Dick, "Economic sanctions, domestic audiences, and international conflict," 1999

Howard Evan Dick, Ph.D

Abstract (Summary)

This dissertation investigates the relationship between economic sanctions, domestic audiences and conflict escalation. The project argues that sanctions can be an effective tool of coercion when three conditions are satisfied. First, sanctions must involve high self-imposed costs. Second, sanctions must signal to a target that the leadership in the sender will suffer a decline in public confidence if sanctions fail. Finally, as the domestic political costs of a failed policy accumulate, the sender escalates the conflict to avoid being perceived as "incompetent." This research specifies under what conditions sanctions escalate to war and when they effectively coerce a target to backdown. The model also demonstrates that war is an equilibrium outcome even if the a prior expected benefit of the conflict is less than the expected cost. Support for the argument is derived from four methodological approaches. First, a dynamic signaling game of two-sided incomplete information shows under what conditions a sanction will work and when it will escalate to war. Second, an analysis of an exhaustive set of 20 sanction episodes drawn from a data set devised by Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott provides empirical validity. Third, regression analysis furnishes additional support by showing that self-imposed economic costs via a sanction are correlated with a decline in presidential public approval on the handling of a specific foreign policy, which in turn is correlated with an empirical observation of escalation. Finally, an entire chapter is devoted to international intervention in the Balkans from 1987 to 1995. The cases considered are: Angola (1985-1990), Burma (1988-current), Chile (1970-1973). China (1989), Grenada (1983), Guatemala (1977-1983), Haiti (1987-1989), Haiti (1991-1994), Iran (1979-1981), Iraq (1990-1991), Libya (1979-1986), Nicaragua (1977-1979), Nicaragua (1981-1990), Panama (1987-1989), Paraguay (1977-1981), Serbia (1987-1995), South Africa (1985-1991), Suriname (1982-1990), Uganda (1972-1979), and Uruguay (1976-1981). The empirical results are based on chronologies of events established from both an analysis of television network news coverage of each episode and an evaluation of over 2000 public opinion polling questions regarding these 20 cases. An organized collection of the polling data, media based chronologies, and televised reports can be obtained from the author.

Advisor: Rosendorff, B. Peter