The Relationship between the Effectiveness of UN Targeted Sanctions and the Power of Targeted States

The UN as the most influential international organization takes measures to maintain peace and security in the world. Targeted Sanctions are considered one of the tools thereof. Previous studies on targeted sanctions explored the effectiveness of UN sanctions mostly in relation with senders and rarely analyzed the factors related to the targeted states. Here lies the contribution of this paper; it explores the relationship between the effectiveness of UN sanctions and the power of the targeted states. In pursuing the research interests, this paper relies on two databases; Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) quantitative and qualitative datasets and Composite Indicator of National Capability (CINC). TSC covers UN targeted sanctions between 1991 and 2013 with 63 case episodes in 23 countries. CINC is the most widely accepted index to measure state power, consisting of six variables; military expenditure, military personnel, energy consumption, iron and steel production, urban population, and total population. Combining these two datasets equipped the authors with comprehensive variables to explore the research question.