Economic sanctions are a key instrument of power for major countries and their coalitions – as illustrated by the recent sanctions against Russia in the wake of the aggression in Ukraine. Sanctions can take various forms – such as a ban on the export of certain goods or a complete embargo, or a reduction in or denial of financial assistance to a targeted country. A key question is whether these coercive measures can help bring about political change, writes Christian von Soest.
In his new book “Sanktionen – Machtige Waffe oder hilfloses Manoeuvre?” (“Sanctions – powerful weapon or feeble manoeuvre?”) the Hamburg-based political scientist explores the impact of these tools. His central message is that those imposing sanctions need to think about their domestic impact as well as that of the target country.
The book includes a number of empirical analyses, including the results of a large international survey of trade experts. This confirms that the more extensive a sanction is, the greater its effect on the target’s exports. This is particularly true for sanctions imposed by the US. Moreover, the US imposes more extensive sanctions on a wider range of target countries than other OECD nations do.
The analysis also finds that the effectiveness of sanctions depends heavily on the political situation in the target country. Authoritarian regimes, for example, tend to portray external pressure as an attack on the nation and prompt people to ‘rally round the flag’. Sanctions can trigger political change, however – as they did in South Africa. But, in general, they are a risky tool that requires careful thinking and should be used only as a last resort.
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