Beyond coercion: how female political representation shapes sanctions termination

What explains variation in the duration of international sanctions and the mechanisms through which they are terminated? While the existing literature on sanctions termination focuses on strategic and structural factors, this study introduces a gender-based perspective, arguing that higher female political representation in the target state increases the likelihood of sanctions termination, particularly for sanctions with significant human costs. Two main pathways link women's representation to sanctions outcomes. First, women in leadership positions foster compliance with sender demands by increasing government responsiveness to humanitarian suffering and facilitating collaborative compliance processes. Second, female officeholders influence senders’ strategic calculations by signaling reforms and creating humanitarian pressure, giving senders a reason to lift sanctions. Using event history analysis on panel data of 366 sanctions cases from 1990 to 2018, the study finds that women in executive and legislative roles in target states predict shorter sanction durations, primarily through faster target compliance, while evidence for sender capitulation is more limited.