Category: SISOlson

I am proposing to research discourses on territorial sovereignty in the South China Sea because I want to find out why territory so far from the Chinese mainland (and so close to others’ borders) has stirred such heated conflict in order to help my reader understand how we might prevent the disputes from escalating into conflict. To this end, I have identified three sources which at least begin to reveal different discourses: the results of the international arbitration from the UN regarding the dispute between China and the Philippines,[1] an interview with a Chinese cartographer,[2] and the map of China in the official Chinese passport.[3]

The Court of Arbitration’s ruling is a useful source for uncovering different discourses because both the Philippines and China were forced to lay out their respective justifications for territorial control. China’s position was mostly based on historical claims emerging from a map drawn in 1947, while the Philippines argued on a more technical basis, referencing its Special Economic Zones endowed to it through the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.[4] This difference in how the countries justified their claims might point to a difference in their official discourses, though I would need to investigate further before making any substantial claims.

The court’s ruling is also clearly linked to other texts through China’s invocation of the 1947 map in their justification. That map was created by the Nationalist Party during its war with the Communists but was largely neglected afterwards, with its creator even being killed for having supported the Nationalists, and it only resurfaced in 2009.[5] I know from prior studies that Maoist China erased many historical documents preceding the revolution, so it makes sense that the map was neglected for so long, but why the map recently resurfaced is still a puzzle I don’t fully understand. The relationship between the map, the discourses surrounding China’s civil war, and China’s current territorial claims would be well worth continuing to explore.

Another interesting element of the ruling was China’s contestation of the Court’s jurisdiction, in which it argued that any ruling would be invalid because China and the Philippines had agreed to settle matters of territory on a bilateral basis.[6] China’s preference for bilateral engagement, as opposed to the Philippines’ initiation of the arbitration, also reveals a difference in the way each side views the relationship between sovereignty and international institutions, a concept grounded in each state’s construction of sovereignty itself. My prior studies of China (in the interest of reflexivity) make me think that China’s preference for bilateral engagement might come from the increased privacy it affords. I would be interested to explore this direction further by investigating other primary sources.

Next, the interview with the Chinese cartographer points to an underlying discourse in two ways: through her reaction to the aforementioned arbitration decision and through her justification of the “Nine-Dash Line” that constitute China’s maritime claims. When asked about the arbitration decision, the cartographer said, “They didn’t respect history. I totally agree with the response of our government.”[7] The arbitration arguments also alluded to historical control, but I find her use of the word “respect” interesting within this context since such a word would not typically be associated with legal minutiae, especially as granular as this case’s arguments became.[8] This makes me think the text could relate to the social practice of respect and other discourses surrounding relationships to authority. The cartographer also frequently mentioned China’s benevolent intentions, even lauding China as “humanitarian” for allowing passage through waters it considered sovereign,[9] although such actions are already mandated by international law.[10] That part of the interview seems to construct China’s identity as a benevolent power besieged by those who misunderstand it, quite different from the Philippines’ construction of China in the arbitration arguments as aggressive and hegemony-seeking.

Lastly, the map on the Chinese passport invokes the discourse of territorial sovereignty because it includes on it the Nine-Dash Line demarcating its maritime claims. That the lines made it onto a document as official as a passport clearly shows these claims to be part of Chinese official discourse. What makes this text especially interesting is that it includes other areas of contested territory as well, including several regions both China and India claim as well as Taiwan.[11] This shows how this text relates the discourse on the South China Sea to other official discourses on territorial sovereignty. Another interesting element is that the dashes on the passport encompass a larger area than the original 1947 map did[12]; in other words, the government stretched even the historical interpretation’s boundaries. My intuition says this may reveal a difference between the official discourse and the academic discourse on the Chinese side, another potential area for exploration.

Notes

[1] United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration (hereafter UNPCA) Case in the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China, Awarded 12 July 2016 (Case Nº 2013-19), <https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/175/2016/07/PH-CN-20160712-Award.pdf> (Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018).

[2] Hannah Beech. “Just Where Exactly Did China Get the South China Sea Nine-Dash Line From?” Time Magazine, 19 July 2016, <http://time.com/4412191/nine-dash-line-9-south-china-sea/> (Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018).

[3] Max Fisher. “Here’s the Chinese passport map that’s infuriating much of Asia,” The Washington Post, 26 Nov. 2012, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/26/heres-the-chinese-passport-map-thats-infuriating-much-of-asia/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.050b03ab0a68> (Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018).

[4] UNPCA Case in the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China.

[5] Beech, “Just Where Exactly Did China Get the South China Sea Nine-Dash Line From?”

[6] UNPCA Case in the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China.

[7] Beech, “Just Where Exactly Did China Get the South China Sea Nine-Dash Line From?”

[8] One section of the arbitration regarded what constitutes an “island,” including how long it is inundated during the course of a day. The concept of respect seems rather distant from such an argument.

[9] Beech, “Just Where Exactly Did China Get the South China Sea Nine-Dash Line From?”

[10] Ibid.

[11] Fisher, “Here’s the Chinese passport map that’s infuriating much of Asia.”

[12] Ibid.

Bibliography

Beech, Hannah. “Just Where Exactly Did China Get the South China Sea Nine-Dash Line From?” Time Magazine, 19 July 2016, <http://time.com/4412191/nine-dash-line-9-south-china-sea/> (Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018).

Fisher, Max. “Here’s the Chinese passport map that’s infuriating much of Asia,” The Washington Post, 26 Nov. 2012, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2012/11/26/heres-the-chinese-passport-map-thats-infuriating-much-of-asia/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.050b03ab0a68> (Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018).

United Nations Permanent Court of Arbitration Case in the Matter of the South China Sea Arbitration between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China. Awarded 12 July 2016 (Case Nº 2013-19), <https://pca-cpa.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/175/2016/07/PH-CN-20160712-Award.pdf> (Accessed: 11 Nov. 2018).

To operationalize my dependent variable in a small-n case study, I will again return to the question of what explains the success or failure of economic sanctions. In this pursuit, it is worth noting that the success or failure of sanctions must be defined in terms of the sender government rather than exogenously imposed. It will therefore be vital to investigate the motives behind certain sanctions cases rather than to judge their success or failure through imposed costs or through policy concessions alone. While fulfillment of goals will likely not be the only criterion by which I will measure sanction success, it is sufficiently important that it will be the primary subject of this post. To this end, I have identified four sources that will aid first in identifying sanction objectives and then in identifying the mechanisms by which they were imposed.

The first two works, which address both aims and mechanisms, are Treasury’s War by Juan Zarate[1] and The Art of Sanctions by Richard Nephew.[2] The first is a memoir by the architect of sanctions on Iraq, and the second is a memoir by the architect of sanctions on Iran. In both books, the authors recount the internal process of crafting sanctions against the two regimes, including specific members in the regime they targeted and the means by which the US executed the sanctions strategies.[3] These two works would be used to operationalize the dependent variable in that they identify specific US goals for the sanctions, the success of which I can judge using other sources. These sources are also beneficial in that they provide insight in cases with different results for the dependent variable of success: from my own knowledge and from my research heretofore, scholars have considered sanctions on Iraq to be a failure and sanctions on Iran to be a success.[4]

The next two works are also primary sources, namely the texts of the Global Magnitsky Act[5] and the broader US Code on Sanctions Against Certain Foreign Persons,[6] both of which enable the US to impose sanctions under certain circumstances. These texts would not be as helpful in identifying the aims of sanctions as the memoirs of administration officials would, but they do provide insight into the mechanisms by which these sanctions were imposed, including the agencies who are designated to report to Congress and some context behind their imposition. Moreover, by researching the congressional debates surrounding the bills and the texts of the committee hearings, I should be able to glean more regarding the goals and motivations of the bills. In addition, the Global Magnitsky Act in a way provides a different potential result for the dependent variable: mixed success. The bill was based on the previous Magnitsky Act, which applied only to Russian officials in response for aggression in Ukraine. While that bill succeeded regarding the economic effects it had on Russian officials, the policy success has been less clear. The economic success and mixed political effects thus reflect the need for an intermediate measure of sanction success.

Notes

[1] Juan Zarate, Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare (New York, UNITED STATES: PublicAffairs, 2013), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1139762.

[2] Richard. Nephew, The Art of Sanctions : A View from the Field., Center on Global Energy Policy Series (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).

[3] Zarate, Treasury’s War, Ch. 1; Nephew, The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field, Ch. 3

[4] Barry E. Carter and Ryan M. Farha, “Overview and Operation of U.S. Financial Sanctions, Including the Example of Iran,” Georgetown Journal of International Law, 2013, LegalTrac.

[5] U.S. Congress, Senate, Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, 114^th Congress, S. 284. Accessed on Thomas, 28 Oct 2018.

[6] 22 U.S.C. § 2798, accessed 28 Oct. 2018.

Bibliography

Carter, Barry E., and Ryan M. Farha. “Overview and Operation of U.S. Financial Sanctions, Including the Example of Iran.” Georgetown Journal of International Law, 2013. LegalTrac.

Nephew, Richard. The Art of Sanctions : A View from the Field. Center on Global Energy Policy Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.

U.S. Code 22 § 2798, accessed 28 Oct. 2018.

U.S. Congress, Senate, Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, 114^th Congress, S. 284. Accessed on Thomas, 28 Oct 2018.

Zarate, Juan. Treasury’s War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare. New York, UNITED STATES: PublicAffairs, 2013. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=1139762.

The Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) data set is a list of enacted and threatened sanction episodes from the period 1945-2005.[1] It is the primary data set used in modern sanctions literature, and it codes for variables such as why sanctions were issued, the type of sanction threatened/imposed, the origin/intensity of a sanction threat, costs to both the sender and target, and the success of the sanction episode.[2]

The most important variable I would pull from the data set for my project is the ordinal measurement of success, since sanction success will be the dependent variable in my large-n research design. The fact that the indicator is ordinal (in this case from 1-10) instead of a binary nominal indicator is also helpful in that it allows for the partial attribution of success advocated by the complementarian school of thought in sanctions literature. Beyond the success measure, I would also likely use the nominal variables for the issue prompting the sanction and the threatened target interest as well as the ordinal variable of sender commitment.

The data set’s coverage is rather exhaustive, including 1412 cases over the years 1945-2005.[3] A key element of the set’s coverage is its inclusion of cases in which sanctions were threatened but never enacted, since many scholars emphasize the importance of threats in sanction success.[4] Previous studies had relied on sanctions cases from Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot’s Economic Sanctions Reconsidered,[5] which were both fewer in number and did not include threats.

As extensive as this data set is, however, it does not cover episodes as recent as those resulting from the territory disputes in the South China Sea. Thus, I will need to readjust my research question toward my general puzzle of what explains the success or failure of trade sanctions if I intend to use this data set. However, this is probably a good thing, especially because to my knowledge, there wouldn’t be enough cases from the South China Sea conflicts for a proper large-n study anyways.

Though this data set is the standard in the field at this point, it certainly has its limitations. The biggest limitation is that the set contains mostly ordinal and nominal variables and few interval-ratio variables. Moreover, for the interval-ratio variables the set includes (like sanction costs to sender, for example), data is missing for the vast majority of episodes. When I met with the librarian Clement again earlier this week, he suggested that a reliance on nominal and ordinal variables could weaken a statistical analysis of these episodes and thus suggested I consult the World Bank’s Development Indicators to find interval-ratio data for potential independent variables. My next step, then, is to consider what interval-ratio variables might pair well with this data set.

 Notes

[1] The data set’s citation, in the style as directed by its codebook, is as follows:

Morgan, T. Clifton, Navin Bapat, and Yoshi Kobayashi. 2014. “The Threat and Imposition of Sanctions: Updating the TIES dataset.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 31(5): 541-558.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] For a few examples, see: Daniel W. Drezner, The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations, Cambridge Studies in International Relations; 65, (Cambridge [England]; Cambridge University Press, 1999); Navin A. Bapat et al., “Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness: Sensitivity Analysis Using New Data,” International Interactions 39, no. 1 (2013): 79–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2013.751298; and Timothy M. Peterson, “Sending a Message: The Reputation Effect of US Sanction Threat Behavior,” International Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2013): 672–82, https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12017.

[5] Gary Clyde. Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliot, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd ed., Expanded ed. (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2007).

Bibliography

Bapat, Navin A., Tobias Heinrich, Yoshiharu Kobayashi, and T. Clifton Morgan. “Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness: Sensitivity Analysis Using New Data.” International Interactions 39, no. 1 (2013): 79–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2013.751298.

Drezner, Daniel W. The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations. Cambridge Studies in International Relations; 65. Cambridge [England] ; Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Hufbauer, Gary Clyde., Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliot. Economic Sanctions Reconsidered. 3rd ed., Expanded ed. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2007.

Morgan, T. Clifton, Navin Bapat, and Yoshi Kobayashi. 2014. “The Threat and Imposition of Sanctions: Updating the TIES dataset.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 31(5): 541-558.

Peterson, Timothy M. “Sending a Message: The Reputation Effect of US Sanction Threat Behavior.” International Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2013): 672–82. https://doi.org/10.1111/isqu.12017.

1. I am proposing to research China’s use of trade sanctions in territorial disputes in the South China Sea…
2. because I want to find out what explains the success or failure of trade sanctions…
3. in order to help my reader understand why states use different policy tools in different scenarios and, thus, understand how states will interact in conflict.

Historically, the scholarship on sanctions had long concluded that they were entirely ineffective policy instruments.[1] It wasn’t until the 1980s that the literature began to question that conclusion, and the literature has grown significantly as the world has become more interconnected and as strategic embargoes and economic warfare have given way to financial and targeted sanctions. At this point, most scholars would agree that sanctions can be effective, if only under certain conditions. Those conditions continue to be debated today, including how regime type affects sanction effectiveness, whether targeted sanctions are more effective than classic sanctions, the effectiveness of sanctions over time, what goals sanctions can achieve, and where sanctions’ effectiveness comes from (economic costs, domestic pressures to foreign governments, etc.).[2] Thus, several factors point to this topic as a puzzle: 1) the dramatic reversal in the literature of what was seemingly a settled matter; 2) the current debates over the conditions under which sanctions can be effective; and 3) the increasing (and new) ways that states are employing sanctions today.

What puzzles me about China’s trade sanctions in the South China Sea, specifically, is that they seem to defy most of the literature’s predictions. The first odd part about them is that they are trade sanctions, not financial sanctions. The US and the European Union will often use targeted financial sanctions to signal disapproval or to influence a government’s behavior, but trade sanctions are much rarer.[3] It is generally accepted that trade sanctions are a part of economic warfare,[4] but China routinely deploys them in non-war settings and on non-strategic goods. When deployed in non-war settings, these sanctions aren’t supposed to work.[5] Even when trade sanctions may be effective from a signaling perspective, scholars agree that they are unlikely to change a regime’s policy.[6] However, despite these findings, China has continually achieved policy concessions from its neighbors through these sanctions.[7]

Other scholars have pointed out that sanction success is often underestimated because of instances where sanctions are threatened but the target capitulates before they are imposed.[8] However, this argument also doesn’t fully explain China’s success, since Beijing frequently denies that these trade sanctions are even happening. When China banned rare earth element exports to Japan during a 2010 territory dispute, China’s Ministry of Commerce dismissed such accusations, claiming that there was “no foundation” for that reporting.[9] In other instances, however, China has openly threatened retaliation: when dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, China issued a statement warning of “consequences” for governments that attended the ceremony,[10] and retaliated against Norway by both halting FTA negotiations and imposing new inspections on Norwegian salmon that significantly curtailed imports.[11] Even in this case, though, the sanctions themselves were not rhetorically linked to the Nobel ceremony. Thus, another potential question regards what explains China’s inconsistent denials for its imposition of sanctions.[12]

Other explanations of sanction success seem equally insufficient when applied to China. Risa Brooks finds that trade sanctions are more effective on democracies, while targeted sanctions are more effective against autocracies[13]; however, China’s successful trade sanctions have occurred against non- or semi-democracies like Vietnam and the Philippines. Drezner finds that successful sanctions usually involve cordial prior relations with countries,[14] but China’s rocky relationships with its neighbors did not render the sanctions ineffective.

There do, however, seem to be a few possible explanations. Scholars like Lisa Martin have argued that credible commitment and willingness to shoulder costs are determining factors in sanction success, for example.[15] Since China is an authoritarian regime, it makes sense that it would be better able to credibly commit to a policy and absorb those costs. Other scholars credit declining hegemonic influence with failed sanction attempts.[16] Thus, a converse explanation invoking China’s rising hegemonic influence seems like it could be a source of China’s sanction success. Lastly, some scholars have argued that a military threat backing up sanctions increases their probability of success[17] – what Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot call a “companion policy.”[18] China’s military buildup in the South China Sea matches well with this explanation.

However, although these explanations all seem plausible, there seems to be little consensus on which factor is most important. Moreover, I haven’t come across a thorough treatment of these success factors applied to China, which could be a valuable case for teasing out the veracity of these explanations.

Although the lack of adequate explanations for China’s success should ipso facto demonstrate the topic’s significance for other researchers, I will also draw on Booth’s framework of negative questioning (i.e. what is lost if you don’t know this)[19] to discuss its significance. If we don’t understand why China is so successful in using trade sanctions to win territorial disputes, then we can’t fully understand the conditions under which sanctions can succeed; this means we can’t fully understand why states use different policy tools in different scenarios; and this means we can’t understand or predict how states will interact in conflict, a topic which has vast implications for both our own knowledge as well as global peace and security.

Thus, my proposed research questions are as follows:

What explains China’s success in using trade sanctions to win territorial disputes in the South China Sea?

What explains the success or failure of trade sanctions?

Or, alternatively:

Why does China officially deny some forms of economic retaliation but openly warn of others?

Notes

[1] Johan Galtung, “On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions, With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia,” World Politics 19, no. 3 (1967): 378; Klaus Knorr, The Power of Nations : The Political Economy of International Relations (New York: Basic Books, 1975).

[2] These can be summed up as “the conditions under which sanctions can be effective.” While noted here, these debates are easier to explain in context. Thus, the following paragraphs address various aspects of these debates in greater detail, answering at the same time both why the general topic area is a puzzle and why this specific instance is significant and demands explanation. This should satisfy the second and third bullet points of the rubric, respectively.

[3] Daniel W. Drezner, “Targeted Sanctions in a World of Global Finance,” International Interactions 41, no. 4 (August 8, 2015): 755–64.

[4] Michael Mastanduno, “Strategies of Economic Containment: U.S. Trade Relations with the Soviet Union,” World Politics 37, no. 4 (1985): 503–31; Alan P. Dobson, US Economic Statecraft for Survival, 1933-1991: Of Sanctions, Embargoes and Economic Warfare (Abingdon, Oxon, UNITED KINGDOM: Routledge, 2003); Tor Egil Førland, “The History of Economic Warfare: International Law, Effectiveness, Strategies,” Journal of Peace Research 30, no. 2 (1993): 151–62.

[5] Robert A. Pape, “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work,” International Security 22, no. 2 (1997): 90–136.

[6] James M. Lindsay, “Trade Sanctions As Policy Instruments: A Re-Examination,” International Studies Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1986): 153–73.

[7] Bonnie S. Glaser, “China’s Coercive Economic Diplomacy: A New and Worrying Trend,” Center for Stategic and International Studies, August 6, 2012, https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-coercive-economic-diplomacy-new-and-worrying-trend.

[8] Daniel W. Drezner, “The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion,” International Organization 57, no. 3 (ed 2003): 643–59.

[9] Peter Foster and Julian Ryall. “China ‘places unofficial ban’ on key metals exports to Japan,” The Telegraph, 23 September 2010 < https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8020298/China-places-unofficial-ban-on-key-metals-exports-to-Japan.html> (Accessed: 30 September 2018).

[10] “China warns states not to support Nobel dissident,” BBC News Online, 5 November 2010 < https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11701725> (Accessed: 30 September 2018).

[11] Glaser, “China’s Coercive Economic Diplomacy.”

[12] The two contemporaneous news articles are intended as primary sources to exemplify China’s lack of rhetorical justification for sanctions and relate to the third potential research question posed at the end of the piece.

[13] Risa A. Brooks, “Sanctions and Regime Type: What Works, and When?,” Security Studies 11, no. 4 (June 1, 2002): 1–50.

[14] Daniel W. Drezner, The Sanctions Paradox : Economic Statecraft and International Relations, Cambridge Studies in International Relations ; 65 (Cambridge [England] ; Cambridge University Press, 1999).

[15] Lisa L. Martin, Coercive Cooperation: Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992).

[16] Bruce W. Jentleson, Pipeline Politics : The Complex Political Economy of East-West Energy Trade, Cornell Studies in Political Economy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986).

[17] Pape, “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work.”

[18] Gary Clyde. Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliot, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd ed., Expanded ed. (Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2007).

[19] Wayne C.; Colomb Booth Gregory G.; Williams, Joseph M.; Bizup, Joseph; Fitzgerald, William T, The Craft of Research, vol. 16 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226065694.001.0001.

Bibliography

Brooks, Risa A. “Sanctions and Regime Type: What Works, and When?” Security Studies 11, no. 4 (June 1, 2002): 1–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/714005349.

“China warns states not to support Nobel dissident,” BBC News, 5 November 2010. < https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11701725> (Accessed: 30 September 2018).

Dobson, Alan P. US Economic Statecraft for Survival, 1933-1991: Of Sanctions, Embargoes and Economic Warfare. Abingdon, Oxon, UNITED KINGDOM: Routledge, 2003. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aul/detail.action?docID=178874.

Drezner, Daniel W. “Targeted Sanctions in a World of Global Finance.” International Interactions 41, no. 4 (August 8, 2015): 755–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050629.2015.1041297.

Drezner, Daniel W. “The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion.” International Organization 57, no. 3 (ed 2003): 643–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818303573052.

Drezner, Daniel W. The Sanctions Paradox : Economic Statecraft and International Relations. Cambridge Studies in International Relations ; 65. Cambridge [England] ; Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Førland, Tor Egil. “The History of Economic Warfare: International Law, Effectiveness, Strategies.” Journal of Peace Research 30, no. 2 (1993): 151–62.

Foster, Peter and Julian Ryall. “China ‘places unofficial ban’ on key metals exports to Japan,” The Telegraph, 23 September 2010. < https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8020298/China-places-unofficial-ban-on-key-metals-exports-to-Japan.html> (Accessed: 30 September 2018).

Glaser, Bonnie S. “China’s Coercive Economic Diplomacy: A New and Worrying Trend.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 6, 2012. https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-coercive-economic-diplomacy-new-and-worrying-trend.

Hufbauer, Gary Clyde., Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliot. Economic Sanctions Reconsidered. 3rd ed., Expanded ed. Washington, DC: Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2007.

Jentleson, Bruce W. Pipeline Politics : The Complex Political Economy of East-West Energy Trade. Cornell Studies in Political Economy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Knorr, Klaus. The Power of Nations : The Political Economy of International Relations. New York: Basic Books, 1975.

Lindsay, James M. “Trade Sanctions As Policy Instruments: A Re-Examination.” International Studies Quarterly 30, no. 2 (1986): 153–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/2600674.

Martin, Lisa L. Coercive Cooperation : Explaining Multilateral Economic Sanctions. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Mastanduno, Michael. “Strategies of Economic Containment: U.S. Trade Relations with the Soviet Union.” World Politics 37, no. 4 (1985): 503–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/2010342.

Pape, Robert A. “Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work.” International Security 22, no. 2 (1997): 90–136. https://doi.org/10.2307/2539368.

Blanchard and Ripsman argue in their paper “A Political Theory of Economic Statecraft” that current models of sanctions do not adequately account for domestic interest groups as a determinant of sanction success[1]. In the paper, they propose a new model based on a “stateness” variable and use a case-study comparison to test it against three traditional schools of thought: a realist model, which presumes that sanctions cannot alter states’ strategic calculus; an economic liberal model, which presumes that economic concerns often outweigh strategic concerns; and a domestic conditionalist model, which assesses regime type to be the primary factor predicting sanction success[2]. These are tested in two instances: US/EU sanctions against Romania and Hungary in the 1990s and Indian sanctions against Nepal in the 1980s[3]. The specific data they use include interest group strength, economic costs, and specific strategic objectives.

Daniel Drezner argues in his article “The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion” that the success rate of sanctions has been systematically underestimated because existing models do not account for sanctions which are threatened but achieve their objectives before being implemented[4]. After using game theory to outline an argument, he uses a large-n analysis of sanctions episodes including those which are threatened but not implemented to support his hypothesis[5]. The types of data in this analysis are both theoretical models (a syntactical type of explanatory program) as well as Boolean values for sanctions threatened/enacted and various degrees of policy concessions.

Both articles deal with the puzzle of sanction efficacy but approach it differently. First, Blanchard and Ripsman use a small-n case study while Drezner uses a large-n method. In terms of content, though, the former deals with what makes sanctions effective whereas the latter deals with how to measure that effectiveness. Moreover, both share the assumption that sanctions can be effective in the first place, a belief which is not a consensus in the literature (although it has been trending that way).

These articles each provide interesting avenues for research. I think it would be exciting to build on Drezner’s work by comparing China’s success in threatening sanctions with that of others, although determining what counts as a “sanction” given Beijing’s official denial in almost all cases might be difficult. It would also be interesting to apply Blanchard and Ripsman’s model to China because of the complex relationships of state-owned enterprises and other domestic lobbies in China’s political system.

Notes

1. Blanchard and Ripsman, “A Political Theory of Economic Statecraft.”
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Drezner, “The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion.”
5. Ibid.

Bibliography

Blanchard, Jean-Marc F., and Norrin M. Ripsman. “A Political Theory of Economic Statecraft.” Foreign Policy Analysis 4, no. 4 (October 1, 2008): 371–98. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2008.00076.x.

Drezner, Daniel W. “The Hidden Hand of Economic Coercion.” International Organization 57, no. 3 (ed 2003): 643–59. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818303573052.

I understand ontology as, broadly, what is possible to be known. One way I understand it best is through the differences between the ontological perspectives in what constitute valid knowledge claims, with the neopositivist side focusing on falsifiable and generalizable results and the interpretivists focusing on situated context. Ontology is also closely related to the research process itself, though, not just the types of questions one can ask: for example, concepts within a research design are developed a priori in neopositivist research and then applied as standards, whereas in interpretivist research those concepts are developed in situ through the execution of that research process. Then, ontology continues to inform the ways in which a research product can be used. Neopositivist research treats generalizability as a concept validated within the design itself, whereas interpretivist research shifts the responsibility for generalization from the researcher to the reader. Thus, both types can invoke a pragmatic type of explanatory program, to use Abbott’s phrase, but in very different ways. Methodology, then, I understand to be informed by ontology but not controlled by it. Methodology seems to deal in degrees of abstraction, invoking a tradeoff between what one would consider “generalizable” in the neopositivist world and the specificity of context that interpretivists prioritize. Methodology is also closely tied to the concept of validity in research, limiting the conclusions we can draw based on what exactly the research is trying to measure. These degrees of abstraction and differences in concepts of validity manifest themselves in the “operationalization” of the research as opposed to its formation.

As a researcher, I would consider it impossible to be a truly objective observer of the social world. The immense complexity of lived experience to me implies that any attempt to replicate another’s lived experience will inevitably be altered by the background of the researcher producing it. One of the lessons game theory has impressed most strongly upon me is that although one can predict behavior given knowledge of another’s payoffs, it is impossible to assess another’s payoffs with complete certainty. However, I do believe in the law of averages’ proposition that behaviors will tend towards a certain outcome given a large enough group of people. In research, I therefore think that it is fair to attempt to assign payoffs to a given group, which can be culturally shaped, although such research will need to be rigorously scrutinized and can be fairly criticized for not assigning those payoffs correctly. Dr. Jackson’s counterfactual invoking a realist epistemological perspective made a lot of sense to me when he described objects as having veritable permanence, but having different methods “point” to different sides of that truth.

In making knowledge claims, I am rather comfortable with the more universally measurable aspects like numbers – money, populations, etc. I feel much less comfortable with any analysis attempting to replicate another group’s lived experience. However, I feel that way not in an attempt to dismiss the value or importance of other’s lived experience, but rather because I believe so strongly in its complexity. Somewhere in the middle of those two lies the concept of behavior, whether through norms or through payoffs or any similar type of semi-visible phenomenon. I think that research can certainly make educated guesses about those, although I think that such research must welcome methodological critique in its assertion of the way that culture and lived experience shape such phenomena.