Introduction
Economic sanctions are popular foreign policy tools levied by individual states as well as international organizations such as the UN and the EU. Though sanctions are oft-used policy tools to address a wide spectrum of foreign crises, there is some consensus in the literature that they achieve their intended policy objectives less than 40 percent of the time.Footnote 1 Earlier sanctions research, particularly during the Cold War, mainly addressed the questions of whether sanctions work and under what circumstance they become more effective. Especially with the well-documented humanitarian effects of UN-led sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, a growing body of the literature has studied possible socioeconomic and political consequences of sanctions for target states beyond their intended policy objectives. This line of research has been crucial for demonstrating that sanctions might not only fail in achieving their stated objectives, but also potentially undermine political stability and amplify dire humanitarian conditions in target countries.
Despite growing research on possible consequences of sanctions, we lack any comprehensive assessment of how civil society fares under sanctions. This chapter offers a thorough assessment of the extent to which economic sanctions affect civil society participation in target countries. Consistent with the cross-national quantitative data used in the analysis further on, I specifically analyze the degree to which sanctions might affect non-state groups’ ability to fulfill their political and civil duties freely and actively without any state intervention in target countries. Non-state or civil society groups refer to all groups – such as interest groups, political organizations, and social movements – that are not associated with governments and formed by a group of individuals with shared interests, values, and purposes. A robust civil society performs many crucial roles such as holding the government accountable, advocating for social norms and values, enhancing democratic freedoms, and offering alternative views and policies to the government and businesses.Footnote 2 It is therefore crucial to study civil society given its importance for good governance, political accountability, and social cohesion.
I argue that sanctions are likely to weaken civic engagement through increasing state repression of civil society groups and impairing their capacity to organize because of the uneven sanctions-induced economic costs they endure. To substantiate the theoretical claims, I analyze time-series cross-national data for 130 less developed countries for the years spanning 1989 to 2015. Results show that sanctions imposed by the US, EU, and UN are detrimental to civil society participation and the impact is likely to be higher in the early rather than later years of the imposition of sanctions.
Sanctions and Civic Engagement in Target Countries
As suggested by the “naive” theory of sanctions, sender countries levy sanctions with the expectation that sanctions-induced economic and political pressure will result in compliance by the target government.Footnote 3 It is assumed that the lack of access to key economic and military resources would directly harm the target government’s coercive capacity to maintain rule and order. It would also result in defections from the ruling base of the regime as the government would be unable to provide selective inducements and rewards in return for the allegiance of its supporters. Further, economic grievances against the government due to the dire economic conditions could mobilize the public against the government and thus embolden the opposition. As a result, growing public grievances coupled with weakened coercive capacity would possibly help non-state actors such as rival political parties, social movements, and labor organizations gain more political influence in target societies. This would subsequently help strengthen civil society participation in target countries.
Sanctions, however, rarely operate the way they are expected to by sender policymakers. Target regimes often escape the intended costs of the coercion on their coercive capacity and ability to rule. The expected effect on the coercive capacity often fails to materialize as target regimes, especially in repressive states, disproportionally use public resources to keep their coercive power intact.Footnote 4 They also often find ways to generate income and gain access to the resources made scarce by sanctions. They rely on their allies or seek new partners to make up the economic damage caused by sanctions.Footnote 5 Some other governments use transnational black markets or other clandestine channels to secure the resources made scarce by sanctions and to generate revenue.Footnote 6 It is therefore unlikely that sanctions would help strengthen civic engagement through weakening target regimes. On the contrary, in the remainder of this section I argue that sanctions might inadvertently weaken civil society groups through (1) making them more likely targets of state repression and (2) hurting their ability to organize due to the uneven economic and other costs of foreign pressure they are likely to endure during sanctions years.
First, sanctions are likely to incentivize target regimes to restrict civic activism from such groups as rival political parties and human rights organizations. Studies show that governments under the pressure of sanctions commit more human rights abuses against and further repress anti-regime movements.Footnote 7 They do so in part because the use of repressive means against actual or perceived rival groups would preempt any potential threat to their authority during sanctions years. More specifically, they would be less tolerant of any groups that criticize their policies or seek to mobilize the public against them. They would thus employ such repressive means such as political imprisonment, demonstration, or public gathering bans, and even shut down some non-state organizations to minimize any possible domestic challenges to their authority. The use of repression at home would also signal to both their supporters and the international community that they are still in power and determined to prevail against any challenge to their rule.Footnote 8
Sanctions might also reduce the capacity of civic society groups to remain active in the public space. Civil society groups are more likely to maintain their autonomy from the state to the extent that they have resources at their disposal. The more resources they have, the better they would advocate for their causes, lobby the government, and organize collective mobilization.Footnote 9 Resources such as full-time staff, office space, computers, and cell phones are crucial for non-state groups to carry out their civic duties. Sanctions could undermine the economy through reducing economic growth and even trigger financial crises.Footnote 10 There is also evidence that groups outside the close ruling circle of the government might unevenly bear the burden of the sanctions.Footnote 11 To the extent that civil society groups and their supporters disproportionately endure the sanctions-induced economic harm, they have less resources to actively participate in the public space.
Based on the previous discussion, I hypothesize that economics sanctions undermine civil society participation in target countries (Hypothesis 1).
The suggested effects of sanctions on civic engagement might partially be conditional upon the severity of sanctions. Target regimes might feel more threatened by external pressure if they are subject to comprehensive or multilateral sanctions. Pressure by multiple countries might create more insecurity and anxiety for target leaders. This would make them become more inclined to restrict civil society participation as a way to eliminate any potential or actual threat to their survival. Further, comprehensive or multilateral sanctions tend to have higher economic damage on the target economy than targeted or unilateral sanctions.Footnote 12 If so, such sanctions might inflict more harm on the wellbeing and resource capacity of civil society groups and subsequently hurt their ability to carry out their civic tasks.
Based on the previous discussion, I posit that multilateral sanctions are more detrimental to civil society than unilateral sanctions (Hypothesis 2). I also argue that conventional comprehensive sanctions are more detrimental to civil society than targeted sanctions (Hypothesis 3).
Data Analysis
To assess the empirical merits of the argument advanced in the preceding section, I analyze time-series cross-national data for 130 less developed countries for the years spanning 1989–2015. I specifically exclude all the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries as they are also less likely targets of economic sanctions. Even when the OECD countries face sanctions, they are unlikely to incur significant sanctions-induced economic costs or to sustain any discernable effect on civic engagement. This is because, compared to most non-OECD countries, they have stronger economies to survive sanctions.
Variables
The outcome variable in the models is Civil Society, which is the Civil Society Participation Index of the Varieties of Democracy dataset. The index provides “a measure of a robust civil society, understood as one that enjoys autonomy from the state and in which citizens freely and actively pursue their political and civic goals, however conceived.”Footnote 13 It specifically captures the extensiveness of citizens’ involvement in civil society groups and whether these groups are allowed and able to influence the policymaking process. The data are based on a wide range of NGOs such as interest groups, labor unions, professional associations, religious organizations, and social movements. The index variable was originally calculated using a Bayesian factor analysis. It is a continuous variable ranging from zero to one with higher values denoting more robust civil society in each country-year.
The sanctions data include all sanctions imposed by the US, EU, and UN. The data come from the EUSANCT dataset.Footnote 14 The dataset was originally built using data from existing sanctions datasets as well as collecting original data for the post-Cold War era. The Sanctions variable is a binary measure coded one for the years a country is under sanctions, and zero otherwise. The binary Unilateral Sanctions variable takes the value of one for only sanctions initiated by a single state, and zero otherwise. The Multilateral Sanctions variable is coded one for all sanctions levied by multiple countries with or without the involvement of the EU or the UN. The binary Conventional Sanctions variable captures more traditional sanctions, including total or partial embargoes, trade restrictions, and major financial sanctions. The Targeted Sanctions variable accounts for targeted restrictions, including asset freezes and other financial restrictions directed at specific entities and individuals, suspension of a specific economic agreement, exclusion from regional or international organizations, aid cuts, arms embargoes, visa restrictions, and diplomatic sanctions. The sanctions as well as other explanatory variables in the model are lagged one year to make sure they precede the outcome variable at least one full calendar year.
In addition to the binary sanctions variables, I use Sanctions Duration and its squared term to assess whether the length of imposed sanctions is significantly related to civic engagement. The duration variable counts the number of years a country has been under a given sanctions case. I include the squared term of the duration variable to account for any possible curvilinear association between sanctions years and civil society participation. The final sanctions variable, Post-Sanctions Years and its squared term, tests possible lingering effects of sanctions. The variable tallies the number of years since the removal of a sanctions regime against a given country.
I include a battery of control variables to avoid omitted variable bias. The model controls for Democracy to account for the likely positive influence of democratic regimes on civic engagement. The variable comes from the Polity IV dataset and varies from −10 to 10.Footnote 15 The higher the score, the more democratic a country is. It is likely that political repression restricts civil society groups’ ability to be active in society and politics. The Repression variable controls for this expectation. It comes from the Political Terror Scale project.Footnote 16 It is an ordinal measure that varies from one (no repression) to five (widespread repression). Economic Wealth, which is the natural log of GDP per capita, considers possible positive association between better economic conditions and stronger civil society. The variable comes from the World Development Indicators.Footnote 17
Countries that are more integrated into the global community might be more receptive of global norms regarding political pluralism, human rights, and social equality. It is thus likely that globalization enhances civic engagement. The model includes two variables, Economic Globalization and Social Globalization, to capture possible effects of global economic engagement and social globalization, respectively. Economic Globalization is an index measure that quantifies the amount of foreign trade and investment, international reserves, and foreign debt as well as regulations that facilitate global economic integration. Social Globalization captures to what extent each country’s citizens, both in practice and law, are allowed the freedom to have interpersonal, informational, and cultural engagement with citizens in other countries. Both variables come from the KOF Globalization dataset.Footnote 18 They are coded on a 100-point scale with higher scores indicating more globalization. The extent of civil society participation in recent history of countries is likely to be a strong predictor of the current civil society participation. The model controls for the initial value of the civil society variable (i.e., the value for 1989), Past Civil Society, to account for the temporal dependence.
Methodological Approach
Countries subject to foreign economic pressure are likely to have certain economic and political traits that make them more likely candidates of foreign pressure. Failure to account for such selection effects stemming from potential target countries’ unique economic and political characteristics could bias the data analysis. To address this concern, I use a conditional mixed-process (CMP) recursive estimator.Footnote 19 It is a seemingly unrelated regressions estimator that jointly estimates the covariates of civil society participation and sanctions imposition with a correlated error term. In the two-equation model, Civil Society is the outcome variable in one of the equations and Sanctions Onset is the outcome variable in the other equation. On the right-hand side of the civil society equation, I include the explanatory variables previously discussed.
In the sanctions onset equation, the sanctions variable is coded one for the first year of each sanctions episode, and zero otherwise. Following the sanctions onset literature,Footnote 20 I include several explanatory variables in the equation. Democracy and Political Repression control for the expectation that countries under dictatorial rules and repressive regimes might be more targeted with sanctions. Economic Wealth is another key variable that is considered negatively associated with the likelihood of sanctions. That is, wealthier economies are less likely to face sanctions compared to less developed economies. Economic Globalization considers the possibility that more dependence on foreign trade and investment through economic globalization might raise the likelihood of facing external economic pressure. The Violence variable is a binary measure indicating whether a country is under an ongoing civil conflict in a given year. Political instability and violence could trigger more external interventions. The variable takes the value of one for the years a countries is experiencing an internal conflict with at least twenty-five battle-related deaths, and zero otherwise. I gathered the data from the Armed Conflict Dataset created by the UCDP/PRIO.Footnote 21
Political Affinity captures whether countries that have close ties to major western powers are less likely targets of economic sanctions. I use the UNGA voting data from the dataset gathered by Bailey, Strezhnev, and Voeten,Footnote 22 in order to account for the extent of political affinity between target states and three major Western powers – France, the UK, and US. The variable is based on roll-call voting records to determine countries’ political preferences on various global issues. It specifically captures the extent of dissimilar voting patterns between a pair of countries at the UNGA. I first created three separate variables to capture every country’s voting similarity to those of the US, France, and UK using absolute distance in the ideal points data in the dataset. I then took the average of the three variables to create the affinity variable. It is a continuous measure ranging from zero (most similar voting preferences) to five (most dissimilar voting patterns). Finally, Past Sanctions accounts for the possibility that past sanctions onsets against a target state might increase the probability of new sanctions against the same target. It is a one-year lagged value of the sanctions onset variable. There was no major change in the main findings when I used a variable counting the years since last imposed sanction and three cubic polynomials instead of the lagged sanctions variable.
Findings
Table 15.1 reports the models that estimate the likely impact that sanctions have on civic engagement in target countries. The upper half of the models shows the results for the civil society equation while the lower half reports the results for the sanctions onset equation. According to the upper half of the first model, presence of sanctions is significantly associated with lower civil society participation. In the second model, the multilateral and unilateral sanctions variables are statistically significant with a negative coefficient. It thus suggests that sanctions imposed by a single state as well as a group of states are likely to undermine civic activism. The results in the third model reveal that both conventional and targeted sanctions are likely to be detrimental to civil society in target countries. Overall, the findings in Table 15.1 support the theoretical claims that sanctions are likely to deteriorate civic engagement.
Notes: Robust standard errors appear in parentheses.
a Significant at 0.01, b at 0.05, c at 0.1.
All explanatory variables are lagged at t-1.
Table 15.1Long description
The table presents regression results on the relationship between sanctions and civil society participation. Across three models, sanctions consistently show negative and significant effects, whether multilateral, unilateral, conventional, or targeted. Democracy strongly and positively predicts civil society, while economic wealth and economic globalization are negative. Past civil society has the largest positive effect. In models predicting sanctions onset, repression and past sanctions are strong positive predictors, while economic globalization reduces the likelihood of sanctions.
How large is the impact of each sanctions type on the predicted value of the outcome variable? Figure 15.1 shows the predicted value of the civil society variable when each sanctions variable in Table 15.1 moves from zero (no sanctions) to one (presence of a given sanction type), while holding all other explanatory variables at their mean values. I generated the predicted values using “no sanctions” as the baseline. That is, each predicted value reported in the figure indicates the magnitude of a given sanctions type relative to country-years with no sanctions in the sample. In estimating the substantive effect of each sanctions variable, I dropped the observations for the other sanction types in the estimated model to report a given sanctions variable’s effect relative to the baseline category of no sanctions.
Figure 15.1 Economic sanctions and the predicted value of civil society participation (with 95% confidence interval).
The figure shows that the predicted value of the civil society variable goes down by about 4 percent (from 0.642 to 0.618) once a country becomes a target of sanctions. For multilateral sanctions, the change in the predicted value is about 5 percent (from 0.642 to 0.612), while it is about 2 percent (from 0.642 to 0.630) for unilateral sanctions. Consistent with the hypothesis previously discussed, this suggests that the likely impact of multilateral sanctions is greater than that of unilateral sanctions. According to the figure, whereas conventional sanctions reduce the predicted value of the civil society variable by about 5 percent (from 0.642 to 0.612), targeted sanctions reduce it by 4 percent (from 0.642 to 0.617). In line with the argument previously advanced, it is thus likely that conventional sanctions are more detrimental to civil society than targeted sanctions. Overall, when compared to the baseline case of no sanctions, the statistical analysis denotes that multilateral or conventional sanctions are likely to inflict greater harm on civil society participation than unilateral or targeted sanctions.
In Table 15.2, I analyze the extent to which the duration of sanctions regimes and the post-sanctions years are associated with civil society participation. The findings in the upper half of Model 4 point to a nonlinear association between the length of sanctions and civil society participation. It appears that the hypothesized effect of sanctions is likely to be felt more in the early rather than later years of ongoing sanctions. The results for the post-sanctions years variables in Model 5 indicate that civil engagement is likely to recover considerably from the adverse effect of sanctions as target countries move farther from the sanctions years.
Notes: Robust standard errors appear in parentheses.
a Significant at 0.01, b at 0.05, c at 0.1.
All explanatory variables are lagged at t-1.
Table 15.2Long description
This table reports regression results on how sanctions years and post-sanctions periods affect civil society participation. In Model 4, more years under sanctions reduce civil society participation, though a squared term shows diminishing marginal effects. In Model 5, post-sanctions years increase civil society, but with diminishing returns. Democracy remains a strong positive predictor, while repression, economic wealth, and economic globalization exert negative effects. Social globalization has a small positive effect in Model 5. Past civil society participation continues to have the strongest positive influence. For sanctions onset, repression and past sanctions predict higher likelihood, while economic globalization lowers it.
According to Figure 15.2, the negative, curvilinear effect of sanctions years on civil society could last up to twelve years with the impact being considerably larger in especially the first few years of a sanctions episode. After the first twelve years of ongoing sanctions, the figure suggests that imposed sanctions are unlikely to further undermine civil society. This is because the adverse economic and political conditions induced by sanctions are likely to be felt less during the later years of imposed sanctions. The figure even suggests that civil society participation might begin to recover during those later years.
Figure 15.2 Post-sanctions duration and predicted value of civil society participation (with 95% confidence interval).
According to Figure 15.3, once sanctions are lifted, civic engagement is likely to improve over time. Though the recovery of civil participation is likely be stronger in the early post-sanctions years, the positive impact of post-sanctions years is likely to continue up to twelve years. Hence, sanctions appear to have no discernable adverse lingering effects on civil society during the post-sanctions period. On the contrary, once they are lifted, civic engagement is likely to recuperate though the extent of civic engagement might not go back to pre-sanctions years even several years after the removal of the sanctions.
Figure 15.3 Post-sanctions years and predicted value of civil society participation (with 95% confidence interval).
Among the control variables included in the upper half of the models in Tables 15.1 and 15.2, Democracy positively and significantly covaries with the outcome variable. Repression, on the other hand, has a significant negative effect on civil society. Economic globalization also has a significant negative effect on the outcome variable in most models. Another significant variable in most models is economic wealth. It appears that higher levels of GDP per capita might not be positively associated with civil society engagement among the non-OECD countries included in the sample. Though it is beyond the scope of this chapter, the negative GDP effect is arguably counterintuitive and requires additional detailed research. The civil society variable that accounts for the strength of past civic engagement shows a significant positive effect on the strength current civil society participation as expected.
The results reported in the lower half of the models indicate that repression and economic globalization are the two most significant predictors of sanctions onset. Repressive regimes are more likely to face foreign pressure. More economic globalization might help potential target countries to avoid sanctions. More economic engagement enhances mutual dependence between potential target and sender countries. This might in turn create less incentives for potential senders to impose sanctions as trade and investment restrictions could hurt their own economies as much as target economies due to high levels of interdependence. Finally, the past sanctions variable suggests that countries with a recent history of sanctions are more likely to be targeted with sanctions in a given year.
Conclusions
This chapter has explored the degree to which economic sanctions affect civic engagement in target countries. Sanctions are likely to hurt civic engagement as they contribute to the rise of state repression of non-state groups and decrease the capacity of those groups to carry out their activities due to the sanctions-induced economic harm they endure.
This study complements and adds to the growing body of literature on the major consequences of sanctions for target societies. Given the significance of a robust civil society for political stability, human rights, and social cohesion, it is imperative that policymakers involved in the design and imposition of sanctions consider possible adverse effects of sanctions on non-state groups outside the close circle of target governments. The adverse effect on civil society is yet another possible negative consequence that signifies the necessity of a more holistic approach to policymaking that considers not only the intended policy gains, but also possible negative effects of sanctions use.
While this chapter analyzed civil society as a whole, future case studies and cross-national analyses could build on this initial study by focusing on different societal groups. Groups that more directly challenge the government’s domestic and foreign policies such as human rights advocacy groups and rival political or social movements might be particularly vulnerable to the negative impact of sanctions discussed here. Hence, in-depth analyses of different non-state actors would be beneficial for a more exhaustive understanding of which groups suffer most from sanctions.
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