The dark side of economic freedom: neoliberalism has deleterious effects on labour rights

The common criticism is that market-liberalising policies sacrifice social and political rights. Robert Blanton and Dursun Peksen adopt a novel approach, finding more nuanced insights concerning the dynamics between neoliberalism and labour rights. Overall, their findings confirm that the relationship between the two is markedly negative, in spite of the mounting empirical evidence that worker rights may be conducive to a competitive economy. As they argue, achieving a more equitable balance is an issue that needs to be urgently addressed

Better or worse? the effect of economic sanctions on human rights \u3csup\u3e*\u3c/sup\u3e

Does economic coercion increase or decrease government respect for human rights in countries targeted with economic sanctions? If economic sanctions weaken the target regime\u27s coercive capacity, human rights violations by the government should be less likely. If, on the contrary, sanctions fail to attenuate the coercive capacity of the target elites and create more economic difficulties and political violence among ordinary citizens, the government will likely commit more human rights violations. Focusing on competing views of why sanctions might improve or deteriorate human rights conditions, this article offers an empirical examination of the effect sanctions have on the physical integrity rights of citizens in target countries. Utilizing time-series, cross-national data for the period 1981ĝ€ 2000, the findings suggest that economic sanctions worsen government respect for physical integrity rights, including freedom from disappearances, extra-judicial killings, torture, and political imprisonment. The results also show that extensive sanctions are more detrimental to human rights than partial/selective sanctions. Economic coercion remains a counterproductive policy tool, even when sanctions are specifically imposed with the goal of improving human rights. Finally, multilateral sanctions have a greater overall negative impact on human rights than unilateral sanctions. © 2009 Journal of Peace Research

Foreign military intervention and women\u27s rights

A large body of scholarly work has been devoted to the possible consequences of foreign military intervention for the target state. This literature, however, tends to be state-centric and mostly neglects the insight from gender-specific theoretical and empirical perspectives. The purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which military intervention affects women\u27s rights. It is argued that unilateral interventions are prone to diminishing women\u27s status by encouraging the persistence or creation of repressive regimes and contributing to political disorder in the target state. If the use of armed forces ever helps or causes no damage to women\u27s well-being, it will likely be during interventions led by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). This is because IGO interventions are unlikely to protect or support an authoritarian, patriarchal political system. Furthermore, such multilateral missions will increase international awareness of women\u27s status along with other human rights issues in the target society, thereby creating more pressure on the government to enforce women\u27s rights. To empirically substantiate these arguments, three different indicators that tap socio-economic and political aspects of women\u27s status are used, including the indices of women\u27s economic, political, and social rights from the Cingranelli-Richards database. The results indicate that while women\u27s political and economic status suffer most during unilateral US interventions, IGO interventions are likely to have a positive influence on women\u27s political rights. Non-US unilateral interventions, on the other hand, are unlikely to cause any major change in women\u27s status. Finally, military interventions in general have no major statistically significant impact on women\u27s social rights. © The Author(s) 2011

Pro-market economic policies and women’s economic wellbeing

Despite much scholarly research on a range of socio-economic and political effects of pro-market economic policies, scant research has been devoted to the gendered effects of these policies. This article advances the hypothesis that market-liberalising policies in five key areas — government size and spending, legal system and protection of property, access to sound money, freedom from excessive regulation, and economic openness — help women gain a more active role in the total labour force but do not ameliorate gendered economic discrimination. On the contrary, this article asserts that market-friendly economic reforms might contribute to the rise of women’s economic rights violations. Results from a panel of over 120 countries for the period from 1981 to 2011 indicate that pro-market economic policies are associated with an increased share of female employment in the labour force but less respect for women’s economic rights. Overall, the data analysis points to an overlooked, but important, contrast of more female employment yet less respect for women’s economic rights in freer economies. The results also present a dilemma for policymaking. Whereas pro-market policies and reforms might drive economic growth and create more employment opportunities for women, such policies and reforms might be implemented at the expense of women’s economic rights, which are crucial for the empowerment of women

When Do Imposed Economic Sanctions Work? A Critical Review of the Sanctions Effectiveness Literature

There is growing policy consensus in Washington and other Western capitals that economic sanctions are powerful tools to cope with major foreign policy crises. Are sanctions, particularly targeted sanctions, really the potent instruments optimists suggest? Under what circumstances do punitive economic measures induce policy change in sanctioned countries? To probe these queries, in this article I outline the conditions that have been identified as more likely to lead to successful sanctions outcomes in the literature. I also discuss four major shortcomings of existing scholarship. First, the sender-biased interpretation of sanctions effectiveness renders the treatment of the ‘ineffective’ cases with negative outcomes the same as those cases that induce no discernable change in target behavior. Second, the prevalent use of static data from existing sanctions databases reduces the ability of researchers to study various time-specific factors affecting the probability of sanctions success. Third, the dominant state-centric bargaining model in the literature offers limited insight into contemporary coercive measures directed at non-state actors. Fourth, the study of sanctions in isolation of other instruments that frequently accompany them, such as incentives and diplomatic pressure, leads to a partial understanding of the specific role sanctions play in shaping the outcome of key foreign policy initiatives

Coercive Diplomacy and Press Freedom: An Empirical Assessment of the Impact of Economic Sanctions on Media Openness

Despite the central role the media play in the domestic and foreign policy-making processes, very little research examines the influence of international factors on media openness. This article investigates the impact of coercive diplomacy (in the form of economic sanctions) on press freedom. It is argued that foreign economic coercion will likely deteriorate press freedom by (1) restricting a sanctioned country\u27s interactions with the outside world, thereby allowing the target regime to have greater control over the free flows of information, and (2) inflicting significant economic damage on the sustainability and development of independent media outlets. Using time-series, cross-national empirical data over a large number of countries for the period 1980-2000, the findings confirm economic sanctions\u27 negative effect on media openness. Extensive sanctions, in particular, have a greater negative impact on press freedom than more selective sanctions. Furthermore, multilateral sanctions will likely have a greater corrosive impact on media openness than unilateral sanctions. © The Author(s) 2010

Autocracies and Economic Sanctions: The Divergent Impact of Authoritarian Regime Type on Sanctions Success

There is some consensus in the literature that economic sanctions targeting authoritarian regimes are less effective than those against democratic regimes. This line of research, however, assumes that autocratic regimes are monolithic and that they have similar capacities to resist foreign pressure. This study argues that the success rate of sanctions against dictatorships is contingent on institutional differences across different types of autocracies. I develop a theoretical model indicating that single-party and military regimes are less likely to concede to foreign pressure compared to democracies. This is because they effectively use various repressive tactics and positive inducements to endure the costs of the coercion. Sanctions against personalist regimes, on the other hand, are likely to be as effective as sanctions directed at democracies. Personalist regimes might be inclined to acquiesce to foreign pressure due to their lack of strong institutional capacity to weather the costs of the sanctions. Results from the selection-corrected models show that sanctions against military or single-party regimes are less likely to induce concessions relative to democratic target regimes. The findings also indicate that there is no significant difference in the success rate of sanctions against personalist regimes and democratic governments

Political effectiveness, negative externalities, and the ethics of economic sanctions

As part of the roundtable Economic Sanctions and Their Consequences, this essay discusses whether economic sanctions are morally acceptable policy tools. It notes that both conventional and targeted sanctions not only often fail to achieve their stated objectives but also bring about significant negative externalities in target countries. Economic dislocation and increases in political instability instigated by sanctions disproportionately affect the well-being of opposition groups and marginalized segments of society, while target elites and their support base remain insulated from the intended costs of foreign pressure. Sanctions might also incentivize target governments to use repressive means to consolidate their rule and weaken the opposition. Given these serious shortcomings, I argue that sanctions are ethically problematic tools of foreign policy. Nonetheless, this does not mean that sanctions should be rejected outright, as there might be cases where sanctions are the only viable option, and they might work effectively under certain circumstances. Rather, the essay suggests that policymakers should apply more caution in considering the use of sanctions given their low probability of success, and should be more concerned with the delicate balance between political gain and civilian pain before levying sanctions, whether comprehensive or targeted