Sanctions as War Davis, Stuart; Ness, Immanuel
12/2021, Volume:
212
eBook
Sanctions as War is the first critical analysis of economic sanctions from a global perspective. Featuring case studies from 11 sanctioned countries and theoretical essays, it will be of immediate ...interest to those interested in understanding how sanctions became the common sense of American foreign policy.
Western powers often turn to international sanctions in order to exert pressure on incumbent governments and signal their support for the opposition. Yet whether, and through what mechanisms, ...sanctions trigger protest remains unclear. We argue that sanction threats work as an international stamp of approval for would-be protesters; they encourage collective action against governments. Moreover, sanction threats send particularly clear and coherent signals if multiple senders issue them and if they focus on human rights, which makes such sanctions threats more effective in sparking social unrest. Using count models of protest activity, we find strong support for our arguments. We corroborate our findings with qualitative evidence from the case of Zimbabwe.
Examines a broad range of issues raised by the U.S. use of economic sanctions against China, Cuba, and Iran. Awards Choice Outstanding Academic Titles, 2004 Reviews Does the world really need another ...book on economic sanctions? In this case the answer is yes. The authors contribute usefully to a congested field by providing very thorough and thoughtful case studies of US economic sanctions against China, Cuba, and Iran...the authors look at precisely what sorts of economic sanctions were imposed and detail the different consequences on trade, investment, and technology transfer in the various affected sectors of these countries over time plus effects on third-party nations. The result is a multidimensional perspective that allows a fuller grasp of the direct and indirect costs and trade-offs inherent in economic statecraft in these examples of unilateral sanctions and the likelihood of detrimental unintended consequences. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, and policy makers. Choice
Review(s) of: Backfire: How sanctions reshape the world against U.S. Interests, by Agathe Demarais, Published by: Columbia University Press, New York, 2022, 304pp, $30.
Economic sanctions can adversely affect target countries. We study how regions withstand these sanctions amid the US-China trade war. Adopting a geographic relational perspective, we posit that ...regional resilience hinges on global connections and local networks. Analyzing nightlight data, we find that regional resilience is closely tied to the nature of global connections: cities prioritizing high-value-adding exports perform better, while those reliant on foreign firms for exports and focused on processing trade are more vulnerable. Furthermore, cities with economic development zones exhibit greater resilience to the trade war, underscoring the importance of networks within these zones in mitigating adverse effects.
•We study the impact of economic sanctions on informal employment in Iran's manufacturing sector.•We compare workers in industries differentially exposed to trade using a diff-in-diff ...approach.•Sanctions increase affected workers’ probability of being employed in the informal sector by 9 %.•Effect is larger for low-educated workers, pointing to the unequal consequences of sanctions.•Results shed light on an underexplored aspect of labour reallocation caused by economic sanctions.
This paper examines how economic sanctions affect the allocation of workers across formal and informal employment. We analyse the case of the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Iran in 2012 and focus on the manufacturing sector. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we compare the probability of being employed in the informal sector before and after 2012 for workers in industries with different pre-existing exposure to international trade. Our analysis reveals that, following the sanctions, workers in industries with higher trade exposure are significantly more likely to experience informal employment compared to workers in industries with lower trade exposure. These results remain robust when accounting for potential sorting issues by using an instrumental variable approach. Our findings shed light on an important margin of labour market adjustment through which sanctions can affect the economy of the target country.
Sanctions are back with a vengeance, with new objectives, measures, challenges, and opportunities. Shaping the thinking of generations of scholars, Canadian Margaret Doxey anticipated and analyzed ...these issues. Multilateral Sanctions Revisited applies her lessons to the many multilateral sanctions that define our geopolitically contested world.
Abstract
What determines the consequences of economic sanctions? Is there a common explanation for these consequences? This article provides a comprehensive review of the fragmented literature ...focusing on the consequences of sanctions. We critically discuss the complex relationships between types of sanctions and sanction senders and their targets, as well as the structural factors that account for the specific consequences of different sanction cases. A discussion on the thematic, methodological, and theoretical shortcomings of the existing literature on sanction consequences follows. We argue that a “common approach” to sanction consequences research should be framed within the framework of international interdependence. We also present several nascent trends and propose new directions for sanction researchers and other disciplines.
We draw on established theoretical works in international political economy to compare the empirical effect of threatened and imposed economic sanctions on international trade. To deepen the ...analysis, we analyze whether there are any differential effects when different instruments of sanctions are employed, as well as whether the effect of sanctions is product specific. To do this, we use the gravity model and recent detailed disaggregated data on sanctions spanning the period 1960–2009. Our results show that the impact of threatened sanctions differs qualitatively and quantitatively from imposed sanctions. Whereas imposed sanctions lead to a decrease in the trade flow between the sender and its target, a threat of sanctions leads to an increase. The positive impact of the threat may be due to economic agents in both the sender and its target resorting to stockpiling prior to the actual imposition of sanctions to minimize any adverse consequences of the sanctions. These differential effects of threatened and imposed sanctions also extend to food and medicinal products, as well as when different instruments of sanctions are employed.
•We compare the empirical impact of threatened sanctions to imposed sanctions on international trade.•The results show that the impact of threatened sanctions differs qualitatively and quantitatively from imposed sanctions.•Whereas imposed sanctions decrease the trade flow between the sender and its target, threatened sanctions lead to an increase.•The positive impact of the threat may be due to economic agents resorting to stockpiling during the threat stage.
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