The United Nations Security Council responds to global threats with sanctions—the imposition of economic restrictions on state and non-state actors. A common set of tools includes asset freezes, travel bans, and export prohibitions. Broad countrywide economic sanctions impose significant costs on targeted regimes and their citizens, limiting access to imported goods and overseas bank accounts and reducing the ability of regime leaders to raise funds on international markets. In collectivist states such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, the imposition of long-standing sanctions has enabled regime leaders to re-allocate economic assets to reward domestic supporters or foreign governments allied with the regime. These gains help to sustain the regimes’ political-economic power over generations.
This article, from the Center on International Cooperation’s Global Sanctions Database (GSDB), is the first to systematically list the official sanction objectives and assess their effectiveness over time. It opens up new avenues of analysis for scholars and policymakers in the fields of development, global governance, and international relations.
As the world’s largest trading powers continue to increase the use of economic coercion as a tool of foreign policy, it is crucial for economists and political scientists to keep up. To study the success and rationale of these policies, it is necessary to have a rich dimensional dataset that records the full range of sanction instruments used, their timing, and their effects on trade flows. The GSDB provides this, and more, to the research community. This is a public good that allows researchers to analyze the impact of sanctions on trade and test models of economic change and conflict.
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