Sanctions and democracy—Economic peace revisited

Scholars have argued whether democratic peace also holds in the realm of sanctions—whether there is an economic peace. A substantial amount of evidence has been gathered both for and against economic peace. This article provides a new perspective, using the updated TIES data set on sanctions and two data sets on democracy (Polity IV and V-Dem), on the topic of economic peace. It finds that, when faced with a conflict, democracies are both more likely to issue economic sanctions and that there is no economic peace between democracies. In fact, the opposite holds and democracies are more likely to sanction one another. This study indicates that economic coercion in international relations is driven by the constraints and incentives that public opinion and interests groups place on democratic leaders, and suggests that democracies re-channel coercion against each other from the military to the economic domain.