The Domestic Political Costs of Economic Sanctions

While a great deal of attention has been to paid to whether or not economic sanctions work, less energy has been devoted to exploring the causal mechanisms that lead to the success or failure of sanctions policies. Often, it is assumed that the population is one important source of political costs for targeted leaders, but this assumption has not been tested. Are sanctions related to an increase in antigovernment activity? How does the domestic political system of the targeted state affect the likelihood of this antigovernment behavior? The findings presented here suggest that sanctions may increase antigovernment activity, but that increase is mitigated by the domestic political structures of the target state. In autocratic targets, political violence is less likely to occur when sanctions are in place. For sanctions against autocratic states to be costly, it appears that the political costs needed to alter behavior must be generated internationally rather than domestically.