Foreword

Debate over the utility of economic sanctions remains brisk and their use has certainly not diminished. In our recent book, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered 3d edition, my colleagues and I examined 204 episodes over the past century and concluded that, in about one-third of the episodes, economic sanctions succeeded to some degree in achieving their foreign policy goals.1 The one-third rate may not seem terrific, but it does contradict the common statement that “sanctions never work.” We found that the success of economic sanctions depends on various factors—including the type of goal sought, the economic and political context in the target country, and the manner in which the sanctions were implemented. For practitioners, the important question is how to design sanctions so they work better. Since the end of the Cold War, sanctions policies have shifted dramatically. The decline of super power rivalry coupled with the force of globalization changed the objectives and geographic locus of sanctions and introduced new players into the game: non-state actors (both benign non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) and malign terrorists and drug traffickers) along with different layers of government (notably Congress, and many states and cities). Sanctions policies have consequently targeted a wider spectrum of issues such as ethnic strife, civil chaos, human rights, democracy, narcotics trafficking and terrorism. Authors in this symposium issue delve into the new aspects and deliver a wealth of thoughtful analysis.