In the literature on sanctions effectiveness, scholars have identified
a number of factors that may contribute to sanctions success.
However, existing empirical studies provide mixed findings concerning
the effects of these factors. This research note explores
two possible reasons for this lack of consistency in the literature.
First, informed by the recent theories that suggest threats are an
important part of sanctions episodes, we analyze both threats and
imposed sanctions. Second, to lessen model dependency of empirical
findings, we employ a methodology that permits us to check
systematically the robustness of the empirical results under various
model specifications. Using the newly released Threat and
Imposition of Economic Sanctions data, our analyses of both
threats and imposed sanctions show that two factors—involvement
of international institutions and severe costs on target states—are
positively and robustly related to sanctions success at every stage
in sanctions episodes. Our analyses also identify a number of other
variables that are systematically related to sanctions success, but
the significance of these relationships depends on the specific model
estimated. Finally, our results point to a number of differences at
the threat and imposition stages, which suggests specific selection
effects that should be explored in future work