Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background and Motivation
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立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background and Motivation
Sanctions have been used as a tool of a coercive diplomacy for centuries. The process of sanctions imposition involves two parties, namely, a Sender and a Target. It is also important to mention that both sender and target can be represented by individuals, states or different institutions. The main purpose of sanctioning an opponent includes such goal as forcing the target to comply a verity of sender’s demands, which may consist of political, economic, military, or social claims.
Economic sanction is a double-edged sword and can inflict damage on both parties. Usually it is implemented for a limited period of time, but can have long-term effects. Additionally, the economies may not immediately experience the burden inflicted on them. Many negative consequences are manifested with a time lag: slowdown in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth, loss of jobs and opportunities for the development of business sector (Alesina et al. 1996; Morgan and Schwebach 1997; Allen 2008; Peksen and Drury 2010). In addition, sanctions are not always lifted as quickly as they are imposed.
Before 1945 military methods of achieving your goals were extremely popular. It was considered to be the main coercive tool in foreign policy. After World War II the use of force became much more restricted and sanctions started to be seen as a better alternative for brutal force.
Sanctions became a savor of the world and could help to evade unnecessary wars (Baldwin 1985).
This tool started to be the tool of rational actors. In Figure 1.1 sanction cases are depicted. It is clear that there is a tendency for a growth in number of sanction usage between 1945 and 2005, especially after the end of Cold War.
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國立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Figure 1.1 Initiation of Sanctions Cases, 1945-2005
Source: University of North Carolina (2014). Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) Data Page [Dataset]. Retrieved March 17, 2020, from http://sanctions.web.unc.edu
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Greece Athens targeted Megara with economic embargo in 431-404 BC (Eaton and Alan Sykes, 1998). Nowadays sanctions are still widely used in international relations. According to the Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) data, throughout the period of 1945 to 2005 there were more than eight hundred sanction episodes (Morgan and Bapat, 2013). Although it is a popular instrument and has some impact on a target, but it is complicated to assess the success of this tool and its damage beforehand.In international political economy literature, the role of sanctions is highly controversial and has not been decided yet. Scholars argue whether this coercive mechanism is efficient or it has no impact on a target. And if it does which variables are the most important in a target’s decision to acquiesce to sender’s demands.
In the same TIES dataset, we can observe that the majority of sanctions enforced or threatened in 20th centaury are the sanctions connected with such issues as human rights or trade (almost 70%
of all sanctions). Thus, an objective of a sender is to alter the system of a target to address these issues. On the one hand, lack of communication, international institutes and platforms for interaction decrease the level of trust between states, thus, making sanctions to be a tool for resolving issues. On the other hand, presence of such entities should make countries to be more open for dialogue and allow them to tackle problems with different tools other than sanctions.
The target in its turn want to preserve its policy and usually is reluctant to change. Such state will try to deflect sanctions with all means possible to maintain its image, political and international statuses. However, there are many variables, which determines the effectiveness on a target country.
I shall also mention, that increase in number of sanctions used is going along with a growing globalization. We can see this clearly that the number of sanctions increased rapidly after the end of Cold War, the time when more and more states joined the world market and switched to democratic regimes. From 1971 to 1991 there were 363 sanction episodes in total, around 18 cases per year. But from 1991 till 2000 the number grew to 525, which equals to 53 sanction impositions and threats per year.
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The notion of globalization consists of many components. However, globalization brings the countries together, making the world more interconnected. The closer interaction between all types of actors has effect on almost every sphere of life, including international relation. Thus, I assume that growing dependence may impact such a coercive mean as sanctions. Effects of globalization have been poorly research by IPE (International Political Economy) scholars. Assessing the effects of different types of globalization on a final outcome of sanction usage, will help to close this gap.
The motivation for the analysis derives from the fact that a large number of measurements from an abundant literature, which have an inference on sanction effectiveness, can be considered to be a part of one of the globalization types. This connection will be observed more thoroughly in the following chapters. The existing relationship can be a sign of an existing correlation.
Moreover, some studies on certain globalization types were carried out and discovered a presence of interdependence between variables. For instance, Duzcu (2019) observed cultural globalization (which can be considered to be a part of social globalization), and found that there is a correlation of it on the sanction’s final outcome.