Effectiveness of Economic Sanctions

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Under what conditions are economic sanctions effective? This panel revisits a canonical debate regarding the effectiveness of economic sanctions, a foreign policy tool that has been increasingly used in a variety of contexts ranging from human rights criticism to war. Expanding beyond the finding that firm-based sanction busting can reduce sanction effectiveness, Early, Peterson, and Preble examine the drivers of reputational costs for firms that violate sanctions. Their research suggests that by maximizing negative media attention on firms that violate sanctions, governments can deter firms from either careless errors or cunning evasion from circumventing sanctions. Silva examines the conditions under which sanctioning states lift failed sanctions. He argues that failed sanctions tend to lock-in because capitulation entails costs to the sender’s reputation for resolve and reputation for reliability. Sanctioning states are more likely to lift failed sanctions when they are provided with political cover, which they can use justify the lifting of sanctions. Char focuses on how third-party states react to observing instances of economic sanctions imposed by China in response to human rights criticism. She argues that sanctions are a more effective deterrent against human rights criticism of China among states that have expectations of large economic gains of continued trade with China. Leveraging a new dataset, Von Soest asks how variation in the individuals targeted by asset freezes and travel bans can affect sanction effectiveness across US and EU sanction cases. Lastly, using mixed methods, Bapat questions the value-added of targeted sanctions by challenging the belief that targeted financial sanctions impose limited costs on the target state population. This panel furthers knowledge on sanction effectiveness through examining questions of sanction enforcement, sanction-induced deterrence, sanction termination, sanction target identification, and sanction misfire, respectively.

Sub Unit

• Division 19: International Security 

Individual Presentations

• Looking to Save Face? Political Cover and Failed Sanctions - Paul Silva, University of Pennsylvania

• Why Some Sanction Enforcement Actions Attract or Fail to Attract Media Attention - Bryan Robert Early, University at Albany, SUNY; Timothy Peterson, University of South Carolina; Keith A Preble, Miami University

• Targeting: How the USA and EU Use Individual Sanctions - Christian von Soest, German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA)

Chair

• Bryan Robert Early University at Albany, SUNY

Discussant

• Navin A. Bapat University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill