The Deployment Of Economic Sanctions On The International...

The deployment of economic sanctions on the international stage by states to influence the behavior of other states has become the norm in International Relations. Despite the increase in popularity of this practice over the course of the past century, the question of its efficiency is one that is still debated and remains unanswered. The idea that putting economic pressures on a country to illicit a certain behavior or change in behavior from that country works in theory, but in practice, it is more complicated and does not necessarily work the way that theory suggests it should. Some economists and policy analysts have taken the approach of deconstructing the subject in order to consider what variable may or may not affect the efficiency†¦show more content†¦Positive sanctions are meant to foster relations between countries. Negative sanctions are intended to cause another country economic harm. The debate around economic sanctions typically focuses on the negative kind. S anctions can be unilateral - from one sender country to one target country - or multilateral from multiple countries. Multilateral sanctions can be orchestrated by one main country supported by other countries, or they can be sent under the auspices of an international organization. Raul Caruso distinguishes three different kinds of negative sanctions – boycotts, embargoes, and Kassim 3 financial sanctions. A boycott is the restriction of imports from the target country; embargoes are restrictions on exports to the target country; financial sanctions are restrictions on investment in the target country (Caruso â€Å"Should We Set† 23). Kaempfer and Lowenberg posit that economic sanctions can be proposed for the following three reasons: in response to a nation that threatens the wealth or security of the sender nation; to achieve moral or ideological goals; as a part of trade policy and commercial relations – i.e. in response to tariffs or quotas (Kaempfer 2). The question of whether or not sanctions are efficient is a difficult one to answer. A major contributing factor to this difficulty is the lack of a universal standard for gauging success. Analysts create the criteria by which to judge success, and these criteria are not accepted by