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

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, particularly 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.

The “First daughter” effect: Human rights advocacy and attitudes toward gender equality in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan

“…This poses important information, strategic, and normative dilemmas for the international community [ 9 , 10 ]. On the one hand, some political science research shows that a combination of ideational pressure and economic incentives can create improvements in governments’ human rights performance, including gender equality [ 11 ]. On the other hand, some literature suggests that coercive international pressure for women’s human rights in non-Western contexts can generate a backlash against women and human rights, and fuel conflict dynamics [ 12 ].…”

“…However, if such a finding did hold–and particularly if it could be activated through priming men to think about their daughters–it would be of immense value to advocates of women’s human rights and international service-delivery organizations, who face a dilemma in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and similar contexts [ 25 ]. On the one hand, data shows a positive correlation between gender equality, development, security, and peace both within and among nation-states [ 26 ], and international advocacy and incentives can play an important role in supporting and creating space for local human rights advocacy groups [ 11 , 27 – 29 ]. On the other hand, outside advocacy for women’s human rights can cause a backlash [ 30 ], feed ongoing conflict dynamics [ 31 , 32 ], result in further restrictions on women’s civil society organizations [ 33 , 34 ] or at best create marginal gains for women [ 35 ].…”