The use of economic sanctions as instruments of foreign policy is a time honored practice. However, as the continuing debate about the use of sanctions by the United States against nations such as South Africa and Iraq demonstrates, there is little agreement about the effectiveness of sanctions. In some places at some times sanctions appear to have produced desirable results; in other places and other times they have not. Previous research on the topic is inconclusive, in part because none of the existing studies has undertaken systematic and rigorous assessments of the use of sanctions in different contexts and under varying conditions. This very promising Minority Research Initiation planning grant will support preliminary research on the conditions under which economic sanctions are likely to be more or less effective. The planning grant will support an exhaustive review of the literature, a survey of extant data sources, and development of a systematic research design for conducting further research on this important topic. When completed this project should provide the basic for launching a systematic and rigorous study of the efficacy of economic sanctions as instruments of foreign policy. //
