The art of sanctions: a view from the field

Abstract

Sanctions scholarship is peculiar. On the one hand, it tends to focus on answering the questions most relevant to policy-makers. Researchers investigate when sanctions ‘work’ and discuss how to measure their success. On the other hand, the subject hardly entertains any dialogue with policy circles. Academic assumptions and findings are neither endorsed nor disproved by those who design and manage sanctions instruments. As a book for practitioners by a practitioner, the work by Richard Nephew sets out to provide a ‘framework for considering whether, when and how to apply sanctions’ (p. vii). Nephew discusses the sanctions strategy applied on Iran from the perspective of its principal architect, a former deputy sanctions coordinator at the US State Department. Neither the sanctions episode nor the author could be more apt for this endeavour. At its core, the book argues, first, that the relationship between the sender's application of pain and the target's resolve to resist ‘is critical for making any determination as to the effectiveness of sanctions’ (p. 3), and second, that increased attention should be paid to sanctions design (p. 49).