ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF FOREIGN-POLICY - THE ROLE OF DOMESTIC POLITICS

Most studies of economic sanctions have concluded that they are ineffe ctive as instruments of foreign policy. In a previous effort, we appli ed the spatial model of bargaining to the question of sanctions effect iveness to identify the conditions under which sanctions can be expect ed to ''work.'' In this paper, we refine that analysis by examining th e impact of domestic politics in the state that is the target of the s anctions. Sanction episodes may be examples of two-level games in whic h the domestic game within both parties affects the international game and vice-versa. Hera, we take a first cut of applying this approach t o the analysis of sanctions effectiveness. We extend the spatial model to focus on how sanctions affect the internal political bargaining wi thin the target state. From this, we determine how state policy should change (or not) as a result of the sanctions. We use the basic model to identify general hypotheses regarding the nature of sanctions and t heir effectiveness and we evaluate some of these hypotheses using case s in which the United States imposed sanctions on Latin American count ries for human rights violations.