Research

Secretary of State Alexander Haig warned Ronald Reagan that to lift the grain embargo, Jimmy Carter’s core response to counter the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, would be a major tactical and strategic error. Terminating the embargo, with the Soviets not having withdrawn from Afghanistan, would be tantamount to capitulation that would damage US reputation for resolve. Nonetheless, Reagan lifted the embargo on the USSR without receiving any concessions. Given that lifting a failed sanction can damage a sanctioning state’s reputation for resolve, why do states lift failed sanctions? More broadly, why do imposers of sanctions continue to maintain sanctions on a recalcitrant target despite sanctions being economically costly?

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My dissertation provides a novel answer to the two-part puzzle of why failed sanctions persist against a recalcitrant target, despite costs to the sanctioning state, and why and when sanctioning states decide to lift a failed sanction. I develop a new theory of reputation—Reputation for Receptivity Theory—which argues that, while abandoning failed sanctions typically will undermine a state’s reputation for resolve, there are circumstances in which doing so not only entails limited if any reputational harm but may enhance its overall security. By contrast, traditional reputation for resolve theory argues that states will harm their reputation for resolve by lifting a failed sanction and bolster or maintain it by choosing to continue sanctions on a recalcitrant target.

 

The logic of Reputation for Receptivity Theory can be summarized in two stages: states maintain sanctions against an unyielding target to protect their reputation for resolve, and states that demonstrate receptivity by complying with ally demands to lift sanctions on a target can protect their reputation for resolve. More specifically, in the first stage, sanctioning states seek to avoid lifting a sanction without concessions because current and future target states are less likely to make concessions to a sanctioning state that has a weak reputation for resolve. Receptivity to ally pressure shields reputation for resolve by providing real security benefits to the sanctioning state. Receptivity enhances the sanctioning state’s alliance cohesion in three ways: eliminating an intra-alliance grievance that adversaries could exploit to split the allies, increasing the ability of the sanctioning state to acquire allied cooperation in future sanction programs, and reducing incentives of the sanctioning state’s allies to hedge against it.

 

I find strong support for my theory using a multi-method research design. One of the theory’s central prediction is that sanctioning states are more willing to capitulate when allies demand that they lift sanctions against a target. To test this hypothesis, I generate an original dataset of all sanction programs from 1950-2022 with a special effort to catalogue all instances of allied pressure—in the form of either public diplomatic pressure to lift a sanction or abandonment of a multilateral sanction coalition. I conduct large-N statistical analysis and demonstrate that sanctioning states are much more likely to terminate failed sanction programs following pressure from allies. In the second empirical chapter, I leverage my new sanction dataset to create reputation scores for each sender-year that appears in my dataset. I then show that targets are more likely to make concessions to senders with a strong reputation for resolve.

 

Following the two statistical chapters, I use a combination of process tracing of the Ronald Reagan’s decision to end the grain embargo against the Soviet Union following its invasion of Afghanistan, Reagan’s decision to end the pipeline sanctions against US European NATO allies, and Jimmy Carter’s decision to end the arms embargo on Turkey in response to its invasion of Cyprus. Drawing on recently declassified documents from the Carter and Reagan libraries and the Library of Congress, I demonstrate that American leaders of continued sanctions because of reputational concerns, and that leaders believe that complying with ally demands can boost alliance cohesion in ways that enhance the sanctioning state’s security. Leveraging my Portuguese language skills, I also will field a survey experiment on respondents in a country that has faced US sanctions in the past and might face them in the future, Brazil. I randomize two factors: a) whether the US maintained or ended sanctions against a recalcitrant target resisting US demands to democratize and b) the presence or absence of pressure from US allies to terminate the sanction. The analysis demonstrates that US capitulation damages perceptions of its reputation for resolve, but ally pressure mitigates the damage among members of the Brazilian public.

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There are three central implications of my dissertation for policymakers and scholars. First, the risk of entanglement is lower than previously assumed because allies can successfully push a state to adopt more dovish policies than it otherwise would have. Second, sanctioning states can make their sanctions more successful by preventing their allies from pressuring them to lift sanctions. Third, states can develop their reputation for receptivity that shields their reputation for resolve when complying with ally demands to lift sanctions.​​