Review: International: Economic Sanctions and International Enforcement
| Author | Alan Cassels |
| Published date | 01 June 1974 |
| Date | 01 June 1974 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070207402900215 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/
INTERNATIONAL
291
ECONOMIC
SANCTIONS
AND
INTERNATIONAL ENFORCEMENT
Margaret
P.
Doxey
London:
Toronto:
Oxford University
Press,
1971,
x,
162pp,
$4.75
The
frequent
recourse
to economic sanctions
in
our
century
is
here
ascribed
to the
successes
of
economic
warfare
in
two
world
wars.
Just
as
likely
an
explanation,
though,
is
that
economic boycotts
seem
a
way
out
of
the
central dilemma
of
the
twentieth-century
peace
move-
ments:
how
to
prevent
war
without
making war on the
warmongers.
Professor Doxey
gives
most weight
to
the
sanctions
episodes
at
the
beginning
and
end
of
her
continuum
-
in the Italo-Ethiopian war
of
1935-6
and
in
response
to
Rhodesia's
UDI
of
1965.
There
are
side
glances,
too,
at
sanctions
levied
by
the
West
against
communist
states,
by
the
USSR
against
Yugoslavia
and
Albania,
by
the
Arabs
against
Israel,
by
the
OAS
against
the
Dominican
Republic and
Cuba,
and
by
the
United
Nations
against
Portugal and
South
Africa.
Perhaps
a
better
historical
starting
point
would
have
been
the
allied
liens
im-
posed
on
the
German
economy
in
the
192os;
nonetheless,
this
is
a
workmanlike
survey.
Economic
sanctions
are
dismissed
as
a
chimerical
weapon.
In
the
past,
enforcement
has
invariably
been lax
and
the
capacity of
target
states
underestimated.
Nor
does
the
author
expect
any
change
in
the
future:
'Attention
might
then
be
concentrated on
more
promising
paths
of
conflict
resolution'
which,
not
being
specified,
comprise
a
rather
limp
conclusion
sadly
in
character
with
much
of
the
rest
of
this book.
For,
while
the
facts
and
analyses
of
individual
questions
are
adequately
displayed from
the
printed
sources,
the
larger
truths
offered
sometimes
verge
on
the
banal.
Thus,
at
the
outset
we
are
told
we
shall
discover
that
the
consequences of sanctions
'are
deter-
mined
not
only
by
the
fineness
and
breadth
of
the
sanctions
"net"
but
also
by
the
resilience
and
adaptability
of
the
target'
(p
4).
Do
we
need
to
be
assured
so
solemnly
that
the
industrial
revolution
in-
creased
trade
and
the
opportunity
to
hurt
a
country
economically
(pp
15-17)?
What
are
we
to
make
of
'collective
action
which
involves
the commitment
and
diversion
of
national
resources
will
be
easier
to
organize
if
the overriding
policy
goals
of
a
group
of
nations
hap-
To continue reading
Request your trial