The Hegemon's Purse: No Economic Peace Between Democracies
| Date | 01 January 2008 |
| Author | Alexander H. Montgomery,Emilie M. Hafner-Burton |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343307084926 |
| Published date | 01 January 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
111
Introduction
Cox & Drury (2006), following Lektzian &
Souva (2003), extend the democratic peace
argument from the domain of militarized
conflict to economic sanctions. Their claims
are both reasonable and of significant conse-
quence: democracies, they argue, sanction
more often than other types of governments
but are less apt to sanction each other; trade
flows increase the likelihood of sanctions;
and the United States imposes sanctions
more often than any other government and
frequently targets allies. In their analysis, the
world of economic sanctions conforms to the
laws of the democratic peace writ large.
We argue that economic sanctions, however,
are not like armed confl ict (Pape, 1997). While
states and increasingly non-state actors of all
kinds use armed force to pursue political
interests with considerable consequence, eco-
nomic sanctions are mainly available to a
small subset of international actors – states
with large market power relative to others
(those states that feature a sizeable GDP per
© 2008 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 45, no. 1, 2008, pp. 111–120
Sage Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi
and Singapore) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343307084926
The Hegemon’s Purse: No Economic Peace
Between Democracies*
EMILIE M. HAFNER-BURTON
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and
the Department of Politics, Princeton University
ALEXANDER H. MONTGOMERY
Department of Political Science, Reed College
Cox & Drury broaden the democratic peace literature from the domain of militarized conflict to
economic sanctions. Their analysis of economic sanctions data from 1978 through 2000 finds that
democracies are more likely to enact sanctions but are less likely to do so against other democracies. In
this article, their analysis is extended in three different ways: first, their methodology and sample size
are improved; second, interactions between variables are examined; and, third, additional hypotheses
are tested. This article finds that the substantive effects of joint democracy on the likelihood of sanc-
tions disappear after accounting for the disproportionate role of the United States (and correcting for
method); the United States has a significantly different pattern of implementing sanctions than other
states; and the trade dependence of a potential sender plays a significant role in determining the likeli-
hood of sanctions.
* The authors are equally responsible for the article; names
appear in alphabetical order. We thank our anonymous ref-
erees for their comments on earlier drafts of this article.
Correspondence should be sent to both authors: ehafner@
princeton.edu and ahm@reed.edu. Data employed in this
article can be obtained at http://www.prio.no/ jpr/datasets/ or
http://www.princeton.edu/⬃ehafner/. The statistical analysis
is conducted using Stata 9.
84926_JPR_111-120.qxd 12/14/2007 2:42 PM Page 111
To continue reading
Request your trial