Economic Sanctions and Leader Survival, 1945-2006

Abstract

Our study joins recent scholarship that examines the political impact of economic sanctions on targeted societies. While some studies find that sanctions destabilize the incumbent leadership of targeted countries, others reveal no relationship between sanctions and political survival. In this study, we seek to clarify the effect of economic sanctions on leader survival by identifying and addressing the contrasting and conditional expectations for the political effects of sanctions underspecified in previous research. We also provide the most comprehensive statistical test, for the 1945 to 2006 period. Our analysis shows that economic sanctions help targeted autocratic leaders to extend their stay in power. However, sanctions are found to exert no discernable political effects to targeted leaders in democracies.