers salient demographics of these types, notably age, education, and town size.
This is a much-commendable paper that fills a gap in the foreign aid literature, specifically its sub-branch looking at domestic opinion. The paper summarizes the most important previous studies, well describes its sampling approach and research methods, and comes up with interesting results. I like the general thrust of the paper and commend publication in Sustainability, subject to a few clarifications and improvements which I present in chronological order.
The introduction is rather unstructured, touching upon various different themes within the foreign aid and public opinion literature. The review of individual papers also lacks coherence and it is rather unclear how they relate to what the present paper does. I suggest a streamlined narrative covering the following points: 1) Public opinion is important for aid because it is the context in which governments can operate; 2) Public opinion research on aid is dominated by cross-country studies; 3) This ignores variation within countries and overlooks attitudes held by people in non-urban areas; 4) this paper addresses this gap by looking at local aid attitudes. All papers mentioned in the introduction should somehow fit into these various boxes. This structure would allow the authors to clarify why we should be interested in aid support in rural areas -- the current manuscript provides no motivation for this. My sense is that these are the people who are least likely to bother about aid and thus most likely critical, and your findings speak to this assertion. I would also connect to the literature on divisions between political elites and ordinary people. For these reasons, we should really study what people think about aid in rural areas.
The methods are well explained and only few things can be improved. First, I would be interested to know about survey non-response? How many individuals did the survey field to end up with N=413? Is non-response a source of bias and if so, what have the authors done to mitigate it? Second, did the authors pre-define the answer categories or did respondents mention the problems that aid might tackle? Third, I was missing factor loadings in Table 4. Without them it is impossible to assess whether the derived factors make empirical sense. Fourth, I also wondered if the differences across the three respondent types on global problems (Table 6), potential causes (Table 7), and aid priorities (Table 8) are statistically significant? This can be done more rigorously, using t-tests. Fifth, I was a bit disappointed to see chi-square tests only when the authors test for differences in demographics across the three respondent types. A multinomial multivariate regression would be the most suitable approach in my view. Finally, although I am convinced by the product of the procedure -- the three types of individuals and how they are distributed across the population -- I felt that the procedure was not very transparent. The main reason for that is that dimensionality reduction takes place over three stages, from several indicators, to 16 factors, down to 3 indicators (which is a confusing label, I would call this "cluster"). Although the authors might know better, a naive suggestion for how to improve this is to run a factor analysis on the various aspects of aid first, covering 1) knowledge, 2) attitudes, 3) values, and 4) preferences for collective action, and 5) preferences for individual action; followed by clustering. I am not suggesting the authors should do so, but better defend their current approach if they think it is better. In any case, a graphical representation of the data reduction process would be helpful.
In terms of future research, I would imagine an analysis of whether these attitudes held by rural populations actually inform Spanish aid policies would be insightful. This would beef up the claim that these attitudes actually matter.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: This paper examines the attitudes held by local population in a Spainish region on global problems, their causes, and related priorities that foreign aid should address. Beyond description of the survey results from 403 respondents in rural Spain, the paper uses cluster analysis to reduce the dimensionality of the survey data. It identifies three groups of individuals -- the aware-but-not-involved, the not-interest-and-passive, and the proactiveand-convictive groups of individuals -- and uncovers salient demographics of these types, notably age, education, and town size.
Response 1: Thank you
Point 2: This is a much-commendable paper that fills a gap in the foreign aid literature, specifically its sub-branch looking at domestic opinion. The paper summarizes the most important previous studies, well describes its sampling approach and research methods, and comes up with interesting results. I like the general thrust of the paper and commend publication in Sustainability, subject to a few clarifications and improvements which I present in chronological order.
Response 2: Thank you
Point 3: The introduction is rather unstructured, touching upon various different themes within the foreign aid and public opinion literature. The review of individual papers also lacks coherence and it is rather unclear how they relate to what the present paper does. I suggest a streamlined narrative covering the following points: 1) Public opinion is important for aid because it is the context in which governments can operate; 2) Public opinion research
on aid is dominated by cross-country studies; 3) This ignores variation within countries and overlooks attitudes held by people in non-urban areas; 4) this paper addresses this gap by looking at local aid attitudes. All papers mentioned in the introduction should somehow fit into these various boxes. This structure would allow the authors to clarify why we should be interested in aid support in rural areas -- the current manuscript provides no motivation for this. My sense is that these are the people who are least likely to bother about aid and thus most likely critical, and your findings speak to this assertion. I would also connect to the literature on divisions between political elites and ordinary people. For these reasons, we should really study what people think about aid in rural areas.
Response 3: The reviewer is right. The introduction lacks a coherent structure. We welcome this suggestion and have followed their instructions to provide a better structure. We also agree that we need to explain why readers should be interested in support for aid in rural areas.
One of the reasons that justify this research is in European public policies. One of the priorities of the EU in the field of rural development during 2014-2020 is "promoting social inclusion, poverty reduction and economic development in rural areas"[1]. The study of rural public opinion helps promote social inclusion.
Point 4.1: "The methods are well explained and only few things can be improved. First, I would be interested to know about survey non-response? How many individuals did the survey field to end up with N=403? Is non-response a source of bias and if so, what have the authors done to mitigate it?
Response 4.1: In order to reduce the survey non-response rates, we worked with qualified interviewers who conducted the interviews in person, face-to-face. As a result, we had no missing data and the interviewers were able to clarify any doubts we had about the interviewees.
Point 4.2: Second, did the authors pre-define the answer categories or did respondents mention the problems that aid might tackle?
Response 4.2: Yes, the questionnaire was closed with pre-defined answers. We followed the general structure of the questionnaire carried out by the Observatory of International Cooperation for Development of the University of Valladolid (Spain) through the project funded by the European Union called Rural DEAR (Development, Education and Awareness Raising) Agenda - EYD 2015. This questionnaire was designed on the basis of information from discussion groups with the advice of experts in Sociology, Statistics, Communication and Development Cooperation. This study of public opinion also referred to other similar initiatives carried out at a National and European level, and specifically to the Eurobarometer (2005) of the European Union on attitudes towards Development Aid and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (2005) carried out in the United States.
Point 4.3: Third, I was missing factor loadings in Table 4. Without them it is impossible to assess whether the derived factors make empirical sense.
Response 4.3: The reviewer is right. We have adapted Tables 4 and 5 to include them.
Point 4.4: Fourth, I also wondered if the differences across the three respondent types on global problems (Table 6), potential causes (Table 7), and aid priorities (Table 8) are statistically significant? This can be done more rigorously, using t-tests.
Response 4.4: The answers only include the most important problems and causes for the interviewees from a closed list of 16 options. Therefore, they are qualitative variables from which we can only obtain frequency tables and we cannot perform t-tests because they are not quantitatively valued. Nevertheless, we considered it important to show the differences between the frequency distributions for the three groups of individuals detected.
Point 4.5: Fifth, I was a bit disappointed to see chi-square tests only when the authors test for differences in demographics across the three respondent types. A multinomial multivariate regression would be the most suitable approach in my view.
Response 4.5: The proposal of the reviewer is very interesting and we considered including it in the previous version of the paper. However, the adjustment of the model was not suitable, presenting very low values of the pseudo R squared of Cox and Snell, Nagelkerke and McFadden. In addition, the interpretation of the coefficients of the model was a bit confusing. In order to complement and to facilitate the explanation of the three different citizen groups and their attitudes, we finally decided to use simple contrasts of chi-square independence together with profile graphs of the three groups with respect to each of the four qualitative variables: age, educational level, population size and their contribution to change.
Point 4.6: Finally, although I am convinced by the product of the procedure -- the three types of individuals and how they are distributed across the population -- I felt that the procedure was not very transparent. The main reason for that is that dimensionality reduction takes place over three stages, from several indicators, to 16 factors, down to 3 indicators (which is a confusing label, I would call this "cluster"). Although the authors might know better, a naive suggestion for how to improve this is to run a factor analysis on the various aspects of aid first, covering 1) knowledge, 2) attitudes, 3) values, and 4) preferences for collective action, and 5) preferences for individual action; followed by clustering. I am not suggesting the authors should do so, but better defend their current approach if they think it is better.
Response 4.6: As you know, in Social Sciences it is very common to obtain indirect latent variables from other direct variables that are provided in surveys. In our case, the proposed questionnaire contains many answers under the same heading that can have a common meaning. It was therefore necessary to reduce the number of dimensions to explain the subjects' answers. For this reason, a first stage with five factorial analysis was carried out to synthesize five blocks of questions into their basic, underlying dimensions. Thus, block 1 which contained questions about the perceptions of the world situation by respondents were summarized through the first three latent factors F1, F2 and F3 of table 4. The second factorial analysis was carried out with the block of questions related to the degree of knowledge of international cooperation that provided the factors F4 to F7. The next factorial analysis applied to the block on assessment of international cooperation gave rise to two factors F8 and F9. The fourth analysis had questions relating to the Personal commitment and participation block and gave rise to factors F10 to F13. And, the last factorial analysis was applied to the block of questions regarding the reasons why the respondent became involved, resulting in three factors F14 to F16. Therefore, our first stage summarized information about these 5 relevant aspects:
1) Perception of the world situation
2) Knowledge of international cooperation
3) Assessment of international cooperation
4) Personal commitment and participation
5) Reasons why you became involved
However, these 16 factors could still share common information and we therefore decided to eliminate redundancies by applying a final factor analysis. This second stage allowed us to reduce the 16 factors to 6 indicators that summarize the information contained in the 32 initial variables. Our main objective was to determine groups of similar individuals in their perceptions, knowledge, interest and commitment to global problems and cooperation for development, in order to establish policies and actions differentiated according to their profiles. Therefore, the last step of our study involved a cluster analysis of these 6 indicators to identify the groups. The reviewer is right and the explanation of the followed procedure was a bit confusing in the initial version of the paper. Therefore, we have included part of the above explanation in the new version of the paper.
Point 4.7: In any case, a graphical representation of the data reduction process would be helpful.
Response 4.7: Following your wise recommendation, in the new version of the paper we have included the following figure briefly illustrating the data reduction process.
Point 5: In terms of future research, I would imagine an analysis of whether these attitudes held by rural populations actually inform Spanish aid policies would be insightful. This would beef up the claim that these attitudes actually matter.
Response 5: Thank you for the suggestion, which we have included in the conclusions.
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/rural-development-2014-2020_en
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript examines public opinion on international development cooperation. To this end, the authors designed and implemented an original survey in rural Spain (Zaragoza providence). The data on 403 Spaniards are analyzed using factor and cluster analyses. The main findings are that there are three groups of individuals (passive, conscientious, and proactive) in the data, and they have varying levels of interest in and support for international development cooperation.
In the literature on development aid and international development, there is a growing interest in public opinion within donor countries. However, the literature is still in its infancy mostly due to the lack of data. Much of what we know about public opinion on development aid comes from the US and UK samples. Large cross-national survey projects like the Eurobarometer and the World Value Survey have been quite important for our understanding of public opinion in non-US, non-UK donors, but very few questions about international development are included in those surveys. Thus, the literature certainly could use more survey data like the one introduced in this manuscript. However, a series of serious flaws weaken the overall quality of the manuscript. Thus, I am recommending a rejection.
In my view, the most serious issue is that the authors fail to make a case for their focus on rural Spain. How does the data on rural Spain help advance our understanding of individual attitudes toward international development cooperation? Why would analysis of people in rural Spain be of interest to academics and policymakers? Instead of answering these important questions, the authors simply state that “there are virtually no studies that analyse the degree of support amongst people that live in rural areas of a developed country or regarding the types of opinions and attitudes they have in support (or not) of development cooperation. This paper seeks to fill this gap by analysing the degree of support for cooperation policies amongst the inhabitants of rural areas of North East Spain.” (pages 3-4). Unfortunately, this is not a sufficiently good justification for studying people living in rural Spain. In fact, I am struggling to understand why this particular focus is legitimate, interesting, or even reasonable. Moreover, the introduction could be written more persuasively to “sell” their focus on rural areas. Although it provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the literature, it reads more like a list of summaries.
The rest of the manuscript reports on the survey they conducted. Again, the issue here is that it lacks a focus. There is simply too much reported in the manuscript without obvious reasons. Why do you need to report summary statistics (Table 1) of the entire dataset? If the manuscript is about public’s attitudes toward international development, why discuss public opinion on wars, terrorism, and unemployment? There needs to be a justification for all this. As a result, the manuscript reads more like a report on the dataset than an academic article with a specific contribution to the literature. My suggestion to the authors is to think hard about what they want the article to be about and report results that are only relevant to that.
Another issue has to do with the survey questions. The authors seemed to have assumed that people have quite a bit of knowledge about international development. I am not an expert on Spain, but I would be surprised if Spaniards know a lot more than say Americans. Existing studies suggest that most Americans and Britons have never heard of their aid agencies or even thought about different types of aid. Many even think that foreign aid includes military aid. The authors seem to not acknowledge this and ask people about MDGs, SDGs, Humanitarian Aid, Human Development, NGOs, etc.
Finally, I am not fully convinced that the statistical methods used in the manuscript are appropriate. The authors use a combination of factor analysis and cluster analysis to examine who supports international development cooperation. Why not simply use multiple regressions on support for international development? What do we learn from the cluster analysis that we would not from multiple regressions? This at least requires some discussion.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: This manuscript examines public opinion on international development cooperation. To this end, the authors designed and implemented an original survey in rural Spain (Zaragoza providence). The data on 403 Spaniards are analyzed using factor and cluster analyses. The main findings are that there are three groups of individuals (passive, conscientious, and proactive) in the data, and they have varying levels of interest in and support for international development cooperation.
Response 1: Thank you.
Point 2: In the literature on development aid and international development, there is a growing interest in public opinion within donor countries. However, the literature is still in its infancy mostly due to the lack of data. Much of what we know about public opinion on development aid comes from the US and UK samples. Large cross-national survey projects like the Eurobarometer and the World Value Survey have been quite important for our understanding of public opinion in non-US, non-UK donors, but very few questions about international development are included in those surveys. Thus, the literature certainly could use more survey data like the one introduced in this manuscript. However, a series of serious flaws weaken the overall quality of the manuscript. Thus, I am recommending a rejection.
Response 2: Thank you for your comment about our survey and the contribution of our paper for the literature of non-US and non-UK donors. We have corrected the serious flaws that weaken the quality of the manuscript.
Point 3: In my view, the most serious issue is that the authors fail to make a case for their focus on rural Spain. How does the data on rural Spain help advance our understanding of individual attitudes toward international development cooperation? Why would analysis of people in rural Spain be of interest to academics and policymakers? Instead of answering these important questions, the authors simply state that “there are virtually no studies that analyse the degree of support amongst people that live in rural areas of a developed country or regarding the types of opinions and attitudes they have in support (or not) of development cooperation. This paper seeks to fill this gap by analysing the degree of support for cooperation policies amongst the inhabitants of rural areas of North East Spain.” (pages 3-4). Unfortunately, this is not a sufficiently good justification for studying people living in rural Spain. In fact, I am struggling to understand why this particular focus is legitimate, interesting, or even reasonable. Moreover, the introduction could be written more persuasively to “sell” their focus on rural areas. Although it provides a comprehensive review of the current state of the literature, it reads more like a list of summaries.
Response 3: This vision of rural Spain could help us understand the different individual views in Europe because we consider several statistical variables which describe tree types of attitudes and perceptions. There are few European or Mediterranean studies that analyse the phenomenon that we analyze with the same variables. Spain is a good example of the EU. It is the fourth most populated country (if Brexit eventually happens) and has been part of the Union since 1986. It has territorial similarities with other Mediterranean countries and our work offers an important step forward in this field of research, although it is not the first contribution. From 2015 to 2017 seven areas of Europe participated in a project funded by the European Union called Rural DEAR (Development, Education and Awareness Raising) Agenda - EYD 2015 (EuropeAid/134863/C/ACT/Multi). This project funded by the European Union with a €1.886.000 is a proof of the interest by identifying the exclusion of some European rural areas from Development Education. Our research aims to help to reverse that situation. Our study will therefore be useful for politics and policies. Public policies of social inclusion and education for global citizenship and development could focus on a better documented, more clearly identified target population.
The main use for academics is to make comparative studies that go beyond States as the only units of analysis and we show the importance of making comparative studies between regions within States and especially rural areas.
As regards the introduction, the reviewer is right. It must be written more persuasively and the structure of the review of the literature must be improved.
Point 4: The rest of the manuscript reports on the survey they conducted. Again, the issue here is that it lacks a focus. There is simply too much reported in the manuscript without obvious reasons. Why do you need to report summary statistics (Table 1) of the entire dataset? If the manuscript is about public’s attitudes toward international development, why discuss public opinion on wars, terrorism, and unemployment? There needs to be a justification for all this. As a result, the manuscript reads more like a report on the dataset than an academic article with a specific contribution to the literature. My suggestion to the authors is to think hard about what they want the article to be about and report results that are only relevant to that.
Response 4: Perhaps you are right and the objective and justification of the methodology applied was not sufficiently clear in the previous version of the paper. We have modified and added some paragraphs in the new version and we hope that this has solved some of your problems with this part of our paper.
With respect to some questions about our questionnaire that you considered irrelevant for the focus of the paper, we should explain that the general structure of our questionnaire was based on another questionnaire carried out by the Observatory of International Cooperation for Development of the University of Valladolid (Spain) through the project funded by the European Union called Rural DEAR (Development, Education and Awareness Raising) Agenda - EYD 2015. This questionnaire was designed from the discussion groups with the advice of experts in Sociology, Statistics, Communication and Development Cooperation. This study of public opinion also had references at the national and European level where other similar initiatives had been carried out, highlighting the Eurobarometer (2005) of the European Union on attitudes towards Development Aid and the Program International Policy Attitudes (2005) carried out in the United States.
Although we understand your opinion about the excess of information in Tables 1, 2 and 3, we believe that it is interesting in that it gives an overview of the population before identifying the groups and comparing the specific profiles of each one.
Finally, if you still consider that there is some information that is completely irrelevant to the paper, please could you specify this and we could delete it.
Point 5: Another issue has to do with the survey questions. The authors seemed to have assumed that people have quite a bit of knowledge about international development. I am not an expert on Spain, but I would be surprised if Spaniards know a lot more than say Americans. Existing studies suggest that most Americans and Britons have never heard of their aid agencies or even thought about different types of aid. Many even think that foreign aid includes military aid. The authors seem to not acknowledge this and ask people about MDGs, SDGs, Humanitarian Aid, Human Development, NGOs, etc.
Response 5: Thank you for the comments. As say Henson et al (2010) numerous opinion surveys suggest that public understanding of international development among the general public tends to be limited. However, this study and others relate the perceptions about global problems with the support to cooperation for development (Carr & MacLachlan, 1998; Harper, 1996; Harper, Wagstaff, Newton & Harrison, 1990; Huine & Montiel, 1999 and Darnton, 2009). These researchers are aware of the lack of knowledge about development cooperation, but thanks to asking about humanitarian aid, the NGOs or the Millennium goals, were able to obtain important conclusions. Some of them say that the perceptions of the causes of poverty are determining factors in support for international aid. British citizens who attributed the cause of poverty to corrupt governments in the South were less supportive than citizens who attributed poverty to global injustice.
Point 6: Finally, I am not fully convinced that the statistical methods used in the manuscript are appropriate. The authors use a combination of factor analysis and cluster analysis to examine who supports international development cooperation. Why not simply use multiple regressions on support for international development? What do we learn from the cluster analysis that we would not from multiple regressions? This at least requires some discussion..
Response 6: On the basis that greater citizen participation would be desirable in order to combat global inequality, poverty, injustice, human rights and environmental degradation more effectively, it is necessary to improve the means of assessing the perceptions and understanding of the people in these situations. For this reason, in order for public administrations and institutions to be able to implement effective policies in favour of social cohesion and development cooperation, it is necessary to be able to identify in the population, profiles of individuals homogeneous in their knowledge, interest and involvement in development cooperation. To this end, we applied the most appropriate unsupervised classification technique, cluster analysis, to classify individuals in terms of their perception and understanding of situations related to global inequality, poverty, injustice, human rights and environmental degradation. Prior to the application of this technique and given that a very high number of variables were involved, we decided to reduce the dimensionality of the problem by conducting a factorial analysis. This led us to reduce 32 variables to 6 indicators. Both procedures are techniques of interdependence, which give all variables the same consideration and discover the interrelation and structure between them. There were no dependent variables that had to be explained in relation to the rest.
You are right that perhaps the suitability of the statistical techniques used for the final objective of the work was not sufficiently justified in the previous version of the paper. For that reason, in the new version we have included some paragraphs to try to clarify this issue.
The study has shown the existence of three groups of clearly differentiated citizens, so enabling intervention to be specifically directed to their specific situation. This outcome could help politicians to design specific policies targeting the different profiles. For example, in the case of the group of conscientious individuals, it is observed that they are very well informed about general matters, feel a certain degree of economic commitment via donations and fair trade but they do not participate in direct activities in poor countries. This may be due to the fact that they usually live in small towns are unable to become personally involved in a more active way. In this case, public administrations should promote activities and initiatives to motivate these aware citizens and enable them to be more proactive. For their part, the group of passive individuals needs information and training on development cooperation so that they can become aware of the problem and can get involved in actions that seek to address it. This research is therefore useful in highlighting the shortcomings in terms of cooperation for development in rural areas, so enabling us to look for dynamics and proposals to encourage support for human development.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
In the review carried out by the authors, the fundamental problems detected in our first reading have been resolved.
On the one hand, it is well explained why the rural area is relevant for an investigation of this type. The reason is clarified correctly and justified.
Second, the representativeness of the case study is adequately presented, something that was not addressed in the first version.
Third, important methodological and procedural aspects of the investigation are clarified. A much more comprehensive and convincing explanation, which is now complete.
Only one last improvement is missing. Explain why rural Zaragoza can be used to explain the whole of rural Spain or certain European nations. The degree of representativeness of a well-chosen space has not just been clarified. Therefore, we request further revisions.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: In the review carried out by the authors, the fundamental problems detected in our first reading have been resolved. On the one hand, it is well explained why the rural area is relevant for an investigation of this type. The reason is clarified correctly and justified.
Second, the representativeness of the case study is adequately presented, something that was not addressed in the first version. Third, important methodological and procedural aspects of the investigation are clarified. A much more comprehensive and convincing explanation, which is now complete.
Response 1: Thanks for your comments. We are happy to know that the reasons justifying the study have been well explained and methodological revisions are more clear and convincing.
Point 2: Only one last improvement is missing. Explain why rural Zaragoza can be used to explain the whole of rural Spain or certain European nations. The degree of representativeness of a well-chosen space has not just been clarified. Therefore, we request further revisions.
Response 2: We have to clarify that the 403 people surveyed in our study are representative of 213,350 inhabitants distributed in 292 towns of Zaragoza region. We have found very similar results to the Castilla-Leon region, but we need more studies regional or national to explain the whole of rural Spain or certain countries. In the case in which we have suggested that our sample was representative of a one or several States, is not correct. There are similar problems in rural areas of Spain and some regions of Europe on the social policies of education and awareness-raising as evidence the literature, but our sample is not statistical representative of the Spanish territory or certain European Nations. We can suggest in the conclusions the need more studies of countries with comparative approach.
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper is significantly improved, and I am happy to see that the authors took the reviewers' comments seriously and incorporated them into their revision. The purpose of the project is much better explained and its structure is more logical and professional. A few minor suggestions:
- The title of the paper could be improved. For example, "Who supports International Development Cooperation in times of crisis? Public Opinion in Rural Spain"
Author Response
Point 1. This paper is significantly improved, and I am happy to see that the authors took the reviewers' comments seriously and incorporated them into their revision. The purpose of the project is much better explained and its structure is more logical and professional.
Response 1: Thanks for your comments. We are happy to know that you see the changes required.
Point 2. A few minor suggestions: The title of the paper could be improved. For example, "Who supports International Development Cooperation in times of crisis? Public Opinion in Rural Spain"
Response 2: We appreciate your suggestion and we will use the title: "Who supports International Development Cooperation in times of crisis? Public Opinion in Rural Spain"
