Sanctions not only transcend the various layers of social aggregation but also the disciplinary boundaries of political science, sociology and psychology. They can be imposed among individuals or among their units on the domestic as well as international level. As interactions across national borders do not evolve in a social vacuum, the concept of identity has come to be commonly employed to account for the behavior of internationally operating individuals and their social units. Already problematic with regard to the identity of individuals which is inherently fragmented, constantly in the making, multiple in nature, and not least prone to well-documented cognitive biases, projecting it onto bigger social units renders its behavioral consequences even more indeterminate than in the case of individuals. Due to this fact, I instead rely on the concept of status by employing the goal of actors to attain self-esteem or self-respect to account for their behavior. In doing so, I conceptualize the social dynamics of my cultural model of sanction efficacy as reflecting a social status hierarchy between sender and target.
As a relational concept, status is a category of social differentiation that depends on the recognition by other actors and is associated with different roles and treatment expectations. Whereas respectful treatment confirms an actor’s status within a hierarchy, disrespectful behavior occurs when this position is perceived to be lowered. Empirically, I examine this proposition through content analysis of two case studies concerning Iranian and European reactions to negative US sanctions. Scrutinizing the social dynamics of my cultural model of sanction efficacy reveals that if the manipulation of the distribution of symbolic or material goods by the sender is perceived as status depreciation by the target, its acquiescence to outside demands is unlikely to happen.
