Efficacy NC

I [negate and] value morality. The standard is checking harmful state policies.

States have empirically committed the worst moral atrocities. R.J. Rummel1 writes: “ In total,

[D]uring the first eighty-eight years of [the 20th] century, almost 170 million men, women and this

children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed or worked to

death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed or killed in any other of the myriad ways

governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could

conceivably [number] nearly 360 million people.

be It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs. ”

Thus, if we can check state policies that risk massive harm to innocent persons we ought to do so

even at the cost of creating lesser harms in the process.

I contend that sanctions are an effective means of changing harmful policies, preventing

mass democide and vastly outweighing the harms they directly impose on the target state. First,

sanction efficacy strongly depends on degree of imposed cost; thus while low-intensity sanctions

may only sometimes change behavior, in cases where senders drop the hammer with high-cost

sanctions they’re an obscenely effective policy tool. Morgan et al2 in ‘09: “ A common argument in the literature suggests that the

key determinant of sanction success is the degree to which sanctions are costly to the target.
s

Intuitively, higher costs should be more likely to lead a target to change its policies. Variations on this argument suggest that

the costs to the sender should be inversely related to success. Previous results based on HSE data have provided support for [this] these

contention s. These hypotheses have generally found support from studies using the HSE data and, as can be seen from Table 2, [T]he expected relationship [also] hold[s] when s

using [our data] . TIES In Table 2, we again define sender success as occurring when the 0–10 scaled variable depicting the degree to which the sender achieved its objectives is greater than the 0–10 scaled variable depicting the degree to which the target

1
R.J. Rummel (BA and MA from the University of Hawaii (1959, 1961); Ph.D. in Political Science (Northwestern
University, 1963); Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa.; taught at Indiana University (1963), Yale
(1964-66), University of Hawaii (1966-1995); now Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii;
finalist for 1996 Nobel Peace Prize), Death by Government, 1997
2
T . CLIFTON MORGAN (Department of Political Science, Rice University), NAVIN BAPAT (Department of
Political Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), VALENTIN KRUSTEV (Department of Political
Science, University of Alabama), “The Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions, 1971–2000”, Conflict
Management and Peace Studies 26(1), 2009
achieved its objectives. In Table 2A, we see that, [F]or cases those in which [where] sanctions were imposed, as target costs increase the

probability of success for the sender increases. When costs are minor, senders succeed 38% of the time.
target

The success rate climbs to 94% when costs the to the target are severe. In Table 2B, we see that sender costs do not have a statistically significant relationship with success; but, as one

moves from minor sender costs to major sender costs, the probability of success actually increases. There are too few cases of major or severe sender costs to have confidence in any inferences drawn, however. ”

[Prefer this evidence since studies that don’t discriminate based on cost intensity wrongly

extrapolate from low-commitment cases where sanctions were just meant to have a small, low-

cost shot at changing policy. Rogers3 writes: “ This interpretive question aside, [T]he pessimistic sanctions literature

suffers from biases that cause it to underestimate sanctions [efficacy.]

three effectiveness. First, it defines a successful sanction' too narrowly, so that

some successful efforts are coded as failure. Sanctions can have three major foreign policy purposes, all of which are relevant to preventing deadly conflict. First, sanctions can be imposed to persuade the target to change its behavior. Second, sanctions can be imposed to weaken the target,

thereby leaving it less able to make trouble. Third, sanctions can be imposed to punish the target, thereby deterring it and others from making trouble in the future. The sanctions' literature judges sanctions' success according to only the first of these purposes, target compliance. It codes as

failures cases where sanctions successfully weakened or punished the target, and since many sanctions are undertaken largely for these purposes, it underestimates the power of sanctions to achieve results. Second, the literature focuses on the ability of imposed sanctions to compel the target

to change its behavior, but does not systematically study whether the threat of sanctions can deter the target from taking a certain action. Hence the literature asks if sanctions can achieve compellence (which is difficult) without asking if they can achieve deterrence (which is easier).

Deterring an untaken action is easier than compelling a policy reversal because leaders do not face the higher political costs that accompany reversing course. Third, the literature [Among others, it] generalizes

largely from cases when partial sanctions were imposed half-heartedly, so it underestimates the

possible effectiveness of forceful sanctions. As noted above, and [C]ontrary to common impression, most past

sanctions efforts have been partial. In fact [T]otal economic sanctions have rarely been imposed. Instances

of partial sanctions include the many unilateral [US] sanctions against countries that violated human

rights, supported terroris[m] t activities , and worked to acquire nuclear weapons imposed by the United States starting in

the 70s. These three categories account for 74 percent of

19 the forty-six U.S. economic sanctions imposed between 1973

and 1990 and largely account for the poor 17 percent sanctions success rate that [HSE] Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott report for

the U.S. during this period. The failure of partial sanctions is a poor predictor of the potential of

forceful sanctions.”] Thus, sanctions are an empirically strong policy tool in that they either offer

a strong chance of changing regime behavior at relatively low cost, or a near certainty at higher

cost.

3
Elizabeth S. Rogers (Associate, International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International
Affairs; Ph.D. in political science from Duke University; previously a member of the faculty at Case Western
Reserve University), “Using Economic Sanctions to Prevent Deadly Conflict,” CSIA Discussion Paper 96-02,
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, May 1996.
 Next, sanctions have been hugely effective at promoting democratic transitions since the

end of the Cold War. Collins4 writes: “Sanctions have become more successful at inducing

democracy in the contemporary era , not as a result of selection bias, but as a result of the dramatically altered

configuration of power in the international system . The demise of the Soviet pole dramatically increased the has

leverage of America’s [US] sanctions to promote democracy. The competitive dynamic of the Cold War

limited the costs of recalcitrance when targeted states faced American democracy sanctions, as offsetting assistance

could typically be secured from the Soviet Union . Ethiopia, for [instance] example , could remain defiant when

Washington imposed sanctions in 76, as it simply substituted American aid with far more 19

generous support from two members of the Marxist pole: the USSR and Cuba. [When t]he Soviet Union indeed lavished billions in aid on scores of states

across the world during the Cold War. This aid evaporated by 1990, and developing and middle-income states were left in the 1990s with a single source of polar

robust aid and trade—the U S and its wealthy democratic allies. nited tates Aid-recipient [S]tates could [thus] no

longer employ the threat of defection to the rival pole to escape sanctions ; they were forced to choose between suffering the costs of sanctions, or

capitulating to demands for democratic reform. ”

Collins5 2 gives empirics: “By a wide margin —more than 3 to 1— democracy-promotion successes

[have] outnumbered democracy-promotion failures [since the Cold War]. On twenty-two occasions in the

unipolar period under consideration , the U S employed economic sanctions to promote the cause of
nited tates

democracy. In five of these episodes, sanctions failed to promote significant democratic reform, yet on

seventeen occasions , economic sanctions [they] proved effective in promoting democracy. The efficacy rate of 77 percent in the

unipolar era reveals that economic sanctions were greater [more] than threefold (321 percent more effective at )

promoting democratic reform abroad than in the bipolar period.”

4
Stephen D. Collins (Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at
Kennesaw State University), “Democracy Sanctions: An Assessment of Economic Sanctions as an Instrument of
Democracy Promotion,” Taiwan Journal of Democracy, Volume 5, No. 2: 69-96, December 2009
5
Ibid.
 Democratization is the best form of solvency for the worst abuses of state power.

Rummel6 2: “The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the

whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. The more constrained the power of

governments, the more power is diffused, checked and balanced, the less [a state] will aggress on others and it

commit democide. At the extremes of Power, totalitarian communist governments slaughter their people

by the tens of millions; in contrast, many democracies can barely bring themselves to [even]

execute serial murderers.” Rummel7 3 continues: “

even Many of the answers to these questions will fall into place if we recognize three facts and one practical necessity that cuts through the

jumble of questions and problems involved. The one fact is that democracies by far have had the least domestic democide, and now with

their extensive liberalization, have virtually none. Therefore, democratization (not just electoral democracies, but liberal

democratization in terms of [along with] civil and political rights and liberties) provides the long [term] hope for run

the elimination of democide.” Thus, democratizing sanctions offer the best long-term solvency

for harms like democide, outweighin other impacts on duration and magnitude.

[Last, sanctions significantly increase the chance of regime change in target states.

Marinov8 writes: “Using panel data on 136 countries, observed over an average of 37 years, I

find that the presence of sanctions against a government leader in a given year makes her or him significantly

more likely to lose power in the following year. Specifically, sanctions increase the baseline risk

of losing power by 28%. The result holds after adjusting for other determinants of leadership

survival such as domestic political institutions, level of economic growth, time in office, and the

any residual country-specific heterogeneity.” [Even though Marinov’s stats aggregate democratic
6
R.J. Rummel (BA and MA from the University of Hawaii (1959, 1961); Ph.D. in Political Science (Northwestern
University, 1963); Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa.; taught at Indiana University (1963), Yale
(1964-66), University of Hawaii (1966-1995); now Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii;
finalist for 1996 Nobel Peace Prize), Death by Government, 1997
7
R.J. Rummel (BA and MA from the University of Hawaii (1959, 1961); Ph.D. in Political Science (Northwestern
University, 1963); Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, Omicron Delta Kappa.; taught at Indiana University (1963), Yale
(1964-66), University of Hawaii (1966-1995); now Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Hawaii;
finalist for 1996 Nobel Peace Prize), “Eliminating Democide and War Through An Alliance of Democracies,”
International Journal of World Peace, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, p. 55ff, 2001
8
Nikolay Marinov Do Economic Sanctions Destabilize Country Leaders? American Journal of Political Science,
Vol. 49, No. 3 (Jul., 2005), pp. 564-576
and non-democratic regimes, the effect on regime change is positive across all categories, and in

either case change of government ups the odds of harmful policies being scrapped.]

Even in cases where leaders don’t lose power, the risk means that sanctions will strongly

incent policy change. Marinov9 2: “Sanctions are more likely to extract concessions or induce

compliance if targeted leaders have an incentive to avoid them (Hirschman 1945; Wagner 1988). Do leaders have such incentives? A natural

way of answering this question is to look at whether economic sanctions hurt the survival of

government leaders in office… Second, [I]f pressure is effective in destabilizing the leaders it targets,

leaders would have an incentive to compromise once under pressure. This provides one [gives] reason to

[think] believe that sanctions may be more effective in securing policy change than previously

thought.”]

[Thus, sanctions have the potential to save tens of millions of lives by changing harmful

policies, so I negate.]

9
Ibid.