A Little Coercion among Friends? Sanctions within Alliances

• In Event: Poster Session: International Collaboration

Abstract

Do states use economic sanctions as a tool of coercion against their allies? Common sense and existing evidence both suggest that this sort of behavior would be rare. One might argue that sanctions are a common tool of coercion used by one state to incentivize another to bow to its wishes in terms of foreign or domestic policy. However, one would also likely expect that the use of sanctions against an ally threatens to undermine the strategic partnership, thus costing the state imposing the sanctions both in terms of decreased security as well as in terms of economic loss resulting from damage to trade ties between the states in question. While this common wisdom is broadly accepted, I argue that it is incomplete and in need of revision. Critically, the argument discussed above fails to account for the important effect of the existence of third-party audiences, such as other allies, upon the willingness of one ally to impose punishment on another in response to undesirable behavior. If a State A has numerous allies, we should expect those other allies to observe interactions between State A and another one of its allies, State B, and may modify their behavior in response to those interactions. Thus, it is highly likely that situations will arise in which one state finds it desirable to punish an ally for unwanted behavior despite the possibility that such punishment will damage the alliance and State A's interests in some way. In fact, the damage to interests that State A is willing to incur to make its displeasure with an ally felt can likely be thought of as a costly signal that is observable to all other states with which "A" shares interests and that may cause other allies to update their beliefs about the profitability of a course of action that is detrimental to State A's interests. I test this argument in a dataset of international economic sanctions 1946-2000 and find evidence in support of the argument that the presence of potential third-party observers increases the likelihood one state will use sanctions against an ally in response to unwanted behavior.

Author

• Richard Saunders, Florida State University