Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Sanctions Debate: The Sanctions Debate in economics revolves around the effectiveness, ethics, and unintended consequences of economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool. While policymakers increasingly use sanctions, scholars often question their utility, pointing to their mixed record in achieving stated goals like regime change or behavioral shifts. The debate also highlights concerns about humanitarian impacts, enforceability, and potential for evasion. See also Sanctions, Sanctions policies, Sanctions theory, Sanctions effectivenss._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Robert A. Pape on Sanctions Debate - Dictionary of Arguments
Pape I 95 Sanctions debate/Pape: Recently (…) Baldwin has argued that the concept of economic sanctions should be broadened to encompass all aspects of "economic statecraft" including not only economic coercion for political purposes (the traditional understanding of sanctions), but also coercion for economic goals (trade disputes) as well as goals other than changing the target state's behavior, such as engaging in economic warfare, rallying domestic political support, demonstrating resolve to third-party audiences, or simply inflicting punishment.(1) He credits achievement of any of these goals as success for economic sanctions.(2) PapeVsBaldwin: Accepting this looser standard for sanctions success would be a mistake for two reasons. First, the determinants of success for different categories of goals are not likely to be the same, and thus require separate theoretical investigations. A standard of success that lumps them all together risks losing information essential to building such theories. For example, knowing whether a certain type of economic sanction often helps the coercer government's standing in the polls tells us little about whether the same sanctions, or other instruments, would be likely to succeed in coercing target states to change their political behavior. Theories of the determinants of success in trade disputes or economic warfare or of international economic threats as a domestic political tool can and should be constructed, but they are not the same as a theory of economic sanctions. Second, beyond a certain point, excessively loose operationalization of dependent variables not only hinders theory building but departs from science altogether. Baldwin argues that the mere imposition of economic sanctions should automatically qualify as a success: "to make the target of an influence attempt pay a price for noncompliance is to be at least partially successful."(2) If failure is defined to be impossible, the dependent variable cannot vary and the theory cannot be falsified. HSE*: Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot generally agree with the common definition of economic sanctions. First, they see economic sanctions as important because they may be an effective alternative to military force: "Only military power [President George Bush and his advisers] warned, is certain to get Saddam Hussein's armies out. But sanctions can work-and under circumstances far less favorable than those present in the confrontation with Iraq."(4) Pape I 96 Second, they agree that it is important not to conflate economic sanctions with trade disputes: "We exclude... the normal realm of economic objectives sought in banking, commercial, and tax negotiations between sovereign states."(5) PapeVsHSE/PapeVsHufbauer: As I show, however, HSE violate this rule in several of their cases. Trade wars should not be counted as support for the proposition that economic sanctions can achieve more ambitious political objectives because the basis of target state decision making is different. Third, HSE* recognize the difference between economic pressure for coercion on a political issue and pressures designed simply to weaken the military capabilities of an adversary, although they use the term "impairing military potential" rather than economic warfare: "we can distinguish between the imposition of short-term economic measures to achieve defined political goals, and the conduct of a long-term campaign to weaken a major adversary ... [in which] economic denial would marginally limit the adversary's military capabilities."(6) Nonetheless, they include economic warfare as a subset of economic sanctions, as if the only difference between them was the intensity of the conflict. >Sanctions, >Sanctions consequences, >Sanctions debate, >Sanctions effectiveness, >Sanctions evasion, >Sanctions history, >Sanctions policies, >Sanctions theory, >Trade sanctions, >Financial sanctions, >Trade wars, >Payment systems. * Hufbauer, Gary C., Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly A. Elliott. 1990. Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute. 1. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft. p.32 2. Baldwin criticizes HSE* for an excessively narrow conception of economic sanctions goals and success. Ibid., p. 371. 2. Ibid., р. 372. 4. Kimberly Ann Elliot, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, and Jeffrey J. Schott, "The Big Squeeze: Why the Sanctions on Iraq Will Work," Washington Post, December 9, 1990. 5. HSE, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Vol. 1, p. 3. See also Martin, Coercive Cooperation, p. 4; Makio Miyagawa, Do Economic Sanctions Work? (New York: St. Martin's, 1992), pp. 8-9; and George A. Lopez and David Cortright, "Economic Sanctions in Contemporary Global Relations,' in Cortright and Lopez, eds., Economic Sanctions, p. 15. 6. HSE, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Vol. 2, p. 54._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Pape I Robert A. Pape Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work International Security, Volume 22, Issue 2 (Autumn, 1997), 90-136. 1997 |
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