Lifting Failed Sanctions: Alliances, Reputations, and Instrumental Deference
type: CreativeWork
description: Why do states persist in failed economic sanctions, and why do they sometimes abandon them without securing concessions? Existing scholarship overwhelmingly focuses on the target of sanctions, seeking to explain when and why targets comply. Far less attention has been devoted to the sender’s decision to maintain or terminate sanctions. This omission is striking. Sanctions frequently fail to compel targets, yet senders often maintain them for years or even decades, despite the economic costs of maintaining such sanctions. At other times, senders abruptly lift sanctions in the absence of concessions. What explains this variation? I argue that states maintain failed sanctions to protect a valuable reputational asset: their reputation for sanctions resolve. Reputation for sanctions resolve refers to other states’ beliefs about a sender’s willingness to impose and sustain economic sanctions in the absence of concessions. Because resolve cannot be directly observed, foreign audiences infer it from past behavior. Lifting sanctions without concessions signals that a sender is unwilling to bear costs over time, thereby reducing the effectiveness of future coercion and deterrence. To avoid these reputational costs, states frequently persist in sanctions even when they appear ineffective. Yet if reputational concerns incentivize persistence, why do states ever abandon failed sanctions? I contend that sanctioning states face a tradeoff between maintaining their reputation for sanctions resolve and preserving alliance cohesion. Public pressure from allies to lift sanctions alters this tradeoff in two ways. First, visible intra-alliance disagreement raises the diplomatic and security costs of continued sanctions by signaling disunity that adversaries may exploit. Second, allied pressure provides diplomatic cover for capitulation. When a sender lifts sanctions in response to public allied demands, observers face uncertainty about whether the decision reflects low resolve or a stra…
abstract: Why do states persist in failed economic sanctions, and why do they sometimes abandon them without securing concessions? Existing scholarship overwhelmingly focuses on the target of sanctions, seeking to explain when and why targets comply. Far less attention has been devoted to the sender’s decision to maintain or terminate sanctions. This omission is striking. Sanctions frequently fail to compel targets, yet senders often maintain them for years or even decades, despite the economic costs of maintaining such sanctions. At other times, senders abruptly lift sanctions in the absence of concessions. What explains this variation? I argue that states maintain failed sanctions to protect a valuable reputational asset: their reputation for sanctions resolve. Reputation for sanctions resolve refers to other states’ beliefs about a sender’s willingness to impose and sustain economic sanctions in the absence of concessions. Because resolve cannot be directly observed, foreign audiences infer it from past behavior. Lifting sanctions without concessions signals that a sender is unwilling to bear costs over time, thereby reducing the effectiveness of future coercion and deterrence. To avoid these reputational costs, states frequently persist in sanctions even when they appear ineffective. Yet if reputational concerns incentivize persistence, why do states ever abandon failed sanctions? I contend that sanctioning states face a tradeoff between maintaining their reputation for sanctions resolve and preserving alliance cohesion. Public pressure from allies to lift sanctions alters this tradeoff in two ways. First, visible intra-alliance disagreement raises the diplomatic and security costs of continued sanctions by signaling disunity that adversaries may exploit. Second, allied pressure provides diplomatic cover for capitulation. When a sender lifts sanctions in response to public allied demands, observers face uncertainty about whether the decision reflects low resolve or a stra…
author: Silva II, Paul, Manuel
language: en
keywords: Political Science
date published: 2026
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:46:32Z
provider: University of Pennsylvania
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Pennsylvania