Ending Economic Coercion: Domestic Politics and International Bargaining

Abstract

Research on when economic sanctions end has emphasized either the international bargaining game played by the sender and the target or the redistributive politics and ruling coalition changes in each state. We contend that neither approach offers a fully satisfactory explanation for economic coercion termination. Bargaining is inconsistent with long coercion episodes while ruling coalition changes cannot inform our understanding of very short episodes. We argue that both bargaining factors and domestic realignments matter, but the influence of bargaining factors declines as a sanctions episode continues while the relevance of domestic realignments increases over time. Our empirical tests, which utilize the new Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions data set, provide support for both the bargaining and domestic realignment approaches, suggesting that unifying them is beneficial.