Targeted Sanctions in a World of Global Finance

This is the golden age of economic statecraft—and the study of economic statecraft. This is in large part due to the evolution of economic coercion from trade embargoes to targeted financial sanctions. Targeted financial sanctions are attractive because they can generate economic costs similar to those of more comprehensive sanctions, with fewer negative externalities. Over time, however, the intersection of economic sanctions with globalized capital markets will provoke three interesting research questions. First, do financial sanctions spare a target country’s population from negative humanitarian and human rights outcomes? Second, to what extent are financial sanctions an exercise in learning by both targets and senders? Third, will the United States’ use of financial sanctions trigger blowback against US primacy in the international financial system? These last two questions offer the prospect to linking research on economic statecraft with larger questions of international security and global political economy.