Abstract
This is Peter Wallensteen’s first academic publication (1968), and it is also the first systematic, statistical treatment of economic sanctions and their ability in achieving compliance. By selecting ten comparable cases, identifying around fifty possible explanations of the outcomes and exposing them to a statistical test, Wallensteen is able to point to a few crucial variables that can serve as a guide for the efficacy of this non-military instrument in achieving change.
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Notes
- 1.
This article is part of the author’s thesis at the Institute of Political Science, Uppsala University, but has its main sources of inspiration from the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and from the Peace Research Seminar at Uppsala University. It can be identified as PRIO-publication 20-7. Valuable criticism and useful suggestions have come out of discussions at these institutions and I am grateful for interest, comments, and fruitful ideas from many persons, particularly Johan Galtung, as well as Teddy Barkhagen, and my wife Lena. This article is also a revised version of papers presented at the Nordic Sanctions Research Conference, Sigtuna, Sweden, April 27, 1968; and at the Third Nordic Peace Research Conference, Örenäs, Sweden, May 20, 1968. This research has been made possible thanks to research grants from Uppsala University Graduation Fund and from the Political Science Association, Uppsala. The Swedish-Norwegian Cooperation Fund and the Office for Cultural Exchange, Norwegian Department of Foreign Affairs financed a long and stimulating stay in Oslo, spring 1967. Published as “Characteristics of Economic Sanctions,” Journal of Peace Research, 1968, Vol. 5, no 3, 248–267. Republished with permission.
- 2.
The 1930’s in fact held a debate of very much the same intensity as that of the 1960’s. One of the differences in the debates was that sanctions in the 1930’s were supposed to prevent outbreak of war by threatening to punish ‘aggressors’. Economic sanctions were considered the ‘worst’ measure to be used in the international system. In the 1960’s the instrument has been seen as a way to change certain undesirable political systems, and not as a general replacement of war. The fallacies of both debates, it seems, lie in the low attention devoted to the problem of why certain nations are interested in applying economic sanctions, and to the political effects of the measures on the nation exposed to them. See for instance Clark, E. (ed), Boycotts and Peace. A Report by the Committee on Economic Sanctions, New York 1932; Segal, R. (ed), Sanctions against South Africa, London: Penguin 1964; and Leiss, A. (ed) Apartheid and United Nations Collective Measures. An Analysis. New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1965 (mimeo).
- 3.
Published in Proceedings of the American Society of International Law, 1964, pp. 183–205. The paper is to a large extent based on earlier research on the case of Italy, see Taubenfeld, H. J., Economic Sanctions: An Appraisal and Case Study, New York: Colombia University, 1958 (mimeo).
- 4.
Galtung, J. ‘On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions, With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia’, World Politics, Vol. XIX, No. 3 (April 1967), pp. 378–116.
- 5.
Nicholson, M. ‘Tariff Wars and a Model of Conflict’, Journal of Peace Research, 1967, pp. 26–38.
- 6.
Included in the ‘Western’ embargo against the ‘Eastern’ nations are also interesting actions undertaken between West and East Germany, South and North Korea, and South and North Vietnam. Few references will be given to the literature of the cases in Table 6.1. Interested readers are referred to my A Study of Economic Sanctions, Uppsala 1968 (mimeo).
- 7.
No doubt, Britain was also indifferent to the whole operation, but it was the common feeling at the time that Britain stood firmly behind the actions undertaken and other nations followed the British lead. On this, see e.g. F. P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations, London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965; Reynolds, P. A., British Foreign Policy in the Inter-War Years, London, 1954; and Baer, G. W., The Coming of the Italian-Ethiopian War, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1967, particularly Ch. 12.
- 8.
On Fisher’s exact test, see Siegel, N, Non-Parametric Statistics, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956.
- 9.
See among other Rodman, S., Quisqueya. A History of the Dominican Republic, Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1964, Ch. 10; Clark, G., The coming Explosion in Latin America, New York, 1965; Kurzman, D., Santo Domingo. Revolt of the Damned. New York, 1965.
- 10.
Galtung, J., ‘Pacifism from a Sociological Point of View’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. Ill (1959), no. 1, p. 69.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
The scores achieved were the following: USSR 24, Italy 24, Israel 4, Yugoslavia 8, Dominican Republic 0, Cuba 12, South Africa 4, Albania 12, Portugal 4, Rhodesia 8.
- 13.
Hoffmann, F., ‘The Functions of Economic Sanctions’, Journal of Peace Research, 1967, pp. 140–160.
- 14.
The concepts of polyarchic and centrist political systems are taken from Banks, A. S. and Gregg, P. M., ‘Grouping Political Systems: A Q-Factor Analysis of A Cross-Polity Survey, American Behavioral Scientist, 9 (Nov. 1965) pp. 3–6.
- 15.
See Singer, J. D. and Small, M., ‘The Composition and Status Ordering of the International System: 1815–1940’, World Politics, Vol. XVIII, No. 2 (Jan. 1966) pp. 236–282; and Vellut, J.-L., ‘Smaller States and the Problem of War and Peace’, Journal of Peace Research, 1967, pp. 252–269. The six highest-ranked nations are regarded as ‘High’ and the remaining as ‘Low’.
- 16.
For Israel no numbers have been available. Regarding South Africa and Portugal the numbers given are estimations from official statistics, which do not contain information on the exact distribution of the trade. The numbers given in the Table are probably too high.
- 17.
Based on official statistics, except in the case of Rhodesia, where different numbers have been given on the Rhodesian export 1966. The official Rhodesian number is a trade reduction of 17%; the corresponding British, 45%. To avoid the difficult problem of accuracy the figure given in the Table is the average of the two; but if one or the other would have been employed it would not have changed the general pattern. For Israel no statistics have been available.
- 18.
In August 1960 U.S. Secretary of State Herter said of the application of sanctions against the Dominican Republic: ‘In view of the intimate relationship which is recognized to exist between the violations of human rights and the lack of representative democracy in the Dominican Republic and the international tensions which have culminated in the acts of intervention and aggression against the Government of Venezuela, any measures that the Organ of Consultation might take under the Rio Treaty could and should, we believe, be addressed to this basic aspect of the problem’. Implicit and obvious in the speech was that ‘the basic aspect’ was the Trujillo regime. On the statement see Documents on American Foreign Relations I960, p. 493 f. On the case of Cuba, Vice President Nixon stated in October 1960: ‘... time for patience is over ... we must move vigorously ... to eradicate this ‘cancer’ in our own hemisphere and to ‘prevent further Soviet penetration’; see Nixon, R., Six Crises, London 1962, pp. 352-353. Secretary Herter dealt with the Cuban situation in August 1960 under the headings of ‘Extracontinental Threat to Inter-American System’, ‘Evidence of Communist Control in Cuba’ and ‘Conflict with Declaration of Santiago’ all indicating that the USA was not only concerned about the American nationalized property but also the Castro regime; see the collections of documents quoted above, pp. 495–503.
The fundamentality scores distributed as follows: USSR 2 (change of very specific actions of internal policy), Italy 4 (diffuse, important actions of foreign policy), Albania 5 (diffuse, important actions of internal policy involving R gov’t important policy), Yugoslavia, Dominican Republic 6 (diffuse, important actions of internal policy, change of R gov’t), Israel, South Africa, Portugal, Rhodesia, Cuba 7 (diffuse, important actions of internal policy, involving change of R political, economic, and social structure).
- 19.
Russett, B. M., et al., World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964, pp. 101–104.
- 20.
Luard, E., ‘Conciliation and Deterrence: A Comparison of Political Strategies in the Inter-War and Post-War Periods’, World Politics, Vol. XIX, No. 2 (Jan. 1967), p. 167 ft.
- 21.
This was also indicated by J. K. Galbraith in Swedish TV, March, 1968.
- 22.
On the importance of initial cohesion see Coser, L., The Functions of Social Conflict, Glencoe: Free Press, 1956, p. 87 ff.
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Wallensteen, P. (2021). Characteristics of Economic Sanctions. In: Peter Wallensteen: A Pioneer in Making Peace Researchable. Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62848-2_6
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