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Evaluating Economic Sanctions
- International Security
- The MIT Press
- Volume 23, Number 2, Fall 1998
- pp. 189-198
- Article
- Additional Information
Evaluating Economic Sanctions David A. Baldwin To the Editors: Do economic sanctions ”work”? Although the traditional answer to this question has been negative, Robert A. Pape contends that the past decade has witnessed “increased optimism about the utility of economic sanctions” by international relations scholars.’ In questioning this alleged optimism, he raises issues concerning the concept of economic sanctions, the standards by which their success should be judged, the causal logic of ”the theory of economic sanctions,” and reassessment of the most often used economic sanctions database.2These topics will be discussed in turn. Defining Economic Sanctions If the goal is to produce policy-relevant knowledge, it is useful to conceive of economic sanctions as instruments of statecraft. This implies that they are part of a larger set of policy instruments available to foreign policymakers, presumably including diplomacy, propaganda, and military statecraft. Policymaking consists of choosing among various instruments; therefore it is useful to conceptualize policy instruments in ways that facilitate comparisons among them. Rather than treating economic sanctions as tools of statecraft, Pape defines them in terms of a particular strategy for using such tools (pp. 93-98). He then proceeds to differentiate this strategy (i.e., economic sanctions) from two other strategies for using economic instruments of statecraft-trade wars and economic warfare-in terms of the differing goals of each strategy. From this perspective, economic sanctions, trade wars, and economic warfare are not alternative policy options to be considered with respect to a particular set of foreign policy goals. Each is defined in terms of a different set of goals. Definitional ties between particular policy instruments and particular goals do not facilitatethe comparative evaluation of the utility of policy instruments with respect to a given set of goals. In offering his definition of economic sanctions, Pape creatively interprets my position in the following passage: ”Recently, however, Baldwin has argued that the concept David A. Baldwin is Ira D. Wallach Professor of World Order Studies at the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Robert A. Pape is Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. 1. Robert A. Pape, ”Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Fall 19971, p. 91. Further references are noted with page numbers in the text. 2. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, JeffreyJ. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered , 2d rev. ed., 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990). International Security, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Fall 1998), pp. 189-198 0 1998by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 289 International Security 23.2 1 190 of economic sanctions should be broadened to encompass all aspects of ’economic statecraft’ including not only economic coercion for political purposes (the traditional understanding of sanctions), but also coercion for economic goals (trade disputes) as well as goals other than changing the target state’s behavior, such as engaging in economic warfare, rallying domestic political support, demonstrating resolve to thirdparty audiences, or simply inflictingpunishment” (p.95).I have never argued in favor of broadening the concept of economicsanctions to encompassall aspects of economic statecraft. I have argued that the concept of economic statecraft is preferable to such concepts as economic coercion, economic warfare, economic leverage, and economic sanctions-partially on the grounds that such concepts usually fail to maintain a clear distinction between ends and means3 I have noted that one of the common meanings of ”economicsanctions” corresponds with the concept of economic statecraft and have sometimesused the terms interchangeably.Although the conceptof economicstatecraft, as I use it, allows for a wide range of possible goals, all of these involve attempts to change the target state’s behavior. Attempts to weaken another state’seconomicpotential in order to weaken it militarily (Pape’s ”economicwarfare”),demonstratingresolve, and inflicting punishment are included in my conception of economic statecraft only to the extent that they are potentially relevant to changing the behavior of the target state(^).^ This “behavior” is defined broadly to include beliefs, attitudes, opinions, expectations, emotions, and/or predispositionsto act5And although I would not deny that economic sanctions are sometimesused for ”rallying domestic political support,” I have excluded such domestic considerationsfrom my analysesof economicstatecraft...