A Memo on Economic Sanctions’ Reading

Article 1

Bapat, Navin. et T. & Clifton Morgan. 2009: "Multilateral Versus Unilateral Sanctions

Reconsidered: A Test Using New Data." International Studies Quarterly 53 (4): 10751094.

Article 2

Martin, Lisa. 1993a: "Credibility, Costs, and Institutions: Cooperation on Economic Sanctions." World Politics 45 (3): 406-432.

In the paper, “Multilateral Versus Unilateral Sanctions Reconsidered: A Test Using New Data,” Bapat and Clifton go beyond the argument of which between multilateral or unilateral sanctions is more effective. Instead, the authors focus on the threat of imposing sanctions (TIES) over both multilateral and unilateral sanctions to explain the dynamics that are involved in the imposition of economic sanctions. Their take on including the three aspects make for a better understanding of how they arrive at their conclusions. Such methods that incorporate new schools of thought different from the norm, thus, make for great analysis. In contrast, Martin in the article, “Costs, and Institutions: Cooperation on Economic Sanctions” looks at the important role that cooperation between senders play when sanctions are imposed, and focuses on the effectiveness that result from multilateral sanctions. Martin’s overall argument is an agreeable one since it focuses on how factions are normally brought together during the enforcement of sanctions.

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To begin the critique of the two articles, focus is put on the comparison between multilateral and unilateral sanctions. The overall conclusion that Bapat and Clifton put forward that unilateral sanctions appear to be more effective than multilateral sanctions is at best a stretch of the facts (Bapat and Clifton 2009, p. 1077). The reality is that the effectiveness of sanctions is, to the most part, dependent on the motivation behind their imposition in the first place. If the underlying motivation is something like sourcing important energy sources that are not easily accessible, then multilateral sanctions work better. On the other hand, if the motivation is a trade dispute regarding copyright infringement, then unilateral sanctions tend to work best since cooperation with other states leaves the sender vulnerable to losing to the other countries. An example where such a scenario can play out is in trade issues regarding technology, such as the mobile phone market. To this end, the issues/ motivation factors happen to be important since they normally determine the level of commitment in multilateral sanctions that is attached either towards or against by the cooperating nations (Kaempfer and Lowenberg 1998, p. 40).

The threat of imposing sanctions (TIES) as explained in the first article is undoubtedly an effective manner of succeeding in enforcing and getting the desired results from sanctions. This is especially true for security related matters such as the acquisition of nuclear warheads. Such security matters normally have far reaching effects on the regional stability and peace that normally ensues. The TIES works by making already imposed sanctions to be adhered to without the possibility of neighboring nation’s stepping in to shield the target from the sanctions. The caveat, however, happens to be how determined the target is with maintaining the status quo that the sanctions aim to alter (Clifton and Schwebach 1995, p. 251). If the target happens to value the status quo most, then the TIES becomes useless as the neighboring countries are in no position to deny cooperation with the target. In addition, the TIES also becomes irrelevant if the neighboring countries are heavily dependent on the target country for a majority of their import needs. This was experienced in Eastern Europe when TIES from NATO and the US against these nations often proved to be irrelevant in dissuading them to be close with the Soviet Union. The critique on cooperation as put forward by Martin is that it normally works well for multilateral sanctions. This is especially true for the case of a security threat that is posed by an unstable regime, like was the case in the 1991 Gulf War when America sanctioned Iraq (Martin 1993, p. 410). However, at times cooperation is not as straight forward as Martin’s article claims. Cooperation at times is normally a hindrance as nations usually bring horse trading in negotiations as each nation tries to push forwards its own agenda in line with their foreign policy stands. This was mostly the case among NATO members when the US usually came up with several sanctions against the Soviets. However, member states such as France were normally quite hesitant in following all sanctions to the letter. The reason is because countries within groupings such as NATO that are in principle supposed to act in unison on foreign policy matters seldom do that. Intense competition among their economies means that there are inherent benefits in choosing not to cooperate in sanctions (Nurnberger 2003, p. 72).

Martin also looks at the degree of cooperation or the extent and duration that the sender can rely on the cooperation of other countries. Whether or not to cooperate in imposing sanctions is mainly driven by a country’s foreign policy guidelines, which is the limiting factor (Miers & Clifton 2002, p. 429). This was the case when the US put in place sanctions against the Soviet Union in the 1980s so as to stop the Soviets from finishing constructions of a gas and oil pipeline (Martin 1993, p. 406-407). The US was confident of landing the support of its NATO allies in Western Europe for the move, but was left pondering its next move when support dwindled. The reality was that West Europe was anticipating the economic benefits that the pipeline from Siberia could offer to their economies, and were therefore skeptical of supporting sanctions that would ultimately hurt them.

Apart from foreign policy implications, countries are usually driven by selfish agendas when it comes to issues of international trade (Nurnberger 2003, p. 72). Therefore, Martin’s assertion to the effect that unifying issues are usually enough to maintain cooperation in multilateral sanctions happen not to be the reality. A sanction by a sender towards a target may end up opening up opportunities in the target country, which were previously limited on account that the sender country was effectively covering the market. By hesitating to join in a sanction, a country places itself in a strategic position to step in and reap the resultant economic benefits that are more probably than not likely to ensue. Alternatively, countries may choose to support the sanctions because the reasons for their imposition happen to be the right thing to do, such as stopping the target nation from acquiring biological weapons (Kaempfer and Lowenberg 1998, p. 44). However, the large number of cooperating nations means that the individual contribution of each nation in the sanction is negligible relative to collective sanction. In such cases, nations may choose to hike on the back of others to go over the sanctions, and continue working with the target. This step usually signifies the beginning of a collapse of the sanction and the target simply braces itself for the ensuing brief period before the whole sanction collapses. This sort of outcome is usually very prevalent when the target happens to have strategic importance; whether in terms of access or commodity availability to the sender nations, an example being the possession of huge reserves of petroleum (Lacy and Niou 2004, p. 30).