Istituto di Economia Internazionale - Are Sanctions Instrumental or Expressive?

Recent Articles

Read more about our latest published articles.

Review’s Archive

Corresponding Author:
Martin Paldam, Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University, Denmark

Are Sanctions Instrumental or Expressive?

May 28, 2025
JEL classification: F13; F51
Keywords: International Sanctions; Expressive Behavior

Abstract

In an increasingly globalized world, people in country A know more about other countries than they used to. Thus, there are more countries, such as B, which pursue policies that A feels are so bad that A must do something. The options of A fall with the distance to the offending country B. However, A can always impose a trade sanction on B. Consequently, international sanctions are getting increasingly common. Sanctions are analyzed in two largely disjunct literatures: One deals with the losses in A and B. The second analyzes the effect of sanctions on the policy of B. Both literatures are known for modest findings. This is well known by the decision makers in A. The paper argues that the purpose of many sanctions is expressive. They allow politicians in A to say that they do something, and this makes A’s population feel good.

Read the full article

Download the article in PDF format to read and print.

Bibliography

Anderson, J.E. and E. van Wincoop (2004), “Trade Costs”, Journal of Economic Literature, 42(3), 691-751.

Ashenfelter, O., S.M. Ciccarella and H.J. Shatz (2007), “French Wine and the US Boycott of 2003: Does Politics Really Affect Commerce?”, Journal of Wine Economics, 2(1), 55-74.

Bapat, N.A., T. Heinrich, Y. Kobayashi and T.C. Morgan (2013), “Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness: Sensitivity Analysis using New Data”, International Interactions, 39(1), 79-98.

Becko, J.S. (2024), “A Theory of Economic Sanctions as Terms-of-Trade Manipulation”, Journal of International Economics, 150(2),103898.

Bentzen, J. and V. Smith (2002), “French Nuclear Testings and the Consumption of French Wine in Denmark”, International Journal of Wine Marketing, 14(3), 20-36.

Brennan, G. and A. Hamlin (1998), “Expressive Voting and Electoral Equilibrium”, Public Choice, 95(1-2), 149-715.

Felbermayr, G., A. Kirilakha, C. Syropoulos, E. Yalcin and Y.V. Yotov (2020), “The Global Sanctions Data Base”, European Economic Review, 129(C), 103561. Updated to 2023.

GSDB, Global sanctions data base. Available from: https://www.globalsanctionsdatabase.com/

Gutmann, J., M. Neunkirch and F. Neumeier (2023), “Do China and Russia Undermine Western Sanctions? Evidence from DiD and Event Studies Estimation”, Review of International Economics, 3(1)2, 132-160.

Hasse, R. (1978), “Why Economic Sanctions always Fail - the Case of Rhodesia”, Intereconomics, 13(7-8), 194-199.

Hibbs, D.A. Jr. (2000), “Bread and Peace Voting in US Presidential Elections”, Public Choice, 104(1-2), 149-180.

Hillman, A.L. (2010), “Expressive Behavior in Economics and Politics”, European Journal of Political Economy, 26(4), 403-418.

Jovanović, M.N. (2022), “Economic Sanctions: Disappointing Old Wine in New Bottles”, Economia Internazionale/International Economics, 75(4), 545-576.

Nannestad, P. and M. Paldam (1994), “The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years”, Public Choice, 79(3-4), 213-245 (*).

Norpoth, H. (1987), “Guns and Butter and Government Popularity in Britain, American Political Science Review, 81(3), 949-960.

Peksen, D., (2019), “When do Imposed Economic Sanctions Work? A Critical Review of the Sanctions Effectiveness Literature”, Defense and Peace Economics, 30(6), 635-647 (*).

Sanders, D., H. Ward, D. March and T. Fletcher (1987), “Government Popularity and the Falklands War: A Reassessment”, British Journal of Political Science, 17(3), 281-313.

Souza, G., de, N. Hu, H. Li and Y. Mei (2024), “(Trade) Wars and Peace: How to Impose International Trade Sanctions”, Journal of Monetary Economics, 146, 103572 (*).

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions

Authors’ login