When economic sanctions are likely to be effective?

Abstract

The insane outcomes of past wars and other conflicts took place in 20th century made states to think on creating a mechanism to prevent potential threats in the world that breach international peace and security. For these purposes, the imposition of economic sanctions is seemed to be the most formidable and applicable tool in the system of international relations. Until the present, economic sanctions are deployed unilaterally and multilaterally by states and international organizations against different regimes and episodes. However, a past experience showed that economic sanctions are not always effective in restraining possible conflicts and deterring actions of rogue states. Moreover, the efficacy of economic sanctions has become mostly debated subject of international studies. In this paper, we will analyze the works of scholars and researchers on the application of the economic sanctions and attempt to determine the concrete and effective ways of deploying sanctions. These applications of sanctions are listed and collected in the paper and we give our recommendations.