go it alone the effect of international institutions on economic sanction regimes
TRANSCRIPT
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GO IT ALONE?
THE EFFECT OF INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ON
ECONOMIC SANCTION REGIMESA thesis
submitted to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
at Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Master of Public Policy
in the Georgetown Public Policy Institute
ByJacqueline Roth Geis, M.P.P.
Washington, D.C.April 14, 2007
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my thanks to my advisor, Robert Bednarzik, and my GPPI
colleagues who have provided me with invaluable support and guidance throughout this
process.
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INTRODUCTION
The relevance and utility of international organizations is cyclically, if not
continually, called into question in the United States. Recent discussions on international
organizations -- including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International
Monetary Fund -- have centered on issues of reform, corruption, and effectiveness
(Helms, 1996; Keohane, 1998). In these discussions on reform, particular attention has
been paid to the weaknesses and defects of international organizations; little attention,
however, has been paid to the added value and strengths of these organizations.
The United States and other nations continue to seek the approval of international
organizations despite reservations about the effectiveness and necessity of their role in
the international system. As a look to the recent crises in Iran and North Korea suggests,
international organizations have a prominent role in enforcing international norms and
standards. One of the methods of enforcement employed by these organizations is
sanctioning.1
Despite the general ambivalence surrounding the effectiveness of economic
sanctions, their use and the threat of their use continue to be part of the international
policy repertory. In fact, for the United Nations and other international institutions,
sanctions are among the strongest possible enforcement measures. Sanctions, however,
continue to be imposed not only by these institutions, but also by individual states or
coalitions of states.
1 In this paper, the word sanction and its derivatives will mean economic sanction unless otherwise stated.
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This paper will look at the use of economic sanctions in international affairs and
analyze whether sanctions implemented with the strong backing and commitment of
international organizations are more effective than sanctions imposed either unilaterally
by a national government or multilaterally by an informal coalition of national
governments. In addition, this paper will determine whether certain types of international
organizations are more effective sanctioners. Both the threat and the imposition of
sanctions will be included in the analysis.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
International Organizations
The struggle between state sovereignty and the developing international
governance system is ongoing. It is important to note that international organizations
have few, if any, independent powers. Unlike national governments, they do not have
treasuries or standing militaries. International organizations are dependent on member
states to provide them with financial, human, and military resources to accomplish tasks
set before them. Their ability to secure these resources depends heavily on two
interdependent factors: effectiveness and legitimacy.
International organizations serve, among other functions, a convening function.
They provide structured opportunities for their members to discuss events and goals.
Given that these organizations often have charters or mandates that provide moral
authority, they are more likely to be seen as working in the interest of the global order or
good rather than national self-interest. States seek this moral authority when they request
that international organizations take action when they have reason to believe that another
member state is disrupting this order. Even when states are determined to act on their
own against renegade states, they often seek approval from international organizations in
order to validate their claims and their actions in other words, to supply legitimacy to
their causes.
Keohane (1998) argues that institutions whose members have shared values tend
to be more effective. The nature of the institutional mandate is also a determining factor
in its perceived effectiveness. Less controversial mandates, such as setting measurement
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standards, tend to be more effective than mandates whose definitions are not well defined
and touch at controversial or central value, such as human rights. Effective organizations
with wide-reaching, controversial mandates are rare.
Economic Sanctions
Economic sanctions are most often defined as restrictions or limitations on
intergovernmental trade intended to alter the political behavior of a given state. They are
economic measures directed to political objectives and can be imposed by a single state
or a group of states (Barber, 1979). The effectiveness and effects of sanctions have been
the subject of extensive scholarly literature. The verdict has been almost uniformly
negative. Sanctions were determined to be ineffective and, moreover, often had effects
that were detrimental not to the sanction target, but to the general population of the
sanctioned country. For example, the Organization of American States (OAS) and UN
sanctions against Haiti from 1991 to 1994 were characterized by a large majority of
countries as porous and ineffective; with respect to putting pressure on the Haitian
government; however, these sanctions did have a negative economic impact on the
country, particularly the rural poor (Gibbons and Garfield, 1999).
The idea, and eventual use, of smart sanctions was developed in response to
episodes such as the 1991-1994 Haiti sanctions. Smart sanctions seek to maximize the
economic degradation of the regime being targeted by the sanctions while minimizing the
amount of suffering that the sanctions impose on the countrys population (Cortright and
Lopez, 2002). In essence, these sanctions try to hit the intended target through methods
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such as freezing financial assets, arms embargoes, and restrictions on commercial trade.
The sanctions recently implemented by the UN Security Council against North Korea and
those implemented by the US against Taliban financial assets are examples of smart
sanction activity. While this amended form of sanction addresses one of the concerns
raised unintended suffering of the countrys population, Drezner argues that smart
sanctions are not any more effective than those previously implemented (Drezner, 2003).
The question remains the same. If sanctions are ineffective, why do policymakers
continue to use them? Recent literature claims that the perceived ineffectiveness of
sanctions that scholars have quantifiably found to be the case may be the partially caused
by selection bias. That is, studies conducted prior to the late 1990s only included data
from events where the sanctions had been implemented. T. Clifton Morgan (2003) has
argued that these data must be augmented with data from events where sanctions were
threatened, but not actually imposed. He argues that the exclusion of the data from
threatened sanction events introduces bias into the results. In other words, implemented
sanctions and threatened sanctions may have different impacts.
Multilateral vs. Unilateral Sanctions
Within the discussion about the forms that sanctions should take, there has also
been debate about whether multilateral or unilateral sanctions are more effective.
Unilateral action does provide the sanctioning state (or sender) with the ability to
sanction a target state (or target) quickly and to deploy the type and breadth of sanctions
that the state considers appropriate given the targets actions. Working unilaterally,
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however, also subjects the sender to all of the costs, both economically and politically, of
taking action against the target (Mansfield, 1995; Drezner, 2000). Furthermore, very few
states have economies large enough to impose effective sanctions regimes against their
targets (Drezner, 2000).
Even for states that can impose effective sanctions regimes unilaterally, however,
there are benefits of seeking multilateral action, including the sharing of both economic
and political costs. The economic cost burden is spread across the governments and
citizens of sender countries, which limits the impact of the sanction on the populations of
the sanctioning countries. Moreover, the larger the multilateral coalition, the greater the
economic cost to the target. The political cost burden is also shared, creating greater
legitimacy and moral authority for the effort and thereby protecting senders from
removing sanctions due to domestic political pressures (Mansfield, 1995; Drezner, 2000;
Thompson 2006). There is a greater economic cost to the target the larger the multilateral
coalition.
While there are benefits, there are also costs to multilateral sanctions. Drezner
breaks the costs down into three categories: bargaining between the sender and the target,
bargaining between the initial (or primary) sender and subsequent senders, and
enforcement. He argues that sender often seeks multilateral support for the most
sensitive cases: when the stakes are high and there is a real possibility of long-term
deadlock. In other words, multilateral action is often sought when unilateral action is not
an option. Bargaining between potential senders in the international arena also tends to
imply costs to the initial sender since the sender often has to compromise or offer
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concessions in order to gain consensus. As the number of senders increases, enforcement
also becomes more difficult. An increase in the number of senders leads to an increase in
the number of possible defectors (Drezner, 2000; Thompson 2006).
Even though policymakers continue to push for coalitions, the early quantitative
evidence in the literature has shown that the benefits of multilateral action are not worth
the costs. There has been substantial evidence that unilateral action is more effective
than multilateral (Martin, 1993). At the beginning of the decade, however, other scholars
began to look at the role of international organizations in multilateral sanctions efforts
and making distinctions between ad hoc multilateral sanctions regimes and those
structured under an international organization. Using this distinction, Drezner (2000)
shows (1) that multilateral sanctions with an international organization as the sender are
more likely to be effective than unilateral sanctions and (2) that multilateral sanctions
without an international organization as the sender are less likely to be effective than
unilateral sanctions. Mansfield (1995) argues that international institutions each have
distinct characters and that some may implement more effective sanctions than others.
There is a gap in the literature between Mansfields assertion and Drezners
results that this paper seeks to address. There are various types of international
organizations that implement sanctions regimes and the effectiveness of these
organizations has not been studied. Furthermore, neither Drezner nor Mansfield included
the effectiveness of the threat of sanctions into their analysis. This paper will seek to
expand upon Drezners results of the importance of international organizations in light of
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the new data and to test Mansfields assertion that distinguishing between international
organizations is important.
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HYPOTHESIS, DATA SOURCE, & METHODOLOGY
This paper will examine whether sanctions threatened or implemented with the
strong backing and commitment of international organizations are more effective than
sanctions threatened or imposed either unilaterally by a national government or
multilaterally by an informal coalition of national governments. It will further analyze
whether certain types of international organizations are more effective in threatening or
implementing sanctions.
Five hypotheses will be tested:
H1: Unilateral sanctions are more effective than multilateral
sanctions.
H2: Multilateral sanctions with international organization (IO)
involvement are more effective than unilateral sanctions and
multilateral sanctions without IO involvement.
H3: Sanctions with the backing of a regional IO are more effective
than those with the support of a global IO.
H4: Sanctions with the support of a UN agency are more effective
than sanctions with the support of another IO.
H5: Economic international organizations implement more effective
sanctions and sanction threats than political international
organizations.
The same dependent variable (FINALOUTCOME) will be used in each of the
hypothesis test. It is defined as the success of the sanction case. The dependent variable
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will be constructed by synthesizing the 10 possible final outcomes in the TIES database
into four categories: (1) successful, (2) partially successful, (3) stalemate, and (4)
unsuccessful. Regime success is defined by total acquiescence by the target or successful
negotiations in either the threat or imposition stage. Partial success is when the target
only agrees to some of the senders demands. A stalemate is when the sanction regime
has not been lifted but neither side wants to back down. Failure, or an unsuccessful
sanction regime, is defined as the removal of sanctions without gaining any concessions
from the target. This categorization will allow for greater comparison across sanction
cases.
While it is usual when the dependent variable is an ordered measure of
effectiveness (successful, partially successful, stalemate, and unsuccessful) to use an
ordered probit regression model, in this instance running both the ordered probit model
and the OLS regression model showed similar results. For ease of interpretation, the
OLS results are used. The ordered probit results are appended in Appendix I. The model
is based on completed studies by Drury (1998), Drezner (2000) and Whang (2006) and
seeks to determine the success of sanction regimes. Data from the Threat and
Implementation of Sanctions (TIES) database will be used in this study. The TIES
database was released by Morgan, Krustev, and Bapat in October 2006. The database
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EXHIBIT 1: VARIABLE DEFINITIONS AND SOURCES
Variable Name Definition Source
Final outcome
The outcome of the sanction event:
1 = successful2 = partially successful
3 = stalemate
4= unsuccessful
Threat and
Implementation ofSanctions (TIES)
Database
Target cost
The anticipated costs to the target; higher
costs to the target would increase the
incentive to acquiesce; variable =1 when
costs are moderate or high; =0 if costs arelow
TIES
Sender cost
The anticipated costs to the sender;
variable =1 when costs are moderate or
high; =0 if costs are low
TIES
Issue
If the issue at hand is of large consequence,
political regime change for instance, then
this variable = 1; variable = 0 if the issue is
limited in scope.
TIES
ThreatIf the sanction event was resolved in the
threat stage (no sanctions implemented) =1TIES
USAWhether the USA is the sender; variable
=1 when USA is senderTIES
VARIABLES OF INTEREST
Regional IO If regional IOs are involved, variable =1 TIES
Global IO If global IOs are involved, variable =1 TIES
MultiIf multiple countries are involved, but nointernational organizations, variable =1
TIES
UnilateralIf only one country and no international
organizations are involved, variable =1TIES
UN
Whether a UN organization was involved
in the sanction event; constructed dummyvariable; UN involvement = 1
TIES
Political IOIf an IO serves a mainly political function,i.e. UN or Arab League involvement = 1
TIES
Economic IOIf an IO serve a mainly economic function,
i.e. WTO or OPEC involvement, =1TIES
includes 888 sanction cases from 1971 to 2000. A sanction case is defined as a single
sanction episode or a merged group of sanction episodes, regardless of whether the
episode ended with a sanction threat or implementation. Sanction cases form the base
unit of the data (Morgan et al, 2006).
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Key factors in sanction regimes as determine by previous studies and theory are
presented in Exhibit 1. The expected effects of each variable are summarized in Exhibit
2. The model is presented in Exhibit 3.
EXHIBIT 2: HYPOTHESIZED EFFECTS AND BACKGROUND OF SANCTION VARIABLES
Variable Name Description Prediction Rationale
X1 Target cost Dummy PositiveDrury (1998), Drezner
(2000)
X2 Sender cost Dummy NegativeDrury (1998), Drezner
(2000)
X3 Issue Dummy NegativeDrury (1998), Drezner(2000); Whang (2006)
X4 USA Dummy PositiveDrury (1998), Drezner
(2000)
X5 Threat Dummy PositiveDrury (1998), Drezner
(2000)
X6 Regional IO Dummy PositiveVariable of interest,Mansfield (1995)
X7 Global IO Dummy PositiveVariable of interest,
Mansfield (1995)
X8 Multi Dummy NegativeVariable of interest,Mansfield (1995)
X9 Unilateral Dummy NegativeVariable of interest,
Mansfield (1995)
X10 UN Dummy Positive
Variable of interest,
Mansfield (1995)
X11 Political IO Dummy NegativeVariable of interest,
Mansfield (1995)
X12 Economic IO Dummy PositiveVariable of interest,
Mansfield (1995)
EXHIBIT 3: MAIN REGRESSION MODEL
OUTCOME= 1Targetcost + 2Sendercost + 3Issue + 4Threat +5U SA + 6RegionalIO+ 7GlobalIO +8Multi
The TARGETCOSTvariable serves as a proxy for the strength of the proposed or
implemented sanction. As the strength of the sanction increases, the costs to the target
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are also likely to increase. Increased target costs will most likely increase the likelihood
of the sanctions success.
SENDERCOSTis a proxy variable to determine the level of commitment of the
sender. Its effect on sanctions success could be either positive or negative. Senders
willing to incur high costs to sanction targets are more likely to have strong resolve to
solve the conflict successfully, increasing the likelihood of sanction success. On the
other hand, increased costs could raise political pressures to end the conflict sooner,
potentially decreasing the likelihood of sanction success.
TheISSUEvariable is predicted to have a negative effect on sanction success.
The larger or more complex the issue or set of issues that the senders have with the target,
the more difficult it is for the target to agree to the demands or to negotiate with the
senders (Whang, 2006). These larger, more complex issues, such as regime change, are
often not in the best interests of the targeted states current rulers and, therefore, they
have decreased incentives to back down from their current policies. As such, seminal
issues, like regime change, lead to the decreased effectiveness of sanctions.
The THREATvariable illustrates the effectiveness of sanction threats as opposed
to sanction implementation. Threats provide warnings and that conflicts resolved in the
threat stage show the initiative of both the sender and target to come to a solution prior to
sanction implementation. It is predicted that threatening sanctions increases the
likelihood of that sanction regimes success.
The USA variable is included in the regressions where unilateral sanctions (UNI)
are the reference regime category. Earlier studies separated out the effect of unilateral
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United States sanctions to isolate the effect that being a superpower has on sanctions
success. The United States, as a hegemonic power, may have sway over targets that other
states and potential senders do not have. U.S. involvement is expected to increase the
effectiveness and success of sanction regimes.
Sanction regime variables are included to determine the effects of multilateral and
international organization (IO) involvement in sanction cases. The international
organization variables are broken down into various categories to determine whether
certain international organizations are more successful with sanctions policies than
others. There are three sets of dummy indicator variables used (1)REGIONAL IO,
GLOBAL IO, MULTI, UNI; (2) POLITICAL IO, ECONOMIC IO, MULTI, UNIand (3)
UN, OTHER IO, MULTI, UNI. Each of these dummy indicator variables was created
from raw descriptive data on country and organization involvement found in the TIES
database.
To compare the likely success of sanctions with regional organization
involvement, sanctions with global organization involvement, multilateral sanctions
without organization involvement, and unilateral sanctions, the first set of variables
(REGIONAL IO, GLOBAL IO, MULTI, UNI) is used in the regression. To identify
whether international organizations with a primarily political mandate, like the UN and
the Arab League, are more or less likely than economic institutions, like the WTO and
OPEC, to increase the success of sanctions, a second set of variables was created
(POLITICAL IO, ECONOMIC IO, MULTI, UNI). Another set of variables will be used
to determine whether the UN is more effective than other international organizations
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(UN, OTHER IO, MULTI, UNI). In each regression, one category in the set serves as a
reference group to which the three remaining groups are compared.
The international organizational variables are predicted to increase the likelihood
of success for the sanction regime. The tests intend to show that different types of
institutions increase the likelihood of success to varying degrees. Using Keohanes
(1998) logic that larger, more complex institutions are less effective, global institutions
should show to be less effective at sanction implementation than regional institutions. As
for political and economic organizations, economic institutions have more ready tools at
their disposal (trade sanctions, embargoes, etc.) than political organizations and should
show to be more effective than their political counterparts. The third set takes the UN
system as a separate dummy variable. Given the UNs size and complexity, it should
show to be less effective than other international institutions as a sanctioner.
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LIMITATIONS
This model has limitations. Sanction events are partially formed by a set of
strategic decisions. The sender and target respond to the others last move. A regression
does not capture the effects of this decision-making on sanction outcomes. The
regression allows a focus on the impact that international organizations may have in
determining the success of a sanction case (Whang, 2006).
There are many other factors that can impact a sanction case or cause a state to
seek a multilateral sanctions approach. For example, the time that it takes to achieve
consensus within an international organization is not measured in these data, but is
included in the effects of having an international institution as a sender.
Limitations also arise from the data collection. The TIES database was created
from normative sources2
and asked its coders to use judgment when entering the data.
There is no way to determine the personal biases of each of these coders. It is not
feasible to think that each viewed every sanction case in the same light and it may very
well be the case that sanction success was determined differently by coders on the
margins.
2 The TIES Database collected material from many sources includingLexis-Nexis,Facts on File, Keesings
Record of Contemporary Events, and the indices ofThe New York Times andLondon Times (Morgan et al,
2006).
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ANALYSIS
The data show that the majority of sanction cases are implemented unilaterally.
In fact, in the TIES dataset, approximately 71 percent or 627 cases are unilateral sanction
cases. Frequency of the use of a particular type of sanction, however, does not imply the
greater effectiveness of that type. What frequency does imply, however, is that unilateral
sanctions were the implementation method of choice for sanctions during the period of
1971-2000.
The general question that this study hopes to answer is whether this preferred
method of implementing sanctions is the one that yields the largest likelihood of success.
Previous studies (Drezner, 2000) have shown that there are other types of sanctions that
have a greater likelihood for success than unilateral sanctions, namely multilateral
sanctions with the involvement of international organizations. As depicted in Chart 1, the
data analyzed for this study has 259 non-unilateral sanction cases (approximately 29
percent of the sample). Of these 259 cases, the overwhelming majority (232) included
the involvement of an international institution. As Chart 2 illustrates, without accounting
for other factors, the TIES data seem to support Drezners theory that multilateral
sanctions with international organization involvement have the highest success rate and
call the relative effectiveness of unilateral sanctions into question. Nearly half of the
successes or partial successes involved an international organization. This higher success
rate for IO sanctions is particularly notable since states are more likely to seek
international organizations assistance when facing tougher, more complex situations
(Drezner, 2000; Thompson 2006).
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CHART 1: THE FREQUENCY OF UNILATERAL AND MULTILATERAL SANCTIONS (1971-2000)
70.6%
(627)
26.1%(232)
2.0%
(18)1.2%
(11)
Unilateral Multilateral w/ IO Other Multilateral Missing
Data Source: Threat and Imposition of Sanctions (TIES) Database; N=888.
States are more likely to turn to some international organizations than others.
Chart 3 provides an overview of the international organizations represented in the data.
A cursory look at the chart illustrates that when an international institution is involved in
a sanction regime, it is more likely to be a regional (or selected membership)3
organization than a global organization. In fact, 77.6 percent of the 232 observations that
cited involvement of an international organization cited the involvement of a regional
organization such as the European Union or the Arab League.
3 For ease of reference, the phrase regional international organization will be used to represent all select
membership organizations, even when selection is determined based on characteristics other than
geography. OPEC would be an example.
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CHART 2: OUTCOMES OF UNILATERAL AND MULTILATERAL SANCTIONS, 1971-2000
20.1%
8.5%7.5%
20.3%
15.1%
3.4%
10.8%
37.5%
22.2%
27.8%
16.7%16.7%
Successful Partially Successful Stalemate Unsucessful
Unilateral Multilateral w/IO Other Multilateral
Data Source: Threat and Imposition of Sanctions (TIES) Database; N=888
Here again, the frequency of regional organizational involvement does not
provide sufficient information about the success of the sanction. In this instance, the
preliminary data do not illuminate any patterns either. It does illustrate that sanctions
threatened or implemented with the assistance of UN organizations can be expected to be
less successful than those implemented by other international organizations. Nearly 40
percent of sanctions involving UN organizations ended in failure or a stalemate.
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CHART 3: THE DISTRIBUTION OF SANCTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONALINVOLVEMENT , 1971-2000
UN Organizations
15.9%
WTO/GATT
4.3%
EEC
30.2%
OPEC
5.2%
Arab League
9.5% Other
8.6%
EU
26.3%
Organization Key: UN = Any organization in the United Nations System; WTO/GATT = World TradeOrganization/General Agreement on Tariffs and Taxes; EEC = European Economic Community; OPEC = Organizationof Petroleum Exporting Countries; EU = European Union
Data Source: Threat and Imposition of Sanctions (TIES) Database; N=232
This preliminary outcome poses a question regarding the tradeoffs of working
with an international organization. Is there an organizational size, or character, or
composition at which the benefits of working with a international organization
minimized costs, fewer political and economic risks are outweighed by the political
costs and time needed to reach consensus, causing international organization-endorsed
sanctions to lose their effectiveness edge over unilateral sanctions? The preliminary data
are inconclusive on this point.
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CHART 4: OUTCOMES OF SANCTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION INVOLVEMENT,1971-2000
40.0%
26.0%
16.0%
6.0%
36.1%
11.7%
2.8%
10.0%
35.1%
29.7%
8.1%
13.5%
Successful Partially Successful Stalemate Unsucessful
Global IOs Regional IOs UN
Data Source: Threat and Imposition of Sanctions (TIES) Database; N=232.
Regression Analysis
Regression analysis provides more conclusive answers to this question. From the
base regression outlined in Exhibit 3, five regressions are run to test the five hypotheses.4
4 The TIES data set does not include effectiveness data for 356 of its observed sanction threats andsanction events. The vast majority of these 356 observations are for unilateral sanction threats or events.
The reason for this low rate of unilateral effectiveness rates could be that news services may have lost
interest in long-running sanction threats or events and did not report the results. Given that the data for the356 missing effective observations may skew the results toward underreporting the effectiveness ofunilateral sanctions, the results reported in this paper include only the 532 observations that have
effectiveness data. Ramsey RESET test shows model misspecification when using all 888 of the TIES
observations, while it showed no model misspecification when using the 532 observations that had outcome
data.
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Each of the regressions utilizes one of the three sets of sanction regime variables
described in the Hypothesis, Data Source, & Methodology section. A note detailing
which sanction regime set is used included with each model. The first, bolded variable
marks the regime reference group for the model.
In addition to the five analyses displayed in this section, regressions were run to
determine whether uniqueness of the European Union as a multinational regional actor
did not skew the results. To determine this, several regressions were run with the EU as a
unilateral actor and as a regional actor. In all instances, the results were similar and since
the EU is still a group of national governments, the entity is characterized as a regional
organization for the purposes of this paper.
Hypothesis 1: Unilateral sanctions are more effective than multilateral sanctions.
Model 1 does not support the hypothesis that unilateral sanctions are more
effective than multilateral sanctions. In fact, the model shows that multilateral sanctions
that include international organization involvement are more likely to be successful than
unilateral sanctions. The model does not support any findings on the likelihood for
success of multilateral sanctions without organization involvement.
The two international organization sanction variables were both significant and
positive, providing evidence that sanction threats and sanctions backed by international
organizations are more likely to be effective than those implemented unilaterally. This
model leads to the conclusion that including either regional or global international
organizations in sanction events increases the likelihood that the sanction events will be
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MODEL 1: MAIN REGRESSION (DEPENDENT VARIABLE: OUTCOME)SANCTION REGIME SET: Unilateral, Global IO, Region IO, Multilateral
Coefficients (Standard Error)
Target Cost -.004 (.003)
Sender Cost -.002 (.003)Issue .101 (.205)USA .244 (.117)***Global IO .519 (.196)***Region IO .780 (.140)***Multi .118 (.290)Threat .748 (.258)***
Number of Observations 532F (Prob >F) 5.94 (0.0000)Adjusted R2 0.07Ramsey RESET Test F(3,520) =0.53
PROB>F = 0.66*** = significant at 1% level; ** = significant at 5% level; * = significant at 10% level
effective. This conclusion will be dissected further in other models to see if it can be
determined what type of international organizations are the most effective to include in
sanction situations.
The other two predictors that were significant in Model 1 were U.S. involvement
and whether the sanction was resolved in the threat stage. Other factors were not found
to be statistically significant at any level. Both of these predictors were positively related
to sanction outcomes. Given the size of its economy and its political power, this result
reflects the common perception that the U.S. is more likely than other nations to be
successful at implementing unilateral sanctions. The results also show that situations in
which sanctions are resolved in the threat stage are more likely to be effective than those
events in which sanctions need to be implemented. This bolsters two points in the
previous literature: (1) sanction events than are resolved in the threat stage are more
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likely to be effective than those multilateral sanctions that do not have international
organization involvement.
Both international organization variables are significant in this model and
correspond positively with the success of sanction regimes. Here again, the inclusion of a
regional or global institution increases the chances of the sanction regimes success. The
results also provide further basis for the claim that sanction events ending in the threat
stage are more likely to be effective than those involving the implementation of
sanctions. Indeed, all of the models in this paper bolster this theory.
Hypothesis 3: Sanctions with the backing of a regional IO are more effective than
those with the support of a global IO.
MODEL 3: REGIONAL VS. GLOBAL IOS: OLS REGRESSION
(DEPENDENT VARIABLE: OUTCOME)SANCTION REGIME SET: Global IO, Unilateral, Region IO, Multilateral
Coefficients (Standard Error) Coefficients (Standard Error)Target Cost -.004 (.003) -.004 (.003)Sender Cost
-.002 (.003) -.002 (.003)Issue .179 (.204) .150 (.215)Unilateral -.111 (.163) -.048 (.222)Region IO .488 (.182)*** .551 (236)**Multi -.142 (.316) -.084 (.346)Threat .752 (.260)*** .757 (.260)UN NA .126 (.302)
Number of
Observations532 532
F (Prob >F) 5.57 (0.0000) 4.89Adjusted R2 0.06 0.06
Ramsey RESET Test F(3,521) =0.44PROB>F = 0.72
F(3, 520) = 0.57PROB>F = 0.63
*** = significant at 1% level; ** = significant at 5% level; * = significant at 10% level
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The results for Model 3 depict that hypothesis 3 was supported. That is, it is more
likely for a sanction episode involving a regional international organization to be
effective that one involving a global international organization. This relationship remains
the same even when the UN is pulled out from the general global IO grouping. The
results appear to be marking a line, albeit not a very clear one, where the chaos of
multiple players begins to outweigh the economic and political benefits of multiple
senders. Regional organizations tend to form around a similar ideal or a joint concern,
meaning there is greater consensus from the beginning an easier environment in which
to deliberate and determine a course of action in a sanction event. Global organizations
are formed to instill a sense of order, which makes for a more difficult starting ground
upon which to build consensus.
Hypothesis 4: Sanctions with the support of a UN agency are more effective than
sanctions with the support of another IO.
MODEL 4: UN EFFECTIVENESS REGRESSION (DEPENDENT VARIABLE: OUTCOME)SANCTION REGIME SET: Other IO, UN, Unilateral, Multilateral
Coefficients (Standard Error)Target Cost -.003 (.003)Sender Cost -.002 (.003)Issue .161 (.216)UN -.324 (.164)Unilateral -.497 (.112)***Multilateral -.495 (.299)*Threat .738 (.261)***
Number of Observations 532F (Prob >F) 4.77 (0.0000)Adjusted R2 0.04Ramsey RESET Test F(3,521) =0.77
PROB>F = 0.51`*** = significant at 1% level; ** = significant at 5% level; * = significant at 10% level
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Model 4 does not show support for the hypothesis that UN agencies are more
effective than other agencies at sanctions. The results show that UN involvement does
not necessarily lead to a sanctions episode success. The results show a negative
correlation between unilateral and multilateral involvement and successful sanctions
outcomes. This implies that IO support boosts effectiveness, further supporting the
findings of Model 1. The results also provide further evidence for the effectiveness of
threats.
Hypothesis 5: Economic international organizations implement more effective
sanctions and sanction threats than political international organizations
Model 5 provides the test results for whether the involvement of economic IOs
increases the likelihood of effectiveness of sanction regimes as compared to political IOs.
MODEL 5: POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OLS REGRESSION
(DEPENDENT VARIABLE: OUTCOME)SANCTION REGIME SET: Political IO, Unilateral, Economic IO, Multilateral
Coefficients (Standard Error)Target Cost -.003 (.003)Sender Cost -.003 (.003)Issue .055 (.198)Unilateral -.380 (.120)***Economic Organizations .223 (.191)Multilateral -.372 (.303)Threat .764 (.261)***
Number of Observations 532F (Prob >F) 4.68 (0.0000)Adjusted R
20.05
Ramsey RESET Test F(3,521) =1.17PROB>F = 0.32
`*** = significant at 1% level; ** = significant at 5% level; * = significant at 10% level
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This hypothesis is not supported. However, the results continue to illustrate the likely
ineffectiveness of unilateral sanction regimes as compared to regimes with the
involvement of a political international institution and the effectiveness of threats.
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POLICY IMPLICATIONS
State governments have options when it comes to threatening or imposing
sanctions. It is in the interest of each sender to maximize the sanctions likelihood of
success while minimizing its economic and political risk. Like many things in politics,
sanction regimes are about striking the right balance.
Given that there is risk associated with threatening or implementing a sanction
regime, potential senders should use caution when deciding their course of action.
Preliminary evidence from cross-tabs reveals that states should collaborate and involve
international organizations in their proposed sanction regimes. In particular, cross-tabs
indicate that regional IO involvement in sanction regimes decreases the likelihood of
failure most significantly, while maintaining a high success rate. The regression results
support these findings, inclusion of an international organization in a sanction regime
increases that regimes likelihood for effectiveness.
These results provide a strong case that it is in the self-interest of the potential
sender state to seek the consensus of a regional body and seek to jointly threaten or
impose sanctions. The governments of potential senders would then be able to not only
lessen their political and economic risk, but limit the amount of sanction management
that would need to be done by the states bureaucrats. This could lead in a shift in the
prevailing policies in sanctions.
There are mitigating factors to this shift. The time that it takes to build consensus
varies by international organization and, in some instances, this time lag may prevent the
potential sender state from seeking consensus. By attempting to quantify which types of
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international organizations are most effective at threatening and imposing sanctions,
potential senders can better determine which organizations to engage in various
circumstances.
The results form Model 3 may illustrate the trade off between effectiveness and
timeliness. These results show that regional organizations are more likely to be effective
sanctioners than global organizations. Members of regional organizations as
organizations formed around a specific collective interest tend to have more common
interests than members of global organizations, making their decisions more prompt and,
as the data show, effective. However, the results for the hypotheses about the
effectiveness of political and economic organizations and the UN did not provide
additional support for determining certain types of international organization sanctioners.
The RAND Cooperation recently published a report on the success of UN and
U.S. peacekeeping missions since World War II showing that the UN had a comparative
advantage over the U.S. in peacekeeping (Dobbins et al, 2005 and 2003). The
comparison is particularly relevant since international peacekeeping missions face similar
time lag problems in consensus-building as sanctions do. In the past decade, there has
been a remarkable increase in the number of UN peacekeeping missions deployed
(Dobbins et al, 2005). A similar shift should happen in the realm of sanctions, since
international organizations are shown to have a comparative advantage in threatening and
imposing sanctions.
Determining that international organizations, particularly regional organizations,
have a comparative advantage over unilateral orad hoc multilateral efforts provides new
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relevance to the international governance regime. Qualitative and quantitative
assessments illustrating the successes of international organizations should give
opponents of international organizations pause and cause them to rethink the overarching
negativity they associate with these institutions.
Continuing to decipher where international organizations work better than
individual states will begin to mitigate the tension between the international governance
regime and states about sovereignty. Once international organizations are seen as
partners and not as rivals to states, consensus may be easier to achieve. Moreover, the
comparative advantages of using international organizations as part of a states foreign
policy toolkit may also increase. Most importantly, however, determining where
international organizations are most useful to states will only help in securing their future
and preventing their demise.
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CONCLUSION
The presented analysis is not intended to answer the question whether sanctions
are a good policy decision. The analysis starts from the point that sanctions continue to
be a primary element of foreign policy and, as such, the most effective way to implement
sanctions should be determined. The data provide strong support for seeking
international institution support for sanction regimes as opposed to pushing sanctions
unilaterally or with an ad hoc group. There is also support for using regional institutions
instead of global institutions to strengthen sanction effectiveness, when such a policy is
politically feasible. The strong coalitions that make up international organizations
provide steady administrative and political support for sanctions.
Sanctions remain an imperfect foreign policy instrument. However, by seeking
the participation of international organizations, and especially regional organizations,
these imperfections can be softened and the likelihood for success increased.
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APPENDIX I
ORDERED PROBIT REGRESSION RESULTS (DEPENDENT VARIABLE: OUTCOME)
Unsuccessful Stalemate PartiallySuccessful
Successful Sign of ProbitCoefficient
Targetcost -.185
(.034)
-.023
(.006)
.091
(.020)
.117
(.022)-
Sendercost .168
(.053)
.021
(.008)
-.082
(.028)
-.106
(.034)-
Issue -.033
(.076)
-.005
(.012)
.015
(.033)
.022
(.055)+
USA -.080
(.043)
-.010
(.006)
.038
(.021)
.052
(.029)+
UN .296
(.152)
-.001
(.018)
-.180
(.101)
-.115
(.036)-
GlobalIO -.246(.061)
-.065(.028)
.028(.043)
.283(.125)
+**
RegionIO -.210(.393)
-.041(.012)
.068(.014)
.184(.047)
+**
Multi .014
(.106)
.001
(.011)
-.007
(.054)
-.008
(.063)+
Threat .042
(.038)
.005
(.005)
-.020
(.019)
-.026
(.024)-**
SenderComm -.0003
(.0004)
-.00004
(.00006)
.0001
(.0002)
.0003
(.0003)+
Reported values are the dy/dx values provided by the ordered probit regression
* = significant at the 10% level; ** = significant at 1% level
LINKTEST RESULTS
COEFFICIENT SE Z P >|Z|
_hat 1.10 .313 3.53 0.000
_hatsq -.142 .374 -0.38 0.704
The link test shows that the ordered probit model is correctly specified.
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OLS REGRESSION (DEPENDENT VARIABLE: OUTCOME)
Coefficients (SE)Targetcost -.004 (.003)Sendercost -.003 (.003)
Issue .197 (.214)USA .237 (.117)**UN -.553 (.375)GlobalIO .858 (.324)***RegionIO .750 (.142)***Multi -.001 (.290)Threat -.917 (.306)***SenderComm .001 (.001)
Number of Observations 532F (Prob >F) 5.11 (0.0000)Adjusted R2 0.07
` *** = significant at 1% level; ** = significant at 5% level
The OLS results are comparable to the ordered probit results, which led to the use of the
OLS results in analyzing the hypotheses in the paper.
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CHART 8: SCATTERPLOT OF DEPENDENT VARIABLE (OUTCOME) RESIDUALS
-2
-1
0
1
2
Residuals
2 2.5 3 3.5Fitted values
The scatter plot shows that within the four outcome possibilities (see page 11), the resultswithin each category are distributed randomly.
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36
SIMPLECORRELATIONS
outcome
multi
glob
alIO
regionIO
UN
USA
issue
threat
outcom
e
1.00000
0.04023
0.2311
0.15
055
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