sanctions, trade, and private actors

Regarding the Jan/Feb economic sanctions resolution, some affirmatives argue that economic sanctions are immoral because they interfere with free trade, punishing not only citizens in sanctioned nations, but entrepreneurs and corporations in the nations levying the sanctions.

At first glance, the argument seems compelling--but how significant is the impact? In "Economic Sanctions: Public Goals and Private Compensation," found in the Fall 2003 issue of the Chicago Journal of International Law, Gary Hufbauer and Barbara Oegg analyze the economic effects of sanctions.

First, the impacts on trade are relatively small:

Over the past decade, the emergence of new senders such as the European Union and the United Nations, coupled with an expanding list of foreign policy goals, has lead [sic] to a proliferation of new sanctions initiatives. Despite these developments, the total amount of trade disrupted by sanctions remains relatively small. Our estimates indicate that US trade loss due to extensive sanctions ranged from 0.7 percent to 1.8 percent of total US merchandise trade. Lost EU trade is probably much smaller. Similarly, average annual costs of economic sanctions to the target countries seldom exceed 3 percent of GDP. Compared to the tremendous expansion of international trade and capital flows in the last decade, the costs of sanctions in terms of national income or bilateral trade flows seem minor.

However, investment impacts are considerably larger; according to Hufbauer and Oegg's calculations, sanctions affect "as much as 10 percent of world [Foreign Direct Investment]," and that this, on average, would decrease target countries' GDP by a "substantial" 6%.

If the economic impacts are mixed, what might represent another approach for the affirmative? First, consider the wording of the resolution--"... to achieve foreign policy objectives," which in most readings applies exclusively to governments. The affirmative might argue that private actors are a more appropriate agent of action--that individuals and corporations, through grassroots direct action, nonviolent revolution, and litigation, can go after rights violators and rogue regimes.

Hufbauer and Oegg note the Free Burma Coalition, which

...claims that it successfully pressured companies such as Eddie Bauer, Columbia Sportswear, Apple Computer, Motorola, Heineken, Eastman Kodak, Amoco, and Pepsi, among others, to withdraw their businesses from Burma. Some 39 major US retailers have also announced their decisions to cut off all business ties with Burma. Grassroots divestment campaigns are not solely a US phenomenon. Under pressure from the Burma Campaign UK, eight UK investment funds launched an initiative highlighting the unique problems for foreign investors in Burma including the threat of international boycotts, corruption, and the loss of shareholder confidence.

Hufbauer and Oegg also foresee a future in which private litigation, enabled by legislation such as the FSIA and the Alien Tort Statute, and by courts with growing international reach, put a much larger crimp in the economic style of state sponsors of terrorism.

I'm not sure it's worth building a whole case around, but at least it offers a potential block to Negatives arguing that no realistic peaceful alternatives exist.

sanctions as "signals or gestures"

Regarding the sanctions resolution, reader Kevin sends along a link to an older CATO institute backgrounder on economic sanctions, which he says is excellent for the affirmative. Some highlights:

U.S. companies are harder hit by economic sanctions than are foreign governments. Although economic sanctions are rarely powerful enough to sway the policy of a foreign government (or to inflict much economic hardship), they can be very punishing or even destructive to specific domestic sectors or businesses, especially when competitiveness requires maintaining global market shares and access to foreign resources....

The nature of economic sanctions has several specific ramifications for policymakers. First, policymakers should recognize that sanctions are almost always signals or gestures rather than pressures that will force high-policy changes: they are congenitally weak policy levers, not effective "economic weapons" against foreign governments. Policymakers should not overstate the economic force of sanctions or their expected results.

That means that as policy instruments economic sanctions do not offer substantially different leverage to achieve goals than do "weak" diplomatic actions, and selections from options menus should not be based on the lingering misperception that they do. Alternative diplomatic signaling options should be reconsidered. In general, these may be expected to send the message with less economic cost to the implementor, and they are easier to control. (There is, of course, the possibility that less costly signals will be perceived as less serious responses than signals that involve more sacrifice.)

Readers should note that the article, written in 1989, can't consider "targeted sanctions" (which have taken hold in the last five years), and, for obvious reasons, doesn't cover the most recent evidence for the efficacy of sanctions, which I've covered elsewhere.

economic sanctions as politics by other means

Regarding the economic sanctions resolution, I'm amazed by how many Affirmatives cite the definition of economic sanctions without considering its consequences--and, for that matter, how many Negatives get away with framing sanctions as a moral response to tyranny or proliferation.

For instance, I've heard sanctions defined as "economic penalties imposed for political purposes," or as "Restrictions upon international trade and finance that one country imposes on another for political reasons." These are great definitions for the Aff. Consider that the resolution says that economic sanctions "ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives." (And remember that the burden is to prove the resolution true, or false, as a general principle.) This means the Aff can lay a burden on the Neg to prove that foreign policy objectives, as a general rule, justify the use of economic sanctions. Yet I've seen few Negatives that address the overall objectives of foreign policy, other than preventing human rights abuses and nuclear proliferation.

Surely these are not the only objectives of foreign policy; not only is foreign policy a vast entity, but no single nation is implicated! In fact, it might be argued that for most nations, sanctions, for the most part, are a means of keeping their enemies in check. There are no guarantees that political goals are either legal or moral, especially when the Neg cedes to an Aff definition like the one cited above.

It gets worse for the Negative if trade sanctions aren't distinguished from economic sanctions. Then we have a much broader debate about how powerful players keep weaker countries in line. Then sanctions become a tool of economic oppression. (This also makes the free trade argument that much stronger.)

Much better definitions of sanctions, for the Negative, include...

* International Law. action by one or more states toward another state calculated to force it to comply with legal obligations.

* A penalty, specified or in the form of moral pressure, that acts to ensure compliance or conformity.

* A coercive measure adopted usually by several nations acting together against a nation violating international law.

The first and third make it a legal matter, rather than a political matter; the second makes it a moral matter. Either way, you're at least working to avoid the charge that sanctions are, like war, in Clausewitz's famous formulation, merely "the continuation of politics by other means."

question time

I took a brief break from blogging about LD, and during my downtime, questions about the economic sanctions resolution have piled up. I'm going to answer them all here. (There may be minor edits for spelling or grammar.)

Anonymous said...
How would Kant's Perpetual Peace work for the Aff?

Kant's Perpetual Peace is based, among other things, on republicanism, sovereignty, and disarmament. It does require that nations do not interfere with other nations--the sovereignty aspect--which I suppose would preclude the use of economic sanctions. Yet this seems to presume the interaction of free, republican nations, not "rogue nations" gunning for nukes. It's an interesting idea, though, that might be more properly fleshed out by a Kantian expert.

Courtney said...
For Aff:
V: Morality
Cr: Contractualism/Deontology

Which one would work better...can't decide.

Also, I would really like to consequentialism as my criterion for an Aff case, but I don't know what value to do. Any ideas?

Contractualism works well with justice as a value, because it concerns apportioning rights and obligations; deontology will also, since it concerns moral rightness. (See below.) Consequentialism will work for the Affirmative with a value of societal welfare; the reasoning here is that the government, as the agent of action, is responsible to ensure the welfare of its citizens.

Anonymous said...
If you used deontology as your VC,and justice as your V on Aff, you would be essentially be arguing that we are preserving justice by doing what we are morally obligated to do, correct?

You certainly would.

Anonymous said...
Also, would constructive bilateralism work as a VC?

Constructive bilateralism consists of cooperative agreements between two nations; I suppose this is an Affirmative criterion, although there's no reason it would be limited to bilateralism as opposed to, say, multilateralism.

Anonymous said...
Overall, I think that a straight justice or morality argument must be made. Efficiency never has a place in LD, because we are talking about philosophical ideals. Therefore, the Neg has to show that sanctions are moral when used. (They do work sometimes, such as in South Africa, so inefficiency also doesn't work.) The Aff then has to show that, whether they work or not, they are a moral action. "Ought" could be a good link to morality.

You can definitely make that argument, but be aware that there are pragmatic and realistic strains in political philosophy--and consequentialism in general--that not only allow, but require efficacy as a condition of moral action.

lil' petey said...
On Aff I was thinking something simple but effective: How about valuing security (probably could be national but my case works better with individual), backing it up with a criterion of protecting innocence? Basically saying that economic sanctions hurt innocent people in society as much or more than the government they are directed at and that is not just.

That is certainly one of the arguments made against broad-based sanctions; just be ready for the "targeted sanctions" Negative approach.

Anonymous said...
Is there some way (like an RA or a framework or something) that can limit the Aff's disadvantage? It seems like Aff has to prove economic sanctions are always bad while Neg only has to find one example of how it is good to win.

"If I can name one example..." is the lazy route to winning, yet I hear people trying it all the time. The NFL LD ballot puts it clearly (and this language should be in bold at the top of your case in every debate!):

Each debater has the burden to prove his or her side of the resolution more valid as a general principle. No debater can realistically be expected to prove complete validity or invalidity of the resolution. The better debater is the one who, on the whole, proves his/her side of the resolution more valid as a general principle.

Unless the counterexample is large or generic enough to counter the prevailing arguments you've advanced, one example is not going to be sufficient to negate (or affirm, depending).

The Anarchist said...
Could I value Human Rights on the Aff with a criterion of Kant's Categorical Imperative? Or should I go with a value of Governmental Legitimacy?

Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative is probably most apt here; it prohibits persons from using others merely as a means to an end. That might apply to broad-based sanctions, which punish civilians in order to pressure their nation's leaders to change policies. Using governmental legitimacy as a value isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it leads to the question, does the government have any moral obligations to noncitizens?

Jennifer said...
I'm wondering if you could argue that economic sanctions ought not be used because they promote the aims of capitalism (in many cases) and not the specific foreign policy aims of a specific country or countries. Although I suppose that capitalism and foreign policy aims of first world nations are inextricably linked. Still, could you argue otherwise?

If capitalism is bad, and sanctions are the balled-up fist of the "invisible hand," then I suppose you could make that sort of argument on the Affirmative. This is probably why some are advocating the "Cap K" (Capitalism Kritik) as an Affirmative strategy.

Alex said...
Since it seems that everyone is running Human Rights for their affirmative, I will give my opinion as of Human Rights. Running Human Rights for the Affirmative is a bit sketchy because when using economic sanctions usually aims at protecting the international community and every other nation. IE: the sanction against North Korea is aimed at stopping their nuclear program. Its citizens might be not getting their full potential of obtaining food and medication, but not having economic sanctions threatens the rights of everyone that could have conflict with North Korea considering the proliferation of their weapons. Thus, having Negative use the Affirmatives value of Human Rights as their own.

I agree; a Negative based on "maximizing rights" would be a way to co-opt any Aff running HR.

Anonymous said...
What social contract says that the government has the responsibility to only protect its own citizens?

I'll turn the question around: what social contract says that the government has the responsibility to protect noncitizens?

Anonymous said...
Hi, Im pretty new to debate, and I really like the idea of the "toolbox" metaphor and the National Security/Realism Value criterion pair. My question is, how do you link national security to the resolution? Also, at our school and tournaments, we are advised to put a verb before our criterion, such as "maintaining realism" instead of just realism. Could you explain how realism relates to the toolbox metaphor?

Economic sanctions, at least in the modern era, are related to national security in many ways. One of the foremost: nuclear containment. As to your second question, political realism is the view that prudence, not idealism, should be a government's modus operandi. (Wikipedia has a decent intro to the subject.) A political realist would thus argue that it's in a nation's best interests to keep its options open. Furthermore, a hardline realist will critique the very notion of governments having moral responsibilities--preserving their own power is their only goal. Legitimacy, human rights, and other values are only good insofar as they create or preserve internal and international stability.

Jenny said...
So far, I really can't think of much for NEG. So far all I've seen is how ineffective and devastating to humanity economic sanctions are; they're even compared to WMD. I'm thinking about running social welfare with prudence, but I can't seem to find anything good on prudence to use in my case.

Also, how do smart sanctions fit into the definition of economic sanctions?

I've partly answered your second question at this link. An intro to "smart sanctions" (via Google Books) is available here. As to prudence (realism; see above), it works best with a value of national security.

the sanctions dilemma

Regarding the 2010 Jan/Feb resolution, the U.S.'s potential response to the ongoing crisis in Iran is a perfect contemporary example of the sanctions dilemma.

U.S. and allied officials have been in discussions for months about how to impose economic penalties on Tehran to discourage it from continuing with a uranium enrichment program that the West believes is aimed at developing a nuclear bomb.

But as the Iranian government's crackdown has taken a growing toll on the opposition movement, officials are increasingly concerned that broad sanctions harming ordinary citizens would appear harsh to the outside world and would risk alienating parts of the population with which the West seeks to establish common cause.

The discussions are now aimed at making the sanctions "as narrow as they can be," said a senior State Department official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.

This points to a potential Negative line of argument against Affirmatives who base their advocacy on the harms of broad sanctions. (In fact, much of the literature against sanctions assumes broadly-imposed penalties--a fact that might be quite important to raise in CX.) How I've seen it done:

1. The Aff's harms are based on wide-ranging, broad sanctions.
2. 21st century sanctions, however, are targeted and narrow.
3. Thus the primary reason to deny the use of sanctions is obsolete.

The problem, though, is that narrow sanctions have a much lower chance of success (and, it could be argued, less valuable as a deterrent), not only because they are narrower, but because of a critical lack of information. Going back to the Iran example:

Ray Takeyh, who was an administration advisor on Iran earlier this year, agreed that it was now desirable to make the sanctions as "discriminating and selective as possible."

But Takeyh said that doing so would be difficult because the world has so little information on the inner workings of the Iranian economy that it is difficult to calculate the social effects of any economic sanction.

Targeting "surgically... may just not be possible," he said. "And if it isn't, you might want to rethink how you do it and whether you want to do it at all."

This is not an in principle objection, however; is there another line of attack?

One way is to argue that since the resolution doesn't specify "targeted" sanctions, that the Negative must defend broad sanctions as well, or otherwise they're "conditionally negating," adding words to the resolution and ignoring the general principle. After all, nothing limits the use of broad sanctions in the Neg world--especially if they're seen as a moral (or less immoral) alternative to war. (Usually it's the Aff who's accused of "conditional affirmation"--but this is one of those "ought not" resolutions where the Neg is really affirming the morality of sanctions.)

Another line of argument for the Neg is the "toolbox" argument: that the Affirmative would remove critical tools, including targeted sanctions, from the government's disposal. This would lead to a second dilemma, this time for the Affirmative: without the carrot and stick of economic sanctions, the government is left with a feather of noneconomic sanctions and the bloody spike of war.

alternatives to economic sanctions

Concerning the January/February LD resolution, since the affirmative is charged with claiming that economic sanctions ought not be used, if economic sanctions, then what?

War and other military tactics are, of course, available, but costly. Their advantages: they can be effective in stopping tyrants, and, at least in the modern era, they are normally aimed at military targets, whereas sanctions can be intended to harm civilians. (But see "smart sanctions" for the rebuttal to the latter point.) Their disadvantages: civilians will still suffer or perish; failure is riskier; war is much more costly; the risk of a widening conflict is greater. (I'm sure there are other arguments, too.)

How about non-economic sanctions? Robert P. O'Quinn of the Heritage Foundation details some of the options:

In contrast to economic sanctions, which are intended to penalize a target country financially, non-economic sanctions are aimed at denying legitimacy or prestige. Although the following list is not exhaustive, non-economic sanctions include:

* Canceling ministerial and summit meetings with a target country;

* Denying a target country's government officials visas to enter the sender country;

* Withdrawing a sender country's ambassador or otherwise downgrading diplomatic and military contacts with a target country;

* Blocking a target country from joining international organizations;

* Opposing a target country's bid to host highly visible international events, such as the Olympics;

* Withholding foreign aid; and

* Instructing a sender country's directors to vote against new loans to a target country at the World Bank or other international financial institutions.

Arguably, the last two have an economic impact and thus the Negative might try to claim them as economic sanctions.

The rest of O'Quinn's article is well worth a read; he defines terms important to the debate, deconstructs the oft-cited South Africa example, and points out arguments against sanctions' constitutionality. The only weakness of the article is its date: at a decade old, the arguments might be the same, but the evidence has changed, in utility, scope, and relevance.

value and criterion pairs for the economic sanctions resolution

A work in progress. Suggest your own in the comments.

Remember that this is one of those "affirming a negation" resolutions: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives.

Trending Affirmative

V: Justice
C: Rawls' Difference Principle (or the Veil of Ignorance?)
Sanctions punish the worst-off by limiting economic growth or keeping critical goods out of the hands of those who need them most.

V: Justice
C: Protecting Innocents (variations on a theme of Just War theory) or Deontology
The gist of the argument: innocents are punished by sanctions; for various reasons, this is wrong. In Kantian ethics, persons are never to be used as a mere means to an end. Arguments can also be made based on retribution or proportionality; innocents should not suffer for the sake of their country's leaders, since they are not due punishment.

V: Prosperity or Societal Welfare or...
C: Capitalism / Free Market
Sanctions interfere with the free market. This stunts overall economic and technological development, increases conflict, reduces the pacifying power of globalization, etc.

Trending Negative

V: National Security
C: Pragmatism or Realism or somesuch
I heard the "toolbox" metaphor employed a few times this weekend: we have to keep all the necessary tools at our disposal. Declaring that we ought not use sanctions limits our options to, essentially, inaction (which is immoral), diplomacy (which is weak), or war (which is often far too costly).

V: National Security or International Stability
C: Preserving Hegemony

V: Peace or Life
C: Preventing Proliferation
Sanctions can keep weapons, especially nuclear weapons, out of the hands of dictators. Even if they're not 100% effective, they are less costly--and less likely to cause spectacular "blowback"--than war.

V: Governmental Legitimacy
C: Social Contract
States are beholden only to their own citizens. There may be practical reasons for avoiding sanctions, but no inherently moral duty for the state to forgo them.


Could Go Either Way

V: Societal Welfare (or Morality or Life)
C: Consequentialism (or Utilitarianism, Act or Rule)
I've already seen arguments on both sides: that sanctions are ineffective and thus waste precious time, energy, and resources; that they benefit organized crime; that they strengthen tyrants; that they hurt average citizens, leading to other ills. On the other hand, I've seen Negs argue for "targeted" or "smart" sanctions; the claim is that they're more effective and don't punish the wrong people. I've also seen it argued that sanctions are more effective at the "threat stage" (and therefore must be used from time to time to keep their deterrent effect). Some are arguing (as per above) that, when faced with intractable opposition, the basic choice is between sanctions or war, and the costs of war are too high. In short, if you choose consequentialism as a criterion, prepare for a potentially back-and-forth round full of twists and "turns."

V: Peace
C: Pacifism or Isolationism

calculating the true costs of economic sanctions

An extremely useful article for both sides of the economic sanctions resolution is "A Prologamena [sic] to Thinking About Economic Sanctions and Free Trade," by David Baldwin, found in the Fall 2003 edition of the Chicago Journal of International Law.

Baldwin's primary aim is to clear away the fallacies that have cluttered up the debate over sanctions. After discussing the inherently political nature of sanctions, he considers their cost.

The logic of choice applies to situations in which policymakers must choose how to allocate scarce resources among competing ends. In such situations policymakers must consider the opportunity costs of their actions. In such situations, choosing a low-cost policy alternative with a low probability of success may not be foolish at all if the likely cost-effectiveness of other policy alternatives is even less attractive. Making that choice may be the rational thing to do. For example, military force may have the highest probability of success with respect to getting a country to change its human rights policy or stop exporting arms. Military force, however, is likely to be more expensive than economic sanctions. In such a situation, it may be rational to choose the less effective and less costly alternative of economic sanctions rather than the more effective but more costly alternative of military force. Herbert Simon explains it as follows:

An administrative choice is incorrectly posed, then, when it is posed as a choice between possibility A, with low costs and small results, and possibility B, with high costs and large results. For A should be substituted a third possibility C, which would include A plus the alternative activities made possible by the cost difference between A and B.

This opens up a potential Negative strategy for cross-examination. Ask, "Is military force justifiable?" If the Aff says "Yes," then you can argue that the cost of sanctions is much less than that of war--and that the other goods that can be instantiated by not engaging militarily, Simon's "C" scenario above, far outweigh the benefits of that engagement--even if the sanctions ultimately fail. (If the Aff says "no," then press hard to determine what sorts of interventions--if any--are justified in response to state aggression or wholesale rights abuses, if sanctions are also off the table.)

And, as Baldwin argues, those who claim that sanctions fail often commit any of three fallacies in thinking. The first is that sanctions must be evaluated against a single objective: for instance, whether Castro is still in power. (As Baldwin notes, this was not one of the four original stated objectives of the sanctions.) The second is the fallacy that sanctions can't be successful in degrees--that it's an all-or-nothing measure of success or failure. Baldwin calls this the "fallacy of misplaced dichotomies." The third and final fallacy is the idea that symbolic actions are functionless. As Baldwin writes,

Symbolic behavior is not unique to economic sanctions. James N. Rosenau contends that foreign policy "involves a degree of manipulation of symbols that is unmatched in any other political situation." And Robert Jervis reminds us that "[a] desired image... can often be of greater use than a significant increment of military or economic power. An undesired image can involve costs for which almost no amount of the usual kinds of power can compensate and can be a handicap almost impossible to overcome."

Economic sanctions are sometimes viewed as so useless and counterproductive that they can be worse than "doing nothing." Even putting aside the rather tricky question of what it means for a nation state to "do nothing," this is misleading. As a practical matter, "doing nothing" means doing what one would have done if the event provoking consideration of sanctions had not occurred. In other words, it means carrying on "business as usual." And countries that carry on business as usual when confronted by aggression (Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), racism (apartheid in South Africa), nuclear proliferation (India and Pakistan), or other violations of international norms are likely to acquire an image as being indifferent to such behavior. If they take action to avoid the acquisition of such an image, they are not necessarily behaving in a frivolous or expressive manner.

Combine this with the evidence that economic sanctions are more effective as a deterrent, and the Negative has a multi-pronged justification for their use.

do sanctions even work?

The LD January/February sanctions resolution asks us to consider whether nations ought to use economic sanctions to further foreign policy goals. Pragmatic or utilitarian-minded Affirmatives might argue that sanctions are wasteful, not only because of the costs they impose, but because they so often fail.

Do they? To answer the question, consider two recent summaries of the relevant literature. The first comes at the outset of "When Do Economic Sanctions Work? Asymmetric Perceptions, Issue Salience, and Outcomes," by Adrian U-Jin Ang and Dursun Peksen, found in Political Research Quarterly March 2007 edition.

[T]he conventional wisdom appears to be that sanctions are ineffective and failed policy instruments in the vast majority of cases (Galtung 1967; Wallensteen 1968; HSE; Pape 1997, 1998; Drury 1998; Elliott 1998). Others, however, have dissented from the conventional wisdom and have been critical of the assessment of sanctions being simply a dichotomous success-failure measure (Daoudi and Dajani 1983; Baldwin 1985; Baldwin and Pape 1998). They argue that compliance ought not to be the sole criterion for judging the success or failure of sanctions. In most of the cases, even though the total compliance of targets may not have been obtained, the sender may have managed to wring significant concessions from the target or succeeded in achieving less ambitious foreign policy goals such as symbolic gains.

It's important to realize the multifarious purposes of sanctions before determining they're a wholesale failure.

Lindsay (1986) undertook an examination of nineteen cases of trade sanctions and identified five separate foreign policy goals of senders: compliance, subversion, deterrence, international symbolism, and domestic symbolism. His findings suggested that sanctions aimed at compliance, subversion, and deterrence fail generally and that states often resort to sanctions for symbolic purposes.

Is that all that sanctions are good for? Not so fast:

[M]ore recent studies in the literature demonstrated that assessments of sanctions effectiveness have neglected the threat of sanctions, which has resulted in a selection bias (Smith 1996; Drezner 1999, 2003; Miers and Morgan 2002; Nooruddin 2002; Lacy and Niou 2004; Y. Li and Drury 2004; Drury and Li 2006). These studies argue that sanctions succeed more often than commonly suggested once the cases in which coercion is threatened but not imposed are also included in the analysis. The assumption is that if the targets expect that they will change their policies as a result of the imposition of sanctions, they may prefer to capitulate to the sender at the threat stage to avoid the economic cost of implemented sanctions. Due to the absence of comprehensive data on threatened but not imposed sanctions, these studies, however, have been limited mostly to game theoretic models and case studies that should be the subject of further empirical inquiry.

Limitations and qualifications: the bane of empirical research everywhere.

We turn to another article to see if Ang and Peksen's analysis is representative: Jon Hovi, Robert Huseby, and Detlef Sprinz's "When Do (Imposed) Economic Sanctions Work?" found in the July 2005 edition of World Politics. Their overall assessment is similar:

The dominant view historically has been that sanctions do not work. From Galtung's analysis of the sanctions against Rhodesia to Doxey's broader set of case studies, negative assessments have been numerous. According to Baldwin, "[i]t would be difficult to find any proposition in the international relations literature more widely accepted than those belittling the utility of economic techniques of statecraft."

What keeps sanctions, in general, from succeeding?

First, it is difficult to ensure that sanctions hurt where they are supposed to hurt. For example, when sanctions are imposed unilaterally, the target might reduce their impact by turning to alternative customers or suppliers and by using counterstrategies such as stockpiling, import substitution, rationing, and smuggling ("sanctions busting"). Moreover, the political elite in the target country might be able to pass on the costs of sanctions to other segments of the population. second, sanctions can be costly for the sender, too. In particular, when trade sanctions are being used, the target's neighbors often suffer significantly. Finally, while sanctions might cause protest against the political leadership in the target state, they might also conversely arouse defiance, patriotism, and popular support for the regime. In some cases the latter effects outweigh the former, with the result that resistance is reinforced rather than reduced.

At this point, the pragmatic rationale for sanctions seems pretty weak. Why do nations continue to employ them, then?

One answer is that sanctions also have domestic and symbolic dimensions. For example, sanctions might be imposed or sustained primarily to satisfy a domestic interest group or simply to demonstrate that the government cares and "is doing something." Others have emphasized that one needs to distinguish between (1) cases where sanctions have actually been imposed and (2) cases where sanctions have merely been threatened. Sanctions are usually threatened before they are imposed, and they are imposed only if the target refuses to comply. But if a credible threat of sanctions fails, it is usually a sign that the target does not intend to comply even if sanctions are imposed. So it is a curious fact that when sanctions are imposed, there are often good reasons to expect them to fail.

This leads the author to be critical of research focusing only on cases where sanctions were actually imposed. As they argue,

A satisfactory data set should also include cases where sanctions were threatened but were not imposed. This type of data set is used by Drezner to analyze cases in which the United States threatened sanctions to achieve reduced trade barriers, compliance with labor standards, or protection of the environment. He finds a considerably higher success rate in cases that ended at the threat stage than in cases where sanctions were actually imposed.

For the reasons cited above, this result makes sense: the most effective deterrent is the one that never has to be used.

So, to sum up: the Affirmative is on fairly solid ground to argue that sanctions are ineffective. In fact, I bet some Affirmatives are going to try to lay an "effectiveness burden" on the Negative. The Neg has at least two possible responses: adopting the burden and using the logic and evidence of deterrence, or rejecting the burden and arguing that even if economic sanctions are often ineffective, they're defensible as a morally superior or less wasteful alternative to war.

Iraq and the "terrible price" of sanctions

When a rogue nation is making life miserable for the international community, what can be done? Diplomatic talk is cheap--but you get what you pay for. War is costly, and only sometimes efficacious. Economic sanctions are a potential compromise, a way to pressure a nation into changes, or to at least keep it from wreaking havoc, without the commitment and cost of conflict.

But is it the right thing to do? Or does it end up punishing the wrong people? A recent example of the perils of sanctions--one that's already fully played out--is that of the U.S-led approach to Iraq. In an article published in the New York Times in 2003, David Rieff explores both sides of the sanctions debate.

American officials may quarrel with the numbers, but there is little doubt that at least several hundred thousand children who could reasonably have been expected to live died before their fifth birthdays. The damage, according to those who fought against sanctions, was terrible, medieval. It was, in the literal sense, unconscionable, since those who died had not themselves developed weapons of mass destruction or invaded Kuwait. Rather, they were the cannon fodder for Hussein's war and the victims of his repression.

Madeleine Albright was widely excoriated in 1996 for telling a television interviewer who asked her about the deaths of Iraqi children caused by sanctions, "This is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it."

She says now that she regrets the comment -- "It was a genuinely stupid thing to say" -- and in a recent interview seemed still to be struggling with the moral and strategic questions that underlie the sanctions debate. For Albright, the comprehensive regime of sanctions imposed on Iraq represented at best a tragic choice between unhappy alternatives -- a search for the lesser evil.

As Albright put it to me, "I wish people understood that these are not black and white choices; the choices are really hard." Sanctions like the ones that were imposed on Iraq, she said, "are a blunt instrument. That's their tragedy. What was so terrible for me was that I did see the faces of the people who were suffering -- even if I thought then and think now that the sufferings of the Iraqi people were Saddam's doing, not ours. There's a terrible price you pay. A terrible price."

The whole article is worth reading, especially if you're an LD debater interested in the Jan / Feb sanctions resolution.

Resolved: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives.

The January / February NFL Lincoln-Douglas debate topic has been released:

Resolved: Economic sanctions ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives.

The "ought" ostensibly makes this a matter of morality, which leads to the Affirmative's main question: why might economic sanctions be immoral? There are many reasons; perhaps the most common would be because they harm innocents, concomitant with the argument that they don't actually work, or, worse, are counterproductive, increasing the power of those they're meant to weaken. (Cuba and North Korea spring to mind.)

In essence, this is at least a two-layered debate, since the Negative will likely have to argue that not only are sanctions morally good, but good for something.

A deeper question concerns the role of morality in foreign policy. Idealists will value human rights (and any binding obligations to upholding them), while realists will call for prudence. Moral cosmopolitanism might come into play, as might international law and the role / effectiveness of the United Nations in enforcing sanctions.

Links and Further Analysis
As a kick-starter, an oldie but goodie from Franklin Foer, distinguishing trade from economic sanctions, determining whether they work (the upshot: hard to say), and summing up the costs.

Iraq and the "terrible price" of sanctions.

Looking at some empirical research to answer the question, Do sanctions even work?

Can the Neg justify the use of sanctions even if they largely aren't successful? And what's the cost/benefit analysis of the alternatives? A consequentialist take on the resolution.

Added 12/13: A nascent list of value/criterion pairs.

Added 12/15: Some alternatives to economic sanctions are considered.

Added 1/3: The Negative's use of "targeted sanctions" is considered.

Added 1/3: I answer a bushel of questions about the resolution.

Added 1/10: Some strategic considerations about the definition of economic sanctions.

Added 1/24: A critical view of sanctions, slanted toward the Aff.

Added 2/8: Some economic analysis, plus an alternative approach for the Aff.

As always, more--much more!--analysis and links will follow. And, of course, your questions and comments are what really make this website worthwhile.