Pressures From Home and Abroad: Economic Sanctions and Target Government Response to Domestic Campaigns

• Author: Ryan Yu-Lin Liou,Amanda Murdie,Dursun Peksen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221118249
• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Date: 01 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2023, Vol. 67(2-3) 297–325

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027221118249

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Pressures From Home and

Abroad: Economic Sanctions

and Target Government

Response to Domestic

Campaigns

Ryan Yu-Lin Liou

1

, Amanda Murdie

1

, and

Dursun Peksen

2



Abstract

What effect do economic sanctions have on target governments’response to citizen

campaigns? We assert that sanctions as a signal of international support for campaigners

alter the bargaining environment between a target state and the campaign in ways that

will likely draw more support from citizens and defections from the ruling base. This

will in turn incentivize target leaders to be more conciliatory toward domestic

campaigns with maximalist goals, especially when such campaigns are nonviolent.

Results from a time-series, cross-national data analysis indicate that sanctions, par-

ticularly when they are enforced by multiple senders or with high cost, are effective in

increasing the success rate of nonviolent campaigns. Given the plethora of sanctions

research that points to their ineff‌icacy and adverse effects, we show that sanctions

could be an effective tool to extract concessions from governments facing nonviolent

campaigns.

Keywords

civil resistance, economic sanctions, foreign policy, nonviolence, protest

1

University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

2

University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ryan Yu-Lin Liou, University of Georgia, Candler Hall, Athens, GA 30602-1492, USA.

Email: ryanliou@uga.edu

Beginning in 1964, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda ruled Malawi with a “singular mixture

of terror and ritualized paternalism”(Mitchell 2002, 5). Those who spoke out against

Banda’s brutal regime were often imprisoned, tortured, and executed without trial

(Amnesty International 1992;Forster 2001). Despite the repression, a growing group of

peaceful protestors continued to push for change, eventually gaining support from the

Catholic Church. The Banda regime responded to the growing opposition by im-

prisoning Catholic priests and other protestors. Nonetheless, opposition to Banda grew.

The world was watching. In May of 1992, the United States and other countries levied

economic sanctions against the regime. According to a New York Times editorial piece,

the sanctions were imposed to send an “unmistakable message”that Banda’s“cronies”

could not ignore (A28). Banda realized that the foreign pressure would be “extremely

detrimental in the long run”(Brown 2004, 712). Although he “could repress internally,”

Banda knew he would “probably not survive a loss of external support”(Brown 2004,

712). The sanctions “bolstered the domestic pro-democracy opposition”in their

struggle against a “highly recalcitrant authoritarian regime”(Emmanuel 2013, 432).

With growing opposition, in October 1992, Banda announced that a nationwide

referendum would soon be held. The referendum resulted in the establishment of a

multiparty political system and the eventual ouster of Banda in 1994 (Posner 1995).

When do recalcitrant domestic leaders concede to citizen campaigns? As in the case

of Malawi, can economic sanctions tip the scales in favor of citizen demands? Although

much research has focused on whether sanctions lead to more political violence and

instability, little is known about how sanctions affect the outcome of violent and

nonviolent domestic movements.

1

On one hand, a long line of advocacy research

suggests that movements are more likely to succeed when internal pressure from

“below”is joined with increased external pressure from “above”(Brysk 1993;Risse,

Ropp, and Sikkink 2013). This research, however, examines a broad range of advocacy

movements, including those with minimal policy goals. When the focus is on cam-

paigns with more maximalist goals, such as overthrowing an existing regime or

achieving self-determination, there has not been any comprehensive assessment of

whether economic sanctions as a widely used policy tool augment campaign success.

One notable exception is the work by Chenoweth and Stepan (2008; 2012). This work,

however, does not offer a thorough theoretical account of whether and what types of

sanctions might affect the outcome of campaigns. More specif‌ically, they treat all

sanctions alike without accounting for the intended goal and severity of sanctions as

well as the types of actors involved in their imposition. As opposed to their null f‌indings

on sanctions in general, we highlight the signif‌icance of accounting for different aspects

of sanctions regimes. Wetheorize that sanctions are likely to increase the success rate of

nonviolent campaigns especially when they are multilateral, high cost, and human

rights sanctions. Further, in explicating the causal mechanisms between sanctions and

civil resistance, we argue and statistically demonstrate that sanctions are likely to

contribute to campaign success through the mechanisms of (1) defections from the

security apparatus or political elites of the regime and (2) more anti-government

mobilization.

298 Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution 67(2-3)