Department of Political Science

Sanctions as Off-Ramps: Do Economic Sanctions Provide Leaders a Cheap Way Out of Military Threats?

My research is focused on whether leaders pay lower audience costs when they couple economic sanctions to their military threats. When leaders issue compellent demands of other states, they are faced with the choice of preceding their military threats with economic sanctions (escalated threats) or forgoing the use of sanctions all together (military-only threats). If leaders ultimately back down from their threats of force, sanctions may provide an excuse to ameliorate domestic backlash. Specifically, leaders may argue that sanctions require more time to work, or at minimum can point to the punishment already inflicted on the target state to minimize their audience costs. If leaders incur lower audience costs when using sanctions, this decision to “weakly” tie their hands with escalated threats (compared to the more costly military-only threats) may signal lower resolve to their targets.