Sanctions first appeared in the mid-1800s when a country or coalition would blockade a wayward country’s ports to cut off trade and force debt payment. Economic sanctions restricting trade, money or migration from a country have been routinely used in recent decades to coerce states without direct military conflict.
However, they are mostly a tool of countries with larger, developed economies:
Even then, sanctions are usually not an effective foreign policy tool, say researchers:
Few cases of economic sanctions in the 20th century have imposed major costs on the countries that implement them; however, the 1980 U.S. embargo on grain exports to the Soviet Union cost America $2.3 billion and caused American farmers to lose their dominant market share of grain exports.
Globalisation has increased international trade relationships and has weakened sanctions’ potential power by creating new ways in which target countries can circumvent them.
Though sanctions are clearly more beneficial when wielded by rich countries, there is not much evidence to suggest that they aid in forcing countries to conform to the initiator’s demands.
Source: Lance Davis and Stanley Engerman, Sanctions: Neither War Nor Peace, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2003.
For more on Sanctions and other Trade Barriers http://www.ncpa.org/iss/tra/
FMF Policy Bulletin/29 July 2003
