Non-governmental organizations and economic sanctionsi
| DOI | 10.1177/0192512116677927 |
| Author | Taehee Whang,Youngwan Kim |
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512116677927
International Political Science Review
2018, Vol. 39(2) 209 –224
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0192512116677927
journals.sagepub.com/home/ips
Non-governmental organizations
and economic sanctionsi
Youngwan Kim
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea
Taehee Whang
Yonsei University, Korea
Abstract
How do non-governmental organizations (NGOs) affect sanction policies? Using two datasets of sanctions
and NGOs, we study whether and how US-based NGOs working in a target state can influence the threat
and implementation of sanctions initiated by the USA. At the threat stage, the sender government tends
to perceive NGOs as a signaling device such that NGOs increase the probability of sanction threat. At the
imposition stage, the presence of NGOs in a target state also increases the likelihood of a sender state
imposing sanctions. In addition, the sender state tends to implement costly sanctions when NGOs have
more field operations in target states. This study provides a systematic explanation of the relationship
between NGOs and sanction threat and implementation.
Keywords
Economic sanctions, non-governmental organizations, international development
Introduction
How do non-governmental organizations (NGOs) affect sanction policies? When we think of
NGOs in an international context, we do not usually think of NGOs as having much say or sway
over security matters or over high-level disputes among states. Nonetheless, it appears that NGOs
are sometimes involved with the hard politics of states. In particular, when states threaten or actu-
ally implement sanctions, NGOs are more likely to reveal their opinions and/or mobilize the public
to influence the decisions of sanction senders. The governments of sanction senders are typically
motivated by factors related to national interest, security, and regional stability. As well, a growing
Note: The authors are listed in alphabetical order and have made equal contributions.
Corresponding author:
Taehee Whang, Department of Political Science and International Studies, 307-1, Yonhee Hall, Yonsei University, 50
Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, 03722, Seoul, Korea.
Email: thwhang@yonsei.ac.kr
677927IPS0010.1177/0192512116677927International Political Science ReviewKim and Whang
research-article2016
Article
210 International Political Science Review 39(2)
number of sanctions in recent decades have been imposed for domestic consumption purposes
(e.g., sanctions motivated by human rights violations that are not directly related to the national
interests of senders). Irrespective of the reasons for sanctions, little attention has been paid to
whether or how NGOs affect sanction decisions of sender governments; the reigning assumption
has been that, in this area, NGOs have no significant influence.
At the same time, it is clear that the activities of development and relief NGOs are often strongly
affected by sanctions. While sanctions are aimed at changing the behaviors of the target govern-
ment, they can also harm the target country’s general population by causing economic disruptions
and hardships. The primary mission of development and relief NGOs is to improve the socio-
economic conditions of people in developing countries, which sometimes become the targets of
sanctions. Thus, the interests of NGOs often conflict with sanction policies. In some cases, NGOs
may ask sender governments not to impose sanctions or they request the lifting of ongoing sanc-
tions. In other cases, they may request the imposition of sanctions to protect people from authori-
tarian or ineffective governments that do not respect the lives of people. In fact, NGOs have voiced
their opinions in many sanction episodes. When sanctions were imposed in 2003, one of the NGOs,
the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq, has campaigned for the lifting of non-military sanctions
in order to protect the basic life of Iraqi people although they did not support the Iraq regime. Other
NGOs pressured the European Union directly to voice against lifting of diamond sanctions in
Zimbabwe. European NGOs also protested against the imposition of sanctions on North Korea.
While they viewed that sanctions would cause innocent civilians to suffer economically, they also
strongly criticized the export of European luxuries to North Korea. These NGOs have a strong
motivation to affect decisions regarding sanctions.
In this paper, we seek to explore the relationship between NGOs and sanctions at two different
stages of the sanctions process: the threat stage; and the implementation stage. For each of these
stages, we specify the interests of NGOs and develop a theoretical argument that connects their
interests, if salient enough, to the optimal choices of sender governments. We focus on two ways
in which the sender-based NGOs affect the sanction policies of sender governments: hostage
effects; and signaling effects. At the threat stage, the role of NGOs is somewhat limited and sender
governments generally perceive NGOs as either a hostage or a signaling device. At the implemen-
tation stage, the interests of NGOs are more salient; therefore, they are more willing to be involved
in the process. Thus, they might attempt to pressure the sender government, directly or indirectly,
and oppose all-out economic warfare that hurts the target population and NGO activities as well.
These interests and actions of NGOs can also play a role theoretically as a hostage or a signaling
device for the sender governments in determining specific sanction policies.
Using the Threat and Imposition of Sanctions (TIES) dataset, we test the implications of a the-
ory of sanctions and NGOs. In particular, we subject competing hypotheses – namely, the hostage
and signaling effects of NGOs – to empirical tests at both threat and implementation stages. Our
findings show that the presence of NGOs in developing countries can increase the probability of
the threat of sanctions, which suggests that NGOs have a signaling effect. Next, at the stage of
implementation of sanctions, the presence of NGOs tends to increase the likelihood of the sender
actually implementing sanctions. As the number of sender-based NGOs increases, the probability
of the implementation of sanctions also increases. This implies that NGO opposition to sanctions
generally fails to constrain sender choices, exerting a signaling effect on the implementation of
sanctions. We conclude that NGOs play an important role in explaining sanction politics among
states; their interests and interactions lead sender governments to respond strategically at each
stage of the sanctions process.
Our contribution is that we present systematic evidence regarding why and how NGOs affect
sanction policies. In order to do this, we focus on US-based NGOs and US sanctions since the US
To continue reading
Request your trial