Economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy: The role of domestic politics

The application of economic sanctions against Rhodesia and the results of that effort raise the question of the effectiveness of economic coercion as an instrument of foreign policy. A review of U.S. economic coercion against Cuba, in effect since June 1960, and against the Dominican Republic during the period 1960–1962 may be timely and instructive. By exploring the steps leading to the application of U.S. economic coercion, its objectives, and its concrete impact on the target states it may be possible to develop some useful generalizations about the role of economic weapons as tools of foreign policy.

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Economic Sanction as Foreign Policy

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.477 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Yoshiharu Kobayashi

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

Economic Sanctions ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

The Other ◽

Economic Sanction ◽

Large N ◽

Growing Body ◽

Economic Relationship ◽

The 1960S

Economic sanctions are an attempt by states to coerce a change in the policy of another state by restricting their economic relationship with the latter. Between, roughly, the 1960s–1980s, the question dominating the study of sanctions was whether they are an effective tool of foreign policy. Since the 1990s, however, with the introduction of large-N datasets, scholars have turned to more systematic examinations of previously little explored questions, such as when and how sanctions work, when and why states employ sanctions, and why some sanctions last longer than others. Two dominant perspectives, one based on strategic logic and the other on domestic politics, have emerged, providing starkly different answers to these questions. A growing body of evidence lends support to both strategic and domestic politics perspectives, but also points to areas in which they fall short. To complement these shortcomings, a new direction for research is to unite these perspectives into a single theoretical framework.

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Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior. Edited by Suisheng Zhao. [Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. 319 pp. $26.95. ISBN 0-7656-1285-2.]

The China Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0305741004220768 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 180 ◽

pp. 1095-1097

Author(s):

Patrick Belton

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Strategic Behavior ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

Chinese Foreign Policy ◽

National Interests ◽

Chinese Nationalism ◽

Fresh Material ◽

The Government ◽

Rising Power

Suisheng Zhao has assembled this volume from articles recently published in the Journal of Contemporary China, which he edits. Its chapters cover recognizable terrain for political scientists: whether China, as a rising power, will seek to maximize its relative or absolute gains; the likelihood its increasing power will tend towards status-quo or belligerent lines; and the degree of Chinese ‘exceptionalism’ when compared with other countries. As the subtitle might suggest, the contributions present China in a favourable light, stressing how China's leaders have spurned ideological purism for the pragmatic weighing of national interests, with only nationalism to serve as a double-edged sword by conferring legitimacy on the government, but potentially also taking it away. The assertion that strategic calculations govern Chinese foreign policy contrasts with other interpretations, such as those of David Lampton in Same Bed, Different Dreams, who assigns a large role to domestic politics, or Peter Gries in Understanding Chinese Nationalism, who highlights the constraining role of nationalist ideology on the ability of China's leaders to de-escalate crises with other countries. Zhao's contribution lies less in defending the assertion of pragmatism against those competing perspectives and more in drawing upon it in offering fresh material.

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The Limited Role of the Japanese Military: The 2003 Iraq War and the War on the Islamic State

International Journal of East Asian Studies ◽

10.22452/ijeas.vol10no2.1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 1-17

Author(s):

Mieczysław P. Boduszyński ◽

Christopher K. Lamont ◽

Philip Streich

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Security Policy ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

Military Force ◽

Islamic State ◽

Security Threat ◽

Liberal Democratic ◽

Policy Goals ◽

Defensive Realism

What determines Japan's willingness to flex its limited military muscle abroad? While analysts and scholars closely watched Japanese "militarization" under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012-2020), Japan had already deployed its military overseas over a decade ago in support of U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. By contrast, in 2014, Japan was unwilling to support U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria. This presents a puzzle, as the fight against ISIL offered the kind of international legitimacy that the 2003 Iraq invasion lacked, and Japan traditionally seeks. Moreover, ISIL had killed Japanese citizens. This paper explains Japan's varying policies in Iraq in 2003 and 2014, thereby shedding light on the determinants of Japanese national security policy more generally. Our argument focuses on domestic political factors (especially the pluralist foreign policymaking) and strategic thinking rooted in realism. We argue that Japanese policies are driven by domestic politics, profound suspicions about the utility of military force and fears of becoming entangled in a seemingly never-ending conflict. While Koizumi may have had more room to manoeuvre despite long-standing public opposition to overseas military deployments when he dispatched the SDF to Iraq in 2003, it is precisely such deeply-entrenched popular anathema that many blame for the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) historic and devastating loss in the 2009 election. Abe was unwilling to repeat such a risky venture in 2014. We also highlight the role of realist calculations on both Japanese elites and the public, who by 2014 had come to see China rather than state or non-state actors in the Middle East as a primary security threat. We thus confirm Midford's finding that "defensive realism" tends to drive Japanese foreign policy thinking. Japanese citizens are not pacifists, as conventional wisdom might hold. Instead, Japanese public opinion supports the use of minimum military force when and if Japan is attacked to defend Japan's national sovereignty and territory but is much more suspicious of such power when it comes to deployments and the pursuit of other foreign policy goals.

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Transnational Activism and Domestic Politics: Arms Exports and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle in the UK–South Africa Relations (1959–1994)

Foreign Policy Analysis ◽

10.1093/fpa/orab023 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (4) ◽

Author(s):

Rodrigo Fracalossi de Moraes

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

Transnational Activism ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Advocacy Network ◽

Arms Exports ◽

The Uk

ABSTRACT In 1964, the UK government imposed an arms embargo on South Africa, which it maintained until the end of the white minority rule. What explains this embargo? Using mainly archival evidence, this paper demonstrates that domestic political dynamics in the United Kingdom mediated the influence of the transnational anti-apartheid and anti-colonial struggles on the British government. The United Kingdom imposed and maintained this embargo due in part to a domestic advocacy network, whose hub was the Anti-Apartheid Movement. The paper provides a comprehensive explanation of an important issue in British foreign policy, the anti-colonial struggle, and Southern Africa's history. There are theoretical implications for foreign policy analysis concerning the role of advocacy networks, interactions between local and global activism, the role of political parties’ ideology and contestation, the effects on foreign policy of changes in a normative environment, the effects of norm contestation, and normative determinants of sanctions.

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Proxy War

10.11126/stanford/9781503608184.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Tyrone L. Groh

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

International System ◽

National Interests ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Proxy War ◽

Knowledge Policy ◽

Rigorous Treatment ◽

Interstate Competition

This book provides a more comprehensive, definitive, and rigorous treatment of proxy war. This book argues that proxy war can and should remain a useful and effective tool of foreign policy, but that such an endeavor demands better understanding and deliberation. Proxy war serves as a means of indirect intervention when conditions eclipse policies using direct or non-intervention. Indirect intervention, however, is not synonymous with proxy war. Rather, proxy war falls on the spectrum of indirect intervention and includes other options such as simply donating assistance to politically-motivated, local fighters or offering support to mercenary forces from outside the country. Building on this knowledge, policy makers and strategists can better judge how fixed and unchangeable conditions such as the presence of interstate competition, domestic politics, geography, and the characteristics of the international system influence proxy war. More importantly, this book explains the role of conditions that a state can alter or change to improve the utility and efficacy of proxy war—more or less, it provides a “how to” manual for conducting proxy war, should the policy be chosen. The ability to maintain a coherent policy (both internally and externally) and cultivate/maintain control over a proxy’s activities increase the chances that a proxy war policy contributes to the pursuit and attainment of national interests. The book provides a new look at proxy war using uncommon and unused cases to test the concepts presented.

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Rice, Oil and the Atom: A Study of the Role of Key Material Resources in the Security and Development of Japan

Government and Opposition ◽

10.1111/j.1477-7053.2005.00153.x ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 278-327 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dominic Kelly

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

The United States ◽

International Affairs ◽

Political Processes ◽

Material Resources ◽

The Impact ◽

The Relationship ◽

Rice Oil

AbstractThis article examines the impact on Japan's political economy and foreign policy of its lack of natural resources. Applying the concept of Japan as a ‘reactive’ state to linked case studies of rice, oil and atomic power it explores aspects of the relationship between culture, institutions and political processes in domestic politics and foreign policy. In so doing it argues that Japan's poor resource endowments have driven it to engage (re)actively – and often unwisely – in international affairs, an engagement both facilitated and constrained by its close alliance with the United States. This mediated engagement will continue into the foreseeable future.

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Grand Strategy of the Master Class

Rethinking American Grand Strategy ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190695668.003.0006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 106-122

Author(s):

Matthew Karp

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

American Foreign Policy ◽

World Politics ◽

Grand Strategy ◽

Strategic Culture ◽

Antebellum Era ◽

Fugitive Slave

This chapter discusses the role of Southerners and slavery in US foreign policy from the antebellum era to the Civil War. Studies that explore slavery's specific impact on foreign policy have generally confined themselves to the ways that slaveholders worked to secure fugitive slave laws, enact restrictions on black sailors, or, at most, fight to add new slave states to the Union. However, the kind of domination that slaveholders desired went beyond the need to reinforce their narrow property rights, or even the desire to expand the amount of territory under slave cultivation. Antebellum slaveholders assumed national Cabinet posts to command the power of the entire United States, and then, crucially, to use that power to strengthen slavery in world politics. If grand strategy is “the intellectual architecture that gives form and structure to foreign policy,” slaveholding leaders were not merely provincial sectionalists but bold and cosmopolitan strategic thinkers. Their profound ideological commitment to slavery did not merely affect domestic politics within a divided republic; it left a deep imprint on the “strategic culture” of American foreign policy.

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State and Politics

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198743538.013.15 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Paul Staniland ◽

Vipin Narang

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Domestic Politics ◽

The State ◽

Indian Politics ◽

Security Environment ◽

Issue Area ◽

Global Affairs ◽

Indian Foreign Policy

How do the structure and character of Indian politics and the state—its parties, coalitions, and bureaucracies—affect Indian foreign policy behaviour? This chapter traces the role of Indian domestic politics in Indian foreign policy, showing that there are significant domestic ‘transmission belts’ in the generation of Indian foreign policy. India resides in a relatively dangerous security environment, with enduring rivalries with both of its major neighbours Pakistan and China, and with a prominent role in global affairs. But the structure and character of Indian politics and the state significantly shape how India reacts to the pressures of that security environment. The authors show how the general low salience of foreign policy can often insulate politicians in this issue area, and how bureaucracies and organs of the state such as the Ministries of Defence and External Affairs can consequently drive Indian foreign policy independent of electoral pressures or accountability.

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