Economic sanctions are frequently used for political objectives in foreign policy in order to coerce other states into a wanted behavior. Economic sanctions are popular due to that they are considered more humane and less costly than military interventions. However, economic sanctions have far from always been successful in inducing policy change. Previous studies have shown that variables such as the goal of the sanctions, the cost (both economic and political) and the type of strategy affects the propensity to induce policy change within the target state. It has also been argued that economic sanctions affect democracies and dictatorships differently and that dictatorships are less likely to accept senders’ demands. This essay focuses solely on sanctions directed to dictatorships. The aim is to examine whether some dictatorships are more likely to make concessions than others and if it is possible to get an enhanced understanding of the role of regime types when assessing the effects of economic sanctions. Based on previous research, four variables are examined; repression, structure of the leadership, personalism and dogmatic goal. The analysis is conducted by a quantitative study with a sample of 95 cases of implemented economic sanctions towards dictatorships. The result of the study indicates that personalism and dogmatic goal affects the propensity of making concessions negatively. The level of repression and structure of leadership do not seem to affect the likelihood of making concessions in a substantial way. The significant variables, personalism and dogmatic goal, are used to categorize dictatorships in order to examine whether the propensity of concessions differ among different dictatorial regimes. The result indicates that the effectiveness of economic sanctions differ among dictatorial regimes especially among dictatorships that either have both or none of the variables personalism and dogmatic goal. Sanctions directed to dictatorial regimes with a personalist leader and a dogmatic goal have been least successful among the observations included in the study.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-296451 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Blomdahl, Freja |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Statsvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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