Coercion in the Liberal Order: Symbolic Role of Economic Sanctions

Scholars offers two competing explanations for the use of economic sanctions – instrumental and symbolic. In respect to the former, the motivation for the use of economic sanctions stems from the desire of policy makers to change the behaviour of a target state. However, given the low effectiveness of economic sanctions, literature has suggested that economic sanctions are in fact imposed to address the expectations of the domestic audience and, consequently, the motivation is symbolic. In this article, I assess this argument and study whether a political leader experiences a domestic audience boost for imposition of economic sanctions. Unlike other studies, I also test whether multilateral efforts offer an additional increase in popularity and, following crisis bargaining literature, whether issuing an empty threat results in a domestic audience cost. To address these questions, I employ a difference-in-differences design and study the change in the approval rating of US presidents. I use the TIES data set for information on economic sanctions and monthly Gallup data on US presidential approval ratings.