Abstract
Targeted sanctions seek to circumvent a target state’s citizens in general from the adverse economic impact of coercion. Arguably, this would remedy some of the population’s incentives to engage in the well-known “rallying-around-the-flag”. Yet occasionally, targeted sanctions still seem to produce such an effect.
This paper explores sanctions conflicts as social constructs. It purports that rally-around-the-flag is all but one part of the discursive dimension of sanctions conflicts. Sanctions are intricately connected with the conflict setting they occur in. The study suggests a dialectical relation between how opponents perceive conflicts and the meaning of sanctions therein. This nexus of different constructions of sanctions moreover extends to “targeted” sanctions as well: As restrictive measures against Zimbabwe demonstrate, they are not the kind of minimally-invasive operations with clinical precision as such reasoning would suggest.
Whether sanctions are really “targeted”, sparing the economy and concentrating on the culprits, is as much a question of discourse in the target state.
This paper explores sanctions conflicts as social constructs. It purports that rally-around-the-flag is all but one part of the discursive dimension of sanctions conflicts. Sanctions are intricately connected with the conflict setting they occur in. The study suggests a dialectical relation between how opponents perceive conflicts and the meaning of sanctions therein. This nexus of different constructions of sanctions moreover extends to “targeted” sanctions as well: As restrictive measures against Zimbabwe demonstrate, they are not the kind of minimally-invasive operations with clinical precision as such reasoning would suggest.
Whether sanctions are really “targeted”, sparing the economy and concentrating on the culprits, is as much a question of discourse in the target state.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Cambridge Review of International Affairs |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 952-969 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| ISSN | 0955-7571 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2016 |