Susan Hannah Allen

The Domestic Political Costs of Economic Sanctions

While a great deal of attention has been to paid to whether or not economic sanctions work, less energy has been devoted to exploring the causal mechanisms that lead to the success or failure of sanctions policies. Often, it is assumed that the population is one important source of political costs for targeted leaders, but this assumption has not been tested. Are sanctions related to an increase in antigovernment activity? How does the domestic political system of the targeted state affect the likelihood of this antigovernment behavior? The findings presented here suggest that sanctions may increase antigovernment activity, but that increase is mitigated by the domestic political structures of the target state. In autocratic targets, political violence is less likely to occur when sanctions are in place. For sanctions against autocratic states to be costly, it appears that the political costs needed to alter behavior must be generated internationally rather than domestically.

Economic sanctions A blunt instrument

Economic sanctions have been referred to as a blunt instrument that the international community has often wielded without full consideration of the impact that these measures will have on the population of the targeted countries, particularly the weakest elements of society. Case studies of sanctions against Cuba, Iraq, and Yugoslavia have demonstrated the impact that sanctions can have on the availability of food, clean water, and medicine, causing many to conclude that all sanctions have extensive public health consequences. In this article, we examine the generalizability of these conclusions in a quantitative cross-national study of sanctions and their public health effects. Additionally, we compare these effects to those associated with both civil and interstate conflicts as critics have recently suggested that sanctions are not a humane alternative to armed warfare. We find that when sanctions have a large economic effect on the target they can have severe public health consequences. These consequences are substantively similar to those associated with major military conflicts. However, when sanctions have little or no economic effect on the target, they also have no substantive effect on public health. Building on recent work to explore the human consequences of war, this work also helps to demonstrate the importance of smart sanctions and humanitarian exemptions in sanctions policy.

Understanding the impact of air power

With a lower risk of casualties and a high degree of precision, air power is an attractive foreign policy tool to powerful states that have increasingly relied upon it in recent years. This paper presents newly collected data on uses and effectiveness of air power in interstate wars from 1914 to 2003. The dataset provides more complete and comparable cases that can be useful in answering questions of not only the coercive effectiveness of air power, but also of the decision to use air power in conflict, of ethical concerns arising from the use of air power, and of the interaction of air power with other military and foreign policy tools. In addition to introducing the dataset and discussing trends in the data, a preliminary empirical application is provided, re-examining the relationship between strategy and air power effectiveness.

Repressing for reputation: Leadership transitions, uncertainty, and the repression of domestic populations

When do leaders use repression? Leadership transitions disrupt the relationship between regime and citizens, introducing uncertainty about whether the state will use force to put down dissent. This shock to the equilibrium level of repression and dissent threatens the survival of new leaders by inviting challenges, incentivizing them to build a deterrent reputation. Investing in repression early allows a rapid re-equilibration, leading to a decrease in the probability of increased repression as a leader gains experience in office. Some leaders, therefore, have a reason to put down dissent early in their tenure to clearly establish a reputation for toughness, one that exists distinct from that of the state or the regime. These dynamics surface only for leaders that break with the prior regime. Those closely linked to the existing order can draw upon an established reputation and need not develop their own. Statistical analyses of changes in repression intensity from 1990 to 2005 reveal strong support for the argument. Breaks with the prior regime produce a short-term increase in repression, but leaders who come to power via such transitions become less likely to change the level of coercion the longer they remain in office. Leaders tied directly to the prior administration exhibit neither tendency.