Economic Sanctions and the Great Powers (Adelphi Series) Book

The United States, the European Union, China and Japan have each employed economic sanctions in responding to the Iran, Myanmar and North Korea crises. On rare occasions, such as when they supported UN sanctions imposed following the North Korean missile and nuclear tests of 2006, these great powers have demonstrated some willingness to coordinate their strategies. More often than not, however, these have employed very different sanctioning strategies. The scholarship on economic sanctions has devoted surprisingly little attention to explaining and understanding these differences in approach. Instead, this voluminous body of work is overwhelmingly US-centric, drawing its conclusions primarily from cases of American sanctions during the Cold War years and into the 1990s (the so-called ‘sanctions decade’). By analysing the use of economic sanctions by the United States, the European Union, China and Japan in their responses to the more recent Iran, Myanmar and North Korea crises, this study proposes to address that shortcoming in the literature. Beyond this important scholarly contribution, the study also aims to produce a set of policy-relevant conclusions pertaining to the question of when and how economic sanctions can (and cannot) optimally be used.Read More