Carrots as Sticks: How Effective Are Foreign Aid Suspensions and Economic Sanctions?

Abstract

Existing research shows that economic coercion successfully influences targeted states’ behavior 38 percent of the time. This article integrates research on economic sanctions and foreign aid by assessing the relative effectiveness of two types of economic coercion: economic sanctions and foreign aid suspensions. It argues that suspending aid is more effective than adopting economic sanctions because (1) aid suspensions are economically beneficial for the adopting state, while sanctions are costly, (2) aid suspensions directly affect the targeted government’s budget, (3) market forces undermine sanctions but not aid suspensions, and (4) aid suspensions are less likely to spark adverse behavioral reactions. A quantitative analysis estimates the success rate of imposed aid suspensions to be 44 percent and that of economic sanctions to be 26 percent. The results are robust across two alternative datasets on economic coercion, and qualitative evidence corroborates the outlined mechanisms. The findings suggest that economic sanctions are less effective than previously thought and that large donor states have a higher chance of achieving political goals through economic coercion.