Recovering from economic coercion: Does the pain stop when sanctions end?

Abstract

Sanctions episodes, like those imposed by the United States against Cuba and North Korea, can persist for decades. What are the consequences of lifting sanctions? Do the harmful consequences of economic sanctions outlast the sanctions? How do target states adjust after these coercive policies end? A growing literature identifies a range of adverse effects of economic sanctions for targeted states including shrinking income from trade and investment, declining respect for human rights, increased repression, and negative health outcomes. While scholars have studied the impact of sanctions imposition in great detail, we have considerably less systematic knowledge about the fate of governments, economies, and citizens in the years that follow the lifting of sanctions. What are the effects of lifting sanctions? As a first cut, we explore how government spending on public health shifts following the end of sanctions. Do governments reinvest in health after sanctions as a means of countering the negative well-being effects we know are associated with sanctions? Or do regimes maintain low levels of spending because their populations have learned to cope with scarcity? In this article, we analyze the impact of sanctions termination on government spending on health (1980–2018), finding that after sanctions, spending priorities readjust as trade and revenue increase. This readjustment effort diminishes as time passes.