Economic Sanctions and Political Repression: Assessing
the Impact of Coercive Diplomacy
on Political Freedoms
Dursun Peksen & A. Cooper Drury
Published online: 17 February 2009
# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract This article offers a thorough analysis of the unintended impact economic
sanctions have on political repression—referred to in this study as the level of the
government respect for democratic freedoms and human rights. We argue that
economic coercion is a counterproductive policy tool that reduces the level of
political freedoms in sanctioned countries. Instead of coercing the sanctioned regime
into reforming itself, sanctions inadvertently enhance the regime’s coercive capacity
and create incentives for the regime’s leadership to commit political repression.
Cross-national time series data support our argument, confirming that the continued
use of economic sanctions (even when aimed at promoting political liberalization
and respect for human rights) will increase the level of political repression. These
findings suggest that both scholars and policy makers should pay more attention to
the externalities caused by economic coercion.
Keywords Economic sanctions . Democracy. Human rights . Political repression .
Coercive diplomacy
Introduction
As early as Sun Tzu, Thucydides, and Machiavelli, policy makers were advised to
use economic statecraft as a weapon to weaken their rivals. Sanctions were argued to
weaken the rival’s economy and, in turn, disrupt their military capabilities.
Hum Rights Rev (2009) 10:393–411
DOI 10.1007/s12142-009-0126-2
D. Peksen (*)
Department of Political Science, East Carolina University, Brewster A-102B, Greenville,
NC 27858, USA
e-mail: peksend@ecu.edu
A. C. Drury
Department of Political Science, University of Missouri, 113 Professional Bldg, Columbia,
MO 65211, USA
e-mail: drury@missouri.edu
Following the weakening of the targeted country, military actions would be more
likely to succeed. After World War I, sanctions were used, although ineffectively, to
coerce states to follow international laws and norms and to forestall conflict.
Sanctions imposed since the early twentieth century differ from the economic
warfare promoted by history’s first realists because modern sanctions seek to secure
political goals by pressuring the target economically rather than directly weakening
them prior to the onset of military violence. Sanctions not only have a long history
but also have become an especially popular foreign policy tool used by individual
countries and intergovernmental organizations during the post-Cold War era. The
recent record of the United Nations’ (UN) use of economic sanctions is a good
illustration of how sanctions have become a familiar feature of international
relations. Up until the early 1990s, the UN employed multilateral sanctions only
twice (Rhodesia and South Africa); since 1990, the UN has imposed sanctions on
over a dozen countries.1
In the recent history of economic statecraft, no issue has dominated the use of
sanctions more than the promotion of democratic reforms and human rights. From
the UN and American promotion of human rights throughout Latin America and
Africa beginning in the 1970s to the ambitious attempts by the European Union and
the USA to restore faltering democracies in Turkey and twice in Haiti, leaders select
economic coercion as a dominant strategy when they seek to compel political reform
within another regime. The prevalence of sanctions tied to democracy and human
rights became widespread especially during the last decade of the Cold War and the
post-Cold War era. During the first two decades of the Cold War (1950–1970), only
a few sanction cases were explicitly aimed at promoting better human rights
conditions and democratization. In the case of unilateral US sanctions, for instance,
beginning with the Carter administration, economic coercion was used to target
human rights abusers, particularly in Latin America. Carter’s frequent use of
sanctions started a trend in sanctioning for democracy and human right such that by
2000, more than half of the imposed sanctions were directed against illiberal
democracies or authoritarian regimes to cease the violation of civil and political
liberties or to impair their military and political capacity to repress.
Despite the frequent use of economic coercion for the promotion of democracy
and human rights, very limited research has been devoted to inquire whether
sanctions help or hurt these democratic freedoms and human rights in sanctioned
countries (e.g., Gibbons 1999; Drury and Li 2006; Peksen 2009; Peksen and Drury
2008; Wood 2008). While scholars addressed the possible humanitarian consequences
of sanctions in specific cases, there are only a handful of studies that examine the
influence that these policies have on political circumstances in the targeted countries.
Similarly, the effect of economic coercion on political liberties is largely overlooked
by the literature that addresses the impact various international influences have on
democracy and human rights. Drawing insight from the early literature on the
political and the humanitarian consequences of sanctions, the purpose of this article
1
These countries include Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Iraq, Liberia, Libya,
North Korea, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Sudan.
394 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
was to address the impact of economic coercion on the level of political repression
within targeted states. In this study, political repression refers to the level of political
freedoms and government respect for human rights (e.g., freedom from extrajudicial
killings, torture and imprisonment).
More specifically, we argue and show empirically that economic coercion
unintentionally creates conditions that permit the leadership in target countries to
consolidate its hold on power and increase the use of political repression. We offer
this argument as an alternative to the idea that the imposition of economic coercion
will eventually force regimes to engage in political reforms and thus improve human
rights and democratic freedoms in targeted countries (Galtung 1967). In what
follows, we discuss the current view of economic sanctions as policy tools and then
place this understanding in the context of political reforms. We go on to argue that
these tools are counterproductive to the promotion of democracy and human rights
because they create incentives for repression and consolidate the targeted regime’s
power. Using data from 1972 to 2000, we show that sanctions precede rather
dramatic drops in democracy and human rights. We end with a discussion of the
implications of these findings for policy making.
Understanding Economic Sanctions
While the study of sanctions does not have the same long history as their use, in
many regards, we have a good understanding of these economic tools. Considering
their effectiveness, scholars ask a fundamental question: Do economic sanctions really
work? Despite the increasing use of international economic sanctions, conventional
wisdom—based on both case studies and large-N empirical research—holds that
economic sanctions are generally ineffective and that they fail to induce a target to
change its behavior (e.g., Galtung 1967; Wallensteen 1968; Barber 1979; Baldwin
1985; Haas 1997; Pape 1997). Research shows that among others factors, economic
sanctions are more likely to succeed if target countries are economically dependent
on the target (Hufbauer et al. 1990; Drury 1998), if sanctions inflict serious
economic damage on the target (Tsebelis 1990), if sanctions aim at the political elites
of the target countries (Morgan and Schwebach 1997; Kirshner 1997; Kaempfer and
Lowenberg 1988), and if there is no expectation of future conflict between the target
and sender countries (Drezner 1998). Scholars estimate that sanctions fail 65% to
95% of the time (Hufbauer et al. 1990; Pape 1997).
Scholars have also addressed the question of why sanctions are used—a
particularly poignant question given their low effectiveness and frequent (and
increasing) use. Drury (2001, 2005) shows that in the USA, the biggest factor in
explaining the president’s use of sanctions is a dispute involving an international
issue with the target state rather than a domestic call for protectionism or political
action. That is, the president uses sanctions to affect change in the target rather than
using the sanctions as a cover for protectionist trade policies. Conversely, sanctions
levied by the Congress are theorized and shown to be driven more by domestic
economic concerns, but these sanctions tend to be much smaller in scope and often
do not make serious demands of the targeted state. An example of Congressional
sanctioning is the threat to sanction China over human rights. While certainly some
Economic sanctions and political repression 395
politicians were concerned with the treatment of Chinese citizens, much of the
impetus to sanction was to reduce competition with US labor. What most scholars
(and most databases) consider economic coercion are those initiated primarily by the
executive branch and driven by the dispute or disagreement between the sender
country and the target country.
To summarize, the understanding of sanctions is (1) that they often fail to produce
their intended effect, but (2) they are used primarily to influence the targeted state
(even if they are expected to fail) rather than being enacted based on the sender’s
domestic politics. The extant literature on the utility of economic coercion largely
overlooks the possible unintended side effects sanctions may have. The literature on
the humanitarian impact of economic coercion shows that sanctions could lead to
civilian pain by disrupting the economic, demographic, health, and governance
capacity of target countries (e.g., Cortright and Lopez 1995, 2000; Weiss et al. 1997;
Weiss 1999; Gibbons 1999). The immediate economic costs and possible other
indirect effects of economic pressure are found to be damaging to average citizens in
such areas as personal security, physical quality of life, and a deterioration in social
services. However, economic coercion could also lead to broader societal
consequences such as causing a widening gap in income distribution, weakening
civil society, and offering more incentives for the target elites to repress political
parties and the media.
Besides the immediate humanitarian consequences of economic statecraft, a few
studies highlight the possible consequences of sanctions on the political stability of
sanctioned countries. Marinov (2005) finds that economic sanctions destabilize
political leaders, while Allen (2004) shows that sanctions, especially in more
democratic countries, cause more political violence such as riots and demonstrations.
In these studies, one of the major justifications of why sanctions might destabilize
domestic politics is linked with the disproportionate negative economic cost of
sanctions on civilians that leads to greater dissatisfaction and violent protests against
the regime. Thus, these studies imply that sanctions not only fail in their intended
policy goals but also become detrimental to the domestic stability of the target states.
There are also a few studies that address the effect of sanctions on human rights
(Drury and Li 2006; Wood 2008; Peksen 2009) and democratic freedoms (Gibbons
1999; Peksen and Drury 2008) in target states. Drury and Li (2006) show that the US
threat to remove China’s most favored nation status not only failed to promote more
respect for human rights but also eroded those rights further. Specifically, they argue
that the threat of coercion was counterproductive and resulted in fewer Chinese
domestic political accommodations regarding the use of repression against citizens.
Gibbons (1999) similarly examines the political and the humanitarian impact of the
US-led sanctions against Haiti (1991–1994) in response to the military overthrow of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s civilian government. Although the sanctions were aimed at
restoring democratic rule in Haiti, his case study evidence suggests that the sanctions
were counterproductive and led to the further deterioration of civil and political
liberties.
Scholars studying the relationship between international factors and democratization
have also overlooked economic sanctions. A wide variety of factors are
argued to have an impact on liberal governance. In particular, scholars find that
396 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
foreign aid, international financial crises, trade openness, foreign direct investment,
military intervention, membership in international organizations, and the geographic
diffusion of democracies all have differential and significant effects on democracy.2
While many of these studies emphasize the importance of economic statecraft on
democracy, they leave out arguably the most direct form of economic statecraft,
namely sanctions.
The literature examining the role of international factors in the promotion of
greater government respect for human rights, such as freedom from politically
motivated torture and extrajudicial killings, also fails to consider economic
sanctions. A number of studies consider the role of economic integration through
international trade and foreign investment as a significant predictor of more
government respect for human rights (Mitchell and McCormick 1988; Meyer
1996; Goldstone et al. 2000; Apodaca 2001; Richards et al. 2001; Hafner-Burton
2005a, b). Generally, these studies on economic globalization show that as countries
are more integrated into the world economy, there is greater government respect for
human rights. The reason for the improvement in human rights conditions is
associated with economic globalization’s positive impact on economic growth,
emergence of a strong middle class, organized civil society movements, and higher
educational achievements in economically globalized societies.
On the other hand, others have addressed the role of arms sales (Blanton 1999)
and foreign economic aid (Mitchell and McCormick 1988; Knack 2004) as two
widely used foreign policy tools that are often linked with an increasing level of
human rights abuses. Both economic and military aid appears to contribute to the
repressiveness of the receiving regimes since those regimes tend to disproportionately
use the military assistance to enhance their coercive capacity, while
development assistance appears to have no major influence on standard of living
of average civilians. Others find evidence suggesting that implementation of World
Bank and International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustment agreements leads to
more human rights violations in developing countries (Abouharb and Cingranelli
2006), while international human rights regimes and treaties create more incentives
for and external pressure on political regimes to respect for human rights (HafnerBurton
2005b). Finally, Poe and Tate (1994) and Poe et al. (1999) argue that
militarized interstate disputes are a significant cause of human rights abuses in
countries at war. Although various international factors significantly predict human
rights practices, the literature on human rights has not offered a thorough
examination of the role sanctions play in explaining the cross-national variance in
governments’ human rights practices.
Thus, the scarcity of research concerning the possible consequences sanctions
have on the repressiveness of the target regimes leaves our understanding of the
utility of economic coercion seriously lacking. The lack of research in this area is
problematic given that sanctions are so often used as a means to promote human
2
For examples, see: Huntington 1991, Gasiorowski 1995, Meernik 1996, Armijo 1999, Carothers 1999,
Peceny 1999, Kopstein and Reilly 2000, Pevehouse 2002a, b, Knack 2004, Carothers and Ottoway 2005,
Rudra 2005, Gleditsch and Ward 2006, Pickering and Kisangani 2006, and Pickering and Peceny 2006.
Economic sanctions and political repression 397
rights and democratic reform. It is unclear what effect these increasingly common
policies have on the often suffering target. Turning to our argument of how
economic sanctions might increase the repressiveness of the target regime, we
explain that sanctions create incentives and structures that cause leaders to become
more repressive. As a result, sanctions are more harmful than helpful in the
promotion of democratic freedoms and human rights.
The Sanction–Repression Link
If sanctions are to coerce the target regime to engage in democratic reforms or
increase its respect for human rights, then the sanctions must harm the economic
well-being and political stability of the target political leadership. This harm is
visited on the target by denying its leadership access to economic and military
resources. Since the leadership uses these resources to stay in power by paying off
its coalition and using the military to repress the population, it should have less
coercive ability (Galtung 1967; Kirshner 1997; Blanton 1999; Davenport 1995).
According to this line of reasoning, economic coercion should also decrease the
legitimacy of the target regime among its supporters as well as in the society in
general. First, because economic resources are a key means by which the regime
rewards supporters (including those in police, military, and civil services), the lack of
access to external economic and other essential scarce resources should cause a loss
of support among influential groups and subsequently further diminish the
repressiveness of the regime (Wintrobe 1990, 1998; Bueno de Mesquita et al.
2003). Second, once economic coercion also inflicts economic pain on citizens, they
may be more likely to rise up against the government and apply pressure to induce
the government to comply with the sanctioning countries’ demand for reform (Mack
and Khan 2000). Economic coercion creates considerable economic frustration
especially among average citizens as a result of the sanctions’ humanitarian impact
on growing poverty, unemployment, and the gap in income distribution. Growing
frustration and feelings of injustice among citizens will likely escalate violent acts
against the political leadership (Allen 2004; Peksen 2009). Once the target
leadership is significantly hurt by the domestic violence, it is expected that economic
coercion will likely force the regime to concede to foreign demands. The assumption
here is that if the target leadership gives in to foreign pressure, this will help it regain
legitimacy in the eyes of the society which had been disrupted by the sanctions.
There are serious questions that can be raised regarding this view of how
economic sanctions operate in target countries. As the literature on humanitarian
consequences of sanctions has long suggested, economic coercion barely harms the
economic and political capacity of the targeted regimes while significantly harming
the socioeconomic and political status of average civilians (Weiss et al. 1997;
Gibbons 1999; Weiss 1999; Cortright et al. 2001). Therefore, we suggest that
sanctions do not, in fact, put considerable pressure on the target regime to adopt
reforms and open the political space for pro-democracy movements. Below, we offer
an alternative perspective maintaining that economic coercion will increase the
repressiveness of the regime by further restricting human rights and political
freedoms of citizens.
398 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
The Corrosive Impact of Coercion on Democracy and Human Rights
As discussed above, sanctions do not operate the way they are intended to (i.e.,
placing pressure on the target leadership to capitulate). Instead, they typically fail to
exact significant damage on the economic and coercive capacity of the target regime
while disproportionately hurting the well-being of average citizens. In the following
discussion, we first turn to the incentives that sanctions create for more political
repression and then offer a discussion of why sanctions also enhance the ability of
the target regime to repress and subsequently to assist political elites in strengthening
the authoritarian state apparatus.
Economic sanctions will likely create incentives for the target leadership to
become more repressive in the face of foreign pressures to avoid the domestic costs
of giving into the sender’s demands and maintain their authority over the society
(Galtung 1967; Fearon 1994; Schultz 1998). If the target leadership acquiesces to the
demands of a foreign power, they will look weak to their own citizens and lose the
support from key social groups that help them maintain the status quo. Specifically,
if the regime is willing to give into a public demand from another country—whether
it is for political reforms, nuclear proliferation, or another foreign policy position
taken by the target—political opposition groups will see that willingness as a sign of
weakness.3
Essentially, the target leadership must be vulnerable to reverse whatever
policy the sanctioning country wants changed. This sign of weakness will, in turn,
likely embolden the opposition groups by increasing their support within the society
as a credible rival against the regime (Drury and Li 2006).
Additionally, those groups opposing the regime may see economic sanctions as
support from an external power especially when sanctions seek to destabilize the
target leadership and demand major political reforms (e.g., greater respect for
democratic freedom and human rights). By attacking the regime with sanctions and
demands for reform, the sender signals the opposition that their own demands for
reform are legitimate and that more support may be forthcoming, although this may
be wishful thinking on the opposition’s part. Thyne (2006) shows that simple
diplomatic statements criticizing a regime can embolden the regime’s opposition. If
criticism can fire up an opposition group, certainly sanctions will have a similar or
more powerful effect.
This situation is exactly what the regime wishes to avoid—an opposition group
believing that it has support from another country. As a direct consequence, the
targeted regime is likely to engage in repressive acts as a means to preempt any
opposition. To maintain its power, the regime must send a clear signal to its public
that it will not tolerate active political dissention. The possibility of the opposition
challenging the regime, or simply looking weaker to the public in general,
constitutes a serious threat to the regime’s survivability. As a result, the target
government becomes more resolute in its preference not to reform and to repress
more.
3
Because most of the sanctioned regimes tend to be less democratic and have no popular legitimacy, their
accommodation is perceived in the society as a sign of weakness. In liberal democratic systems, on the
other hand, the same accommodation might be regarded as a positive step to avoid the escalation of crisis
with other countries. We are grateful to Steven Roper for bringing this to our attention.
Economic sanctions and political repression 399
Another major reason why foreign economic coercion creates conditions to
repress the public is because the sanctions expand domestic grievances against the
state and might destabilize the political order in the form of growing antigovernment
violence. A large body of literature suggests that economic sanctions
put a disproportionate and sometimes heavy burden on civilians (Weiss et al. 1997;
Weiss 1999; Cortright et al. 2001; Cortright and Lopez 1995, 2000). Among other
effects, sanctions worsen the poverty level, unemployment, inflation, and effective
functioning of public health and other social services in target state. Because
economic sanctions harm the livelihood of average civilians, the sanctions will likely
create more frustration and grievances in the sanctioned countries among
disadvantaged groups who are outside the support base of the political leadership.
According to the relative deprivation theory (Gurr 1968), the growing frustration
within the society resulting from economic hardship is expected to lead to more
organized violence against the state. Earlier empirical evidence finds that countries
under economic coercion are more likely to experience anti-government violence in
the forms of protest and demonstrations (Allen 2004; Marinov 2005). As economic
sanctions undermine political stability by causing more violence and political
dissent, it is likely that the government will resort to physical force and repression to
maintain the status quo (Peksen 2009). The use of repressive measures by the
government against violent groups will consequently restrict democratic freedoms
further and lead to more human rights violations.
The second unintended effect sanctions have is to solidify the leadership’s hold on
power, thereby enhancing their ability to coerce the populace. Sanctions help the
targeted regime to concentrate coercive power by allowing it to manipulate the
economic hardship caused by the coercion. The target leadership controls (or will
take control of) the supply of resources (often made scarce by the sanctions). It will
divert the cost of sanctions to average citizens and use remaining resources to
maintain political support (Weiss et al. 1997; Gibbons 1999; Peksen 2009).4
Hence,
the targeted elites likely remain unharmed by coercion, as economic sanctions
disproportionately affect average citizens.
Because (1) sanctions restrict the flow of goods and services to the target state and
(2) the leadership can control the flow of remaining resources within the country,
groups that are key supporters of the leadership become more dependent on the
regime for those resources. For example, if the military wants access to food and fuel
(which have been made scarce by the sanctions), it must get them from the
leadership. Thus, the military and regime-supporting groups depend on the regime
even more than before the sanctions were imposed. The growing dependence of
these key groups on the political leadership strengthens the regime’s hold on power
(Rowe 2000; Gibbons 1999; Reuther 1995). Thus, the sanctions unintentionally
boost the allegiance of prominent groups as the target regime grants economic rents
and secured access to scarce resources in return for the group’s loyalty. As a result,
4
Furthermore, political elites also avoid the cost of sanctions by generating revenues and securing the
supplies of scarce resources through illegal smuggling and other underground transnational economic
channels (Andreas 2005; Gibbons 1999).
400 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
the regime’s ability to maintain greater support among key social groups will provide
the target leadership with more authority and power that can be used to oppress
potential anti-regime groups.
To better illustrate this mechanism, we briefly turn to two sanction cases. Under
the crushing UN sanctions against Iraq, Saddam Hussein was not only able to
survive but flourish relative to the population. He was able to do this by diverting
shrinking public resources to his supporters in the government and military (Reuther
1995). While Hussein’s regime used public goods to pay off supporters prior to the
embargo, the sanctions were meant to weaken his hold on power. Instead, it
increased his importance as a supplier of those resources and allowed the Iraqi
regime to consolidate its repressive authority over the society. Similarly, in the case
of Rhodesia, Ian Smith’s government was able to shift political power away from the
tobacco farmers who were directly hurt by the sanctions to industrialists (Rowe
2000). Using the power of the government, Smith was able to create a new winning
coalition so that he could stay in power and enhance the authoritarian regime while
all other groups outside the government’s support base suffered disproportionately
from the coercion and were not even able to resist the Smith government’s repressive
measures. As a result of these two forces (e.g., new incentives to repress and
consolidated power), we argue that the targeted regime is likely to engage in more
repression rather than less. Next, we turn to the empirical evidence that shows the
negative impact sanctions have on democracy and human rights.
Evidence of the Sanction–Repression Link
In the section above, we argued that sanctions create incentives for the target elite to
limit political freedoms and help consolidate the regime’s hold on power. To
empirically test the argument that economic sanctions lead to more political
repression by causing a decrease in the level of respect for democratic freedoms
and human rights, we offer a cross-national, time series empirical examination of the
impact sanctions have on political repression. More specifically, we focus on two
major indicators—the level of respect for physical integrity rights by the government
and the extent of political and civil liberties—to account for the repressiveness of a
polity. “Political repression” can refer to various aspects of violent and non-violent
tools used by political actors to maintain the status quo or eliminate their rivals. The
indicators used in this analysis for democratic freedom and the government respect
for human rights are two of the most commonly used variables to capture the level of
political repressiveness by the government against its citizens (Abouharb and
Cingranelli 2006; Rudra 2005; Gleditsch and Ward 2006).
Repression and Sanction Data
To analyze the effect sanctions have on political repression, the first measure we
deploy is the Freedom House’s Index of Democracy (2004) which is a commonly
used indicator of the level of democracy in a country. The Freedom House Index is
an additive index of political rights and civil liberties on a 13-point scale (2 through
Economic sanctions and political repression 401
14) where higher values indicate better democracy.5
In the measurement of the
variable, four major aspects of civil liberties are considered, including: freedom of
expression and belief, associational and organization rights, rule of law and personal
autonomy, and individual rights. Political rights incorporate such political freedoms
as the fairness of electoral processes, extent of political pluralism and participation,
and the freedom of elected officials to have a decisive vote on public policies.
The second measure we use to tap political repression is the Physical Integrity
Rights Index (CIRI Index) which is a widely used measure to account for the level of
governmental respect for human rights. The CIRI Index is a nine-point scale that
ranges from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 8—where 0 indicates no respect for
physical integrity rights and 8 indicates full respect for those rights (Cingranelli and
Richards 2004). This measure is composed of four different rights, including:
extrajudicial killings, disappearances, political imprisonment, and torture.6
The data
for this variable was originally gathered from the country reports of human rights
abuses prepared by the US Department of State and Amnesty International.
In our analysis using the Hufbauer et al. (2008) sanction dataset, we first examine
the impact of economic sanctions on political repression in general. Hence, our
“economic sanctions” variable is a dummy variable that takes the value of 1 if a
country is facing any type of sanction and 0 otherwise. This variable allows us to
investigate whether economic sanctions in general lead to any corrosive impact on
democratic freedom and human rights.
We also examine whether the sanctions aimed at promoting democracy and/or
human rights cause any differential impact on political repression than sanctions
aiming at other policy goals. More specifically, the “democracy sanctions” variable
accounts for sanction episodes in which the primary goal of sanctioning countries is
at least one of the following: to prevent the use of repressive measures by target
regimes against opposition groups, to encourage better functioning of democratic
procedures such as the conduct of free and fair elections and functioning of political
parties and other grassroots organizations, and to restore failed democracies or
discourage military intervention in domestic politics. Our “non-democracy sanctions”
variable accounts for all other sanction episodes imposed with policy goals other
than democracy and human rights promotion. Both of these dummy variables take
the value of 1 if a country is under democracy or non-democracy sanctions in a
given year and 0 otherwise.
The purpose of looking at sanctions based on their initial goals (i.e., human rights/
democracy sanctions versus sanctions with other policy goals) is twofold. First, it
allows us to examine whether sanctioning for democracy, which specifically aims at
promoting democratic freedoms, achieves its intended goal or further deteriorates
political liberties. Second, according to the theoretical framework previously
5
In the original dataset, the 13-point scale ranges from 1 to 7, where lower values indicate more
democratic freedom. In this analysis, we recoded the index so that higher values indicate a higher level of
civil and political liberties.
6
The definition of these four rights is available at the CIRI web site (Cingranelli and Richards 2004).
Each of the four physical integrity variables is originally coded as an ordinal variable on a three-point
scale with frequent violations (50 or more incidences), some violations (one through 49), and no
violations.
402 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
discussed, democracy sanctions might be more harmful than sanctions with other
policy goals. Specifically, foreign pressure for political reforms (i.e., democratization)
appears to be the type of coercion that should create more incentives for the
regime to commit repression since demands for such reforms might be seen as a
strong external support for the opposition that might increase the viability of political
opposition.
For each of the dependent variables (Freedom House Index and CIRI Index), we
assess the length of the sanction episode (the period during which the sanctions were
in effect) by aggregating all sanctions cases from 1972 to 2000. Sanction episodes
vary considerably in length, from less than 1 year to over 50 years; however, the
median for sanction duration is 7 years and the mean is 10 years. To better capture
the average impact of sanctions, we only assess the first 10 years of each episode. By
limiting the number of years that we assess the sanction’s impact on political
repression, we make sure that the few extremely long sanction episodes are not
driving the results.7
Further, the economic impact caused by a sanction typically
occurs in the first few years since the negative impact of sanctions will be felt more
during the early years of sanctions and become less significant as target countries
find ways to adjust their economy to eliminate the cost of sanctions overtime. Thus,
we argue that the negative effects will occur most in the first 10 years of sanctions.
In addition to those first 10 years of sanctions, we also assess the 5 years prior to the
sanction episode. This allows us to test whether sanctions are being driven by the
political repression. That is, we need to assess that sanctions are not a reaction to
new policies of repression or a backsliding of democratic reforms. If that was the
case, we would expect the increase in political repression to occur before the
sanctions rather than after them.
Empirical Evidence
We begin our analysis with a simple means difference assessment of Freedom House
Index and the CIRI Index under each of the different types of sanctions (i.e.,
democracy sanctions, non-democracy sanctions, and all sanctions) compared to
countries not under sanctions. Table 1 displays the average impact of sanctions on
7
Thus, only a few extreme cases, such as North Korea and Cuba, are excluded from our analysis.
Table 1 Mean Freedom House democracy scores for sanctioned and non-sanctioned states (1972–2000)
Sanctioned state Non-sanctioned state
All sanction types 5.14 8.12
Democracy sanctions 4.97 8.12
Non-democracy sanctions 5.3 8.12
Reported numbers are the average democracy scores for sanctioned and non-sanctioned states for the
1972–2000 period. Dependent variable: Freedom House Index of democracy (two through fourteen) with
higher scores for better democracy
Economic sanctions and political repression 403
the Freedom House Index, and Table 2 displays the effect on the CIRI Index.8
According to the means difference test, the differences between countries being
sanctioned and those not being sanctioned is statistically significant at the 0.05 level.
At a minimum, the data support the idea that economic coercion does not promote
democracy or human rights. The differences between those states under sanction and
those not are rather striking. For the Freedom House score, considering all sanctions
for the entire time of their imposition, there is a 58% difference in average
democracy score between those countries under sanctions and those that are not
(5.14 versus 8.12). The mean difference is even more striking for the CIRI Index:
there is a 118% difference in the level of respect for human rights between those
countries sanctioned and those that are not sanctioned (2.41 versus 5.26). We do not,
however, observe a significant difference between democracy and non-democracy
sanctions for the mean levels of Freedom House and CIRI variables. That is,
according to the results in Tables 1 and 2, countries facing democracy sanctions do
not have a much lower human rights or democracy scores than those facing
sanctions with policy goals other than democracy and human rights promotion.
While these results are illustrative, they do not show the impact of sanctions over
time.
Beginning with Figs. 1 and 2, we show the average impact of economic sanctions
over the 5 years preceding and 10 years following a sanction. The results for both
the Freedom House Index and the CIRI Index are clear—sanctions lead to a
significant drop in democratic freedoms. Put another way, leaders of the targeted
countries begin to increase the level of political repression following the imposition
of a sanction, and they continue to repress well into the duration of the sanction.9
This negative effect is similarly pronounced with sanctions aimed specifically at
promoting democracy. Figures 3 and 4 display the effect of economic coercion
aimed at promoting democratic reforms in the target. The decline in democracy and
human rights is not trivial. After 10 years of sanctions, there is decrease in
democracy greater than 30%. In the case of human rights, the decline is closer to
70%. These sanctions aimed at promoting freedom from political repression actually
8
Note that the tables are based on the entire length of the sanctions rather than the 15 years we use in the
graphical analysis. The results do not change if we limit the data to 15 years.
Table 2 Mean physical integrity rights (CIRI index) scores for sanctioned and non-sanctioned countries
(1972–2000)
Sanctioned state Non-sanctioned state
All sanction types 2.41 5.26
Democracy sanctions 2.35 5.26
Non-democracy sanctions 2.46 5.26
Reported numbers are the average human rights scores for sanctioned and non-sanctioned states for the
1972–2000 period. Dependent variable: CIRI Index (0 through 8) with higher scores for better human
rights conditions
9
According to a means difference test, the increasing political repression is statistically significant.
404 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
lead to greater levels of repression. Finally, Figs. 5 and 6 show that even when
considering sanctions that are not associated with democracy and human rights, there
is still a very strong negative effect of those fundamental political freedoms. The
impacts are not quite as strong but very similar in magnitude to the democracy
promotion sanctions and all sanctions.
It is worth noting that to varying degrees, both democracy and human rights begin
to decline prior to the onset of the sanctions. While this could be an indication that
the sanctions are simply following or indicating a backsliding or new repressive
effort in the targeted state, there is reason to support our argument that the sanctions
are part of the cause in deteriorating rights. First, sanctions are rarely initiated
without notice. Normally, the sanctioning state threatens the target in hopes that the
threat of sanctions alone will procure a change in the target. Thus, the targeted state
knows that the sanctions are likely to be imposed and may begin repressing its
population in advance. If the leadership in the target fears that the sanctions may
encourage opposition groups, they will want to begin countering that encouragement
22.533.54
PhysicalIntegrityRightsIndex
-5 0 5 10
Sanction Duration
Fig. 2 Sanctions and human rights
4.555.566.5
FreedomHouseDemocracyIndex
-5 0 5 10
Sanction Duration
Fig. 1 Sanctions and democracy
Economic sanctions and political repression 405
as early as possible. Thus, the effect (repression) actually precedes the cost
(sanction) because the target anticipates the sanctions.
Second, Figs. 5 and 6 are based on sanctions that were not aimed at securing
better human rights or democracy. The reason for their imposition against the target
has nothing to do with the target regime’s use of repression. As the figures show,
however, there is still a strong negative effect following the sanctions. This
relationship (nearly identical to the democracy promotion sanctions) suggests that
the sanctions themselves are causing, or at a minimum partially causing, the rather
dramatic increase in political repression.
What Have We Learnt? Where Do We Go From Here?
In this article, we argued that economic coercion will inadvertently increase the
repressiveness of the target regime by (1) consolidating the power of the political
leadership and (2) creating more incentives for the target leaders to employ
22.533.54
PhysicalIntegrityRightsIndex
-5 0 5 10
Democracy Sanction Duration
Fig. 4 Democracy sanctions and human rights
44.555.566.5
FreedomHouseDemocracyIndex
-5 0 5 10
Democracy Sanction Duration
Fig. 3 Democracy sanctions and democracy
406 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
repression against civilians. The data analysis supports our argument that countries
under economic sanctions will likely have less respect for human rights and
democratic freedoms. Therefore, we conclude that economic coercion (even when
aimed at promoting political liberalization and respect for human rights) is a
counterproductive policy tool that deteriorates the level of political freedoms in
sanctioned countries.
Offering a comprehensive examination of the corrosive impact sanctions have on
human rights and political freedoms, this analysis contributes to the research on the
consequences of sanctions. Despite the frequent use of sanctions for the promotion
of human rights and democracy, very little research has addressed the impact of
economic coercion on political liberties and human rights. This research also
contributes to the literature on international democracy and human rights promotion.
Although previous studies addressed the significance of several international factors
(e.g., economic globalization, interstate conflicts, and foreign aid) in promoting
democracy and human rights, no study within this literature has offered an
investigation of the political effects of sanctions.
22.533.54
PhysicalIntegrityRightsIndex
-5 0 5 10
Non-Democracy Sanction Duration
Fig. 6 Non-democracy sanctions and human rights
55.566.57
FreedomHouseDemocracyIndex
-5 0 5 10
Non-Democracy Sanction Duration
Fig. 5 Non-democracy sanctions and democracy
Economic sanctions and political repression 407
The findings of this study offer some guidance to policy makers about the
political impact of sanctions in target countries by theoretically and empirically
demonstrating that economic coercion leads to greater political repression. First,
these findings suggest that economic sanctions appear to hurt anti-regime groups,
which are the very groups that sanctions are often supposed to help, while causing
no major disruption on the coercive capacity of the target leadership. A good
illustration of this argument could be the US sanctions against Cuba. Despite the
long history of extensive sanctions against Cuba, Fidel Castro’s ability to survive
sanctions and maintain his authoritarian rule for almost 50 years shows that the
political leadership (the major target of sanctions) will unlikely be harmed from the
coercion. Individual countries and intergovernmental organizations imposing
sanctions should be aware of the delicate balance between using economic coercion
to induce targets to change a policy and the possible unintended damage on political
freedoms. Simply put, this research points out the possibility that applying economic
pressure to the target will help the regime maintain its repressive capacity and offer
incentives to use that capacity against their society. Consequently, due to the
collateral damage to political freedoms, policy makers should consider the negative
externalities caused by economic coercion in the overall assessment of the efficacy
of economic statecraft.
To undermine the civilian pain and improve the effectiveness of sanctions, sender
countries should seek ways to put the pressure directly on the political elites who are
in charge of the wrongdoings. The majority of economic sanctions, so far, have been
a blunt economic instrument that hits the whole target economy without any or very
few discriminatory measures to lessen the negative impact on civilians. Sanctions in
the forms of financial asset freezes, reduction or suspension of military arms sales,
and aid and travel bans on country officials could be a way to target the political
leadership. The significance of these targeted sanctions is that the political leadership
is more likely to suffer from them since they are specifically aimed at the elites.
Furthermore, these sanctions might cause less damage to civilians, lessening the
negative impact on the regular functioning of domestic economies. Subsequently, as
political elites face the cost of coercion more immediately through targeted
sanctions, they should be more conciliatory towards the sender country’s demands
for more respect for democratic freedoms and human rights.
Another way of improving the effectiveness of sanctions on the targeted
leadership would be to search for possible ways to improve the effectiveness of
sanctions by undermining sanction busting. As discussed above, it is often the case
that the targeted leadership continues to have access to the resources made scarce by
sanctions through transnational underground actors and black market channels using
neighboring countries (Andreas 2005). Sender countries should find ways to obtain
cooperation from third-party countries by offering them incentives (for example
foreign aid and loans) in return for their cooperation to undermine the ties between
third-party countries and the target regimes. Thus, the target leadership will only feel
the pressure of economic coercion if the sanctioning effectively cuts off the target’s
access to economic and other essential resources.
Policy makers have long overlooked the possible negative reaction of the
authoritarian states in response to sanctions aimed at promoting human rights and
democracy. Specifically, sanctioning countries should note that the symbolic nature
408 D. Peksen, A.C. Drury
of sanctioning for democracy and human rights promotion is perceived by the
targeted political elites as a serious threat to their survival. Our findings also imply
that the use of coercion to induce other democratic reforms, such as respect for
religious and ethnic rights of minority groups, might also become counterproductive
and eventually detrimental to those groups seeking more rights and freedoms against
the status quo regime.
Future research could also offer a comparative assessment of whether engagement
strategies, that is, foreign aid and provisional economic loans, work more often and
cause less damage on civilians than economic coercion. It is likely that engagement
policies might be more successful in the promotion of political freedoms and human
rights. Instead of disproportionately hurting social groups and straining the relations
between the sender and the target country, foreign aid and loans may create
incentives for the target leaders to take affirmative steps toward the advancement of
political freedoms in their countries (Drury and Li 2006). Future research could
assess the conditions under which engagement or incentives promote human rights
and democracy.
In addition to a comparative assessment of engagement and punishment tools,
future research should also investigate whether economic sanctions become more or
less deleterious for human rights when used prior to or simultaneously with the other
external tools such as foreign aid and economic loans. It seems likely that a mixed
strategy—the carrot and stick of diplomatic tools—could be a more successful
policy-making strategy than coercive diplomacy (George 1991). Specifically, if
sanctioning countries fail to offer some incentives in return for cooperation, it is
unlikely that the target political leadership will concede to foreign demands.
Therefore, instead of relying only on punishment or engagement policy tools, a
combination of immediate sanctions and future foreign aid might result in better
outcomes for sender states. Detailed research on sanction cases where sender
countries also offer incentives could be a starting point to understand the role that
economic coercion combined with the other policy tools play in ending political
violence and repression by repressive states.
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