The Unintended Consequences of Restrictive Measures: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of UN Targeted Sanctions from 1991 to 2013

Sanctions are among the most frequently used foreign policy tools of governments and international organizations in reaction to crises in world politics. Reflective of this, scholarly literature on sanction effectiveness, their intended consequences, is abundant. Yet, only a handful of studies explore the unintended consequences of restrictive measures. This is remarkable given that negative externalities in form of the rally-around-the-flag effect or the strengthening of authoritarian regimes are well documented. In this paper, we seek to address this blind spot in current literature by asking when sanctions yield negative externalities. In doing so, we develop a theoretical conceptualization and explanatory framework of unintended consequences adequate for sanctions research. Empirically, we rely on recent data from the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) and use a set-theoretic approach to examine negative externalities of United Nation’s (UN) sanctions. The results of our study provide a first systematic account of sanctions’ unintended consequences, which will inform further research on the negative externalities of restrictive measures pursued by actors beyond the UN such as the United States or the European Union.