The EU’s ‘tougher’ sanctions against Russia must be used as a step toward greater engagement, not simply as a punishment

On 29 July, EU governments approved a number of new sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. Borja Guijarro-Usobiaga writes on the likely impact of the new sanctions, arguing that rather than simply using sanctions as a method for punishing Russia, they must be seen as a stepping stone to promote greater engagement with the country. He notes that alienating Russia would not only pose a problem for the crisis in Ukraine, but also for other conflicts such as the civil war in Syria

Only decisive western action can prevent eastern Ukraine from becoming another Crimea

Buildings have been occupied by groups in several towns and cities in eastern Ukraine, while the Ukrainian government has begun a military operation to try and regain control. Borja Guijarro Usobiaga writes on potential diplomatic solutions to the crisis. He argues that any western-backed solution must involve Russia as a partner and be stronger than the response produced by the United States and the European Union to the situation in Crimea. He also notes that if the West cannot take the diplomatic initiative then the situation could escalate extremely quickly

Economic sanctions: Past & Future

In this post for LSE International History, Borja Guijarro-Usobiaga discusses the past, present and future of sanctions. The article analyses the evolution and effectiveness of sanctions as a deterrence and punishment mechanism. Mr Guijarro-Usobiaga argues that sanctions have come a long-way since the 1990s and do constitute an effective means through which to enforce international norms. They do not, however, constitute a silver bullet

Russia and the West are now firmly locked in a war of economic attrition

Following the annexation of Crimea earlier this year, the EU has implemented escalating sanctions against Russia. Borja Guijarro-Usobiaga writes on the impact the sanctions are having on both Russia and Europe. He argues that with neither Russia nor the West willing to make unilateral concessions to solve the crisis, the most likely result is a lasting political deadlock until the costs experienced by both sides provide incentives to normalise relations

European sanctions reconsidered: regime type, strategic bargaining, and the imposition of EU sanctions

Since the end of the Cold War, the European Union (EU) has become a prominent sender of international sanctions. Most of its sanctions regimes have been imposed to address human rights violations and democratic shortcomings in autocratic regimes. While these developments have attracted an increased attention by academics and practitioners alike, not much is known about the underlying factors that trigger the EU’s decision to impose sanctions in the very first place. Using a new database of EU democratic sanctions between 1989 and 2010, this thesis develops a theoretical model that shows that the imposition of sanctions is the result of a strategic bargaining process between a sender and a target country. I argue that sanctions are only one possible outcome of this process, and claim that the likelihood that sanctions are imposed depends, to a large extent, on the target country’s decision to comply with the sender before sanctions are imposed or, alternatively, on its determination to ignore the sender’s threat of sanctions and resist its pressure. I show that the target’s decision to comply or resist is the result of an endogenous policy formation process, which is determined by the target regime’s domestic institutional setting. Different types of institutions (regime types) impose varying degrees of constraints on the ruler’s margin of manoeuvre and shape her policy choices vis-à-vis the threat and imposition of sanctions. I demonstrate that regimes that face no domestic constraints and rely on a small winning coalition of supporters are likely to be strong and willing to resist the sender’s pressure, thereby “self-selecting” themselves into sanctions. By the same token, regimes that face many domestic constraints are vulnerable to sanctions, and face incentives to comply with the sender before sanctions are imposed. My thesis makes several contributions to the literature. First, it provides a theoretical explanation of how domestic institutions matter in the imposition of sanctions, and identifies a set of conditions under which sanctions are more likely (not) to be imposed. Second, it empirically demonstrates the presence of selection effects in the study of sanctions imposition, and shows that these are channelled through the target regime’s domestic institutions. Finally, my findings have relevant policy implications, as they suggest that sanctions are more likely to be effective against certain types of targets. I show that sanctions are more likely to succeed against politically constrained regimes at the threat stage or early during a sanctions episode, whilst they are likely to fail against highly authoritarian regimes which rule free of domestic constraints

Improving the Effectiveness of Sanctions: A Checklist for the EU. CEPS Special Report No. 95, 6 November 2014

The increasingly frequent imposition of sanctions by the EU over the past decade has not been accompanied by a thorough pre-assessment and contingency planning stage, which, argue the authors, has led to the formulation of suboptimal sanctions regimes. This paper proposes a practical pre-assessment and contingency planning of sanctions – a checklist, which departs from the ‘ad hoc-ism’ of current decision-making on sanctions. The checklist includes the identification of resources linked to the objectionable policies; the leverage of the EU; the costs to the EU; the legality of the measures; their unintended effects; the expected contribution towards EU goals; their coherence with overall EU external relations; and the communication of these policies

Improving the effectiveness of sanctions: A checklist for the EU

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