Domestic Support for Economic Sanctions: Legitimacy vs. Efficacy

• In Event: Economic Sanctions and Economic Costs

Abstract

What impacts domestic support for economic sanctions? Existing research on sanctions and public opinion have focused on how sanctions have impacted or shifted public opinion in target states (Alexeev, 2020; Grossman et al., 2018; Frye, 2019). However, domestic factors are also important determinants in the implementation and the specifics of economic foreign policy, including sanctions (McLean and Whang, 2014; Webb, 2018). Less work has been undertaken to distill the roots of public support for economic sanctions. Yet, as economic foreign policies are often rooted in domestic politics, public support has important implications on the duration of sanctions and the efficacy of the eventual sanction design. Conventional wisdom suggests that multilateral sanctions are often favored for their perceived legitimacy, both domestic and international, as well as their heightened coerciveness. However, these may also come with trade-offs with regards to the scope and severity of the measures the sender is able pursue. This paper examines the sender state public’s preferences over economic sanctions policies. Utilizing a survey experiment conducted on American adults, we illustrate the trade-offs made by citizens over efficacy and legitimacy.

Authors

• So Jin Lee, MIT

• Pei-Yu Wei, Duke University