Economic sanctions and official ethnic discrimination in target countries, 1950–2003

Conventional studies on the consequences of sanctions tend to focus on the target society as a whole without specifying how foreign economic pressures might affect the well-being of vulnerable groups within target countries – the same groups who often disproportionately bear the burden of sanctions. This study explores the extent to which sanctions increase the likelihood of discriminatory government practices against one of the globally most vulnerable groups, ethnic groups. It is argued that sanctions contribute to the rise of official ethnic-based economic and political discrimination through contracting the economy and creating incentives for the target government to employ ethnic-based discriminatory policies. Using data on over 900 ethnic groups from 1950 to 2003, the results lend support for the theoretical claim that sanctions prompt the government to pursue ethnic-based discriminatory economic and political practices in multiethnic countries. The findings also indicate that multilateral sanctions are likely to be more harmful to the well-being of ethnic groups than sanctions levied by individual countries. Further, the negative effect of comprehensive sanctions appears to be greater than that of sanctions with moderate and limited impact on the target economy. The regime type of the target state, on the other hand, appears to have a significant role only in conditioning the hypothesized effect of sanctions on economic discrimination. Overall, this study’s focus on a vulnerable segment of the target society – ethnic groups – offers a greater understanding of the consequences of sanctions. It also provides additional insight as to how, in multiethnic countries, political elites might domestically respond to external pressures to retain power.     

When Do Imposed Economic Sanctions Work? A Critical Review of the Sanctions Effectiveness Literature

ABSTRACT

There is growing policy consensus in Washington and other Western capitals that economic sanctions are powerful tools to cope with major foreign policy crises. Are sanctions, particularly targeted sanctions, really the potent instruments optimists suggest? Under what circumstances do punitive economic measures induce policy change in sanctioned countries? To probe these queries, in this article I outline the conditions that have been identified as more likely to lead to successful sanctions outcomes in the literature. I also discuss four major shortcomings of existing scholarship. First, the sender-biased interpretation of sanctions effectiveness renders the treatment of the ‘ineffective’ cases with negative outcomes the same as those cases that induce no discernable change in target behavior. Second, the prevalent use of static data from existing sanctions databases reduces the ability of researchers to study various time-specific factors affecting the probability of sanctions success. Third, the dominant state-centric bargaining model in the literature offers limited insight into contemporary coercive measures directed at non-state actors. Fourth, the study of sanctions in isolation of other instruments that frequently accompany them, such as incentives and diplomatic pressure, leads to a partial understanding of the specific role sanctions play in shaping the outcome of key foreign policy initiatives.     

BANKING ON NONPROLIFERATION

In the past decade, governments have increasingly relied on financial sanctions to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. By targeting not only individuals and entities involved in illicit activities, but also banks that allow transactions to occur, financial sanctions were expected to stanch the flow of funds that support proliferation and compel compliance with international law—notably by Iran. Ten years later, Iran's nuclear program has advanced, calling into question the effectiveness of financial sanctions. Previous research evaluating the effectiveness of financial sanctions has focused on the impact of sanctions on the targeted country or on the enforcement of sanctions by the international community. Little attention has been devoted to their implementation by banks and government agencies. Based on interviews with US and European bank and government representatives, this article argues that the inefficiency of financial sanctions is due to shortcomings in training and information support from governments to financial institutions; governments on both sides of the Atlantic have provided little or no assistance to enable banks to identify patterns of proliferation financing and implement the sanctions regime. To transform financial sanctions into effective nonproliferation tools, governments need to play a greater role in their implementation.     

COOPERATION,SIGNALS, AND SANCTIONS

This paper uses game theory and modeling to address the role of incentive structures and information dynamics in nuclear inspections. The traditional argument is that compliant states should be willing to allow inspections to prove their innocence, while proliferating states are likely to impede inspections. This argument does not take into account the historical variation in inspection, signaling, and sanctioning behaviors. Using a game theoretic analysis and model, it is shown that the separation of proliferators from nonproliferators only occurs when the likelihood of proliferation is high and punishment costs are moderate. The model assumes that states can choose how much to cooperate with inspectors and must pay opportunity or secrecy costs when inspections are effective. The results are tested against a set of real-life cases, providing support for the claims of historical variation and the model's deductive propositions.     

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AND CULTURE

We address empirically the question of why international economic sanctions are, or are not, chosen as instruments of foreign policy and the question of what determines their success. We hypothesize that cultural linkages between nations are an important factor in explaining both instrument choice and conflict outcomes. Countries that share significant cultural attributes are found to be less likely to apply economic sanctions against one another than countries lacking such cultural ties. However, it is precisely in the case of culturally similar sender and target nations that sanctions are most likely to succeed.     

Contributors

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, the United States has increasingly turned to targeted sanctions and export restrictions, such as those imposed against Iran and North Korea, in order to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. One vexing problem, however, is how to contend with jurisdictional hurdles when the violations occur overseas, in countries that are unable or unwilling to assist US enforcement efforts. To solve this problem, US prosecutors are turning to strategies with significant extraterritorial implications— that is, exercising legal authority beyond national borders. One such tool is to use civil legal procedures to seize assets linked to sanctions or export-control violations in jurisdictions that lack cooperative arrangements with US enforcement agencies. While this may be an attractive strategy to bolster enforcement efforts against overseas illicit procurement, using such tools is not without consequence. This article explores the political, legal, and technical implications of enforcing extraterritorial controls against overseas non-state actors by exploring the recent uses of civil-asset forfeiture against Iranian and North Korean procurement networks.     

The Iranian nuclear dilemma: light at the end of the tunnel?

In February 2012, Iran announced its willingness to resume negotiations with the Western powers. This statement followed in the wake of a damning report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors and the imposition of additional sanctions by the international community on an Iranian economy already under pressure. Tehran's announcement also coincided with increased speculation regarding an Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. At the same time, however, this seemingly positive step appeared to be undermined by Iran's concomitant announcement that “huge” technical progress has been made on Iran's nuclear programme. This article will explore the significance of the recent political, diplomatic and technical developments in the Iranian nuclear affair and situate them in the broader context of Tehran's nuclear strategy. The analysis will assess the potential for this latest phase in the Iranian nuclear crisis to reverse Iran's current trajectory and initiate a rapprochement between Iran and Western powers.     

Autocracies and Economic Sanctions: The Divergent Impact of Authoritarian Regime Type on Sanctions Success

There is some consensus in the literature that economic sanctions targeting authoritarian regimes are less effective than those against democratic regimes. This line of research, however, assumes that autocratic regimes are monolithic and that they have similar capacities to resist foreign pressure. This study argues that the success rate of sanctions against dictatorships is contingent on institutional differences across different types of autocracies. I develop a theoretical model indicating that single-party and military regimes are less likely to concede to foreign pressure compared to democracies. This is because they effectively use various repressive tactics and positive inducements to endure the costs of the coercion. Sanctions against personalist regimes, on the other hand, are likely to be as effective as sanctions directed at democracies. Personalist regimes might be inclined to acquiesce to foreign pressure due to their lack of strong institutional capacity to weather the costs of the sanctions. Results from the selection-corrected models show that sanctions against military or single-party regimes are less likely to induce concessions relative to democratic target regimes. The findings also indicate that there is no significant difference in the success rate of sanctions against personalist regimes and democratic governments.     

Initiating a cooperative denuclearization effort with North Korea

ABSTRACT

As the United States and North Korea pursue negotiations on a “denuclearization” agreement, the two countries should consider initiating cooperative measures as a way to build confidence and encourage finalization of a complete agreement. Based on lessons from the initial engagements carried out under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program in states of the former Soviet Union (FSU), initial cooperation should focus on safety and security, training, and infrastructure elimination. By offering to implement these initiatives now while negotiations are underway, the United States could gain additional insights into North Korean intentions. These early initiatives could be proposed without compromising the US maximum-pressure campaign on North Korea by using the current authorities of the CTR program and carefully designing specific exemptions that may be required for any agreed measures. If North Korea is truly interested in pursuing disarmament efforts, the initial cooperative projects would enable them to begin reaping potential benefits while negotiations continue with sanctions still in place. These initial proposals could also be expanded to include additional international partners such as Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan. Such programs and initiatives would support and supplement longer-term strategies to address North Korean weapons-of-mass-destruction challenges.