1
Questions
Economic sanctions have been used as an instrument of foreign policy since ancient
Greece. In the interwar period, the League of Nations relied on sanctions in order to
enforce their agreements. Since the 1950s, the danger of nuclear weapon and growing
economic interdependence have highlighted the relative e¤ectiveness of sanctions. Of
the 170 post-World War I cases in the Institute of International Economics database, 50
were initiated in the 1990s (Baldwin 1999). Figure 1 shows this rising use of sanctions
as a foreign policy measure.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Year
N
um
ber
of
S
anct
i
on
s
Figure 1: Increasing Use of Economic Sanctions (Source: Hufbauer and Elliott (1999)
and Institute of International Economics)
A central anomaly in debates about sanctions is the discrepancy between the in-
creasing use of sanctions and the increasing pessimism regarding their e¤ectiveness.
Until recently, sanctions researchers have fundamentally disagreed about the de…ni-
tion, scope, and e¤ectiveness of sanctions. In particular, there are wide variations in
the assessments of sanctions (Baldwin 1985, 1999, Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott 1990,
Pape 1997, Morgan and Schwebach 1997). Table 1 indicates that one fourth of total
sanctions cases until 1990 are considered complete failures.
1
A complete failure indi-
1
The data includes 115 cases. 5 cases are counted twice, since the foreign policy goals of those
sanctions are di¢ cult to de…ne in one category. Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott (1990) calculated success
score of 115 cases (=policy result sanctions contribution), coding from 1 to 16. Complete failure cases
are coded as 1 (= 1
1
).
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Convention