著者

田中 世紀

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2009, no.158, pp.158_165-181, 2009-12-25 (Released:2012-02-20)

参考文献数

58

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Why are economic sanctions initiated? This paper will describe through quantitative analysis the conditions under which a state or states impose economic sanctions against autocratic regimes. Conventional wisdom argues that norms or interests are important factors leading to the initiation mechanism: economic sanctions are likely to be imposed against countries which violate democratic norms or do not have significant trade ties with sender states. Norms or interests, however, can not explain the actual pattern of initiation of economic sanctions.In this article I propose that reputation is a key factor in the pattern of initiation of economic sanctions. Specifically, economic sanctions are imposed when the sender's reputation is about to be questioned. To put it another way, states do not consider initiating economic sanctions for purely coercive diplomatic purposes, but rather for the maintenance of their reputation. When does reputation matter? This paper assumes the higher the international concern, the higher the stakes for a state's reputation. For example, when the international community pays great attention to a situation, states must do something to maintain their reputation; but states need not do great things—simply doing something is enough. It follows that states do not implement strong economic sanctions, but rather use weak economic sanctions because the sanctions themselves are implemented as symbolic gestures. I refer to this as the symbolic hypothesis.I use panel probit analysis to test this symbolic hypothesis. The data include 24 sanctions initiated by the EU against African countries from 1990 to 2001. The results of my analysis show that the EU tends to impose economic sanctions in reaction to coups, grave violations of human rights, and major states' misbehavior, all of which seem to draw a great deal of international attention. In contrast, the EU is likely to ignore the retreat of democracy and/or minor states' misbehavior, which do not draw public attention. Concerning the type of economic sanctions, my analysis finds that the EU prefers to use relatively weak and costless sanctions such as suspensions or reductions of economic aid, rather than choosing strong and costly alternatives such as trade embargos. All of my results confirm the symbolic hypothesis' predictions. Economic sanctions, after all, are initiated when the senders' reputation is at stake.The findings also challenge the central paradox of economic sanctions concerning why such sanctions continue to be imposed despite seemingly having little effect on the target states. States do not coerce other states to do what they desire, but instead they continue to be forced to use weak economic sanctions, which might be ineffective, to maintain their reputation.