Bargaining, Enforcement, and Multilateral Sanctions: When Is Cooperation Counterproductive?

Acommon thread in the economic sanctions literature is the assumption that multilateral cooperation among the potential sanctioning states is a necessary and/or sufficient condition for generating a successful outcome.1 Indeed, obtaining multilateral cooperation is so important that some scholars make this their dependent variable. Some of the more sophisticated work on economic coercion has focused on this issue.2 Intuitively, the link between international cooperation and sanctions success seems obvious. Empirically, however, the results are rather surprising. Repeated statistical tests show either no link or a negative correlation between cooperation and sanctions success. At least four studies conclude that successful episodes of economic coercion exhibit the least levels of cooperation among the sanctioning states.3 No statistical test has shown a signiŽ cant positive correlation between policy success and international cooperation among the sanctioning states. This empirical puzzle presents vexing problems for the policy and scholarly communities. If international cooperation is not correlated with sanctions success, then U.S. foreign policy has been badly misguided in this area. Lisa Martin shows that multilateral support for sanctions is an expensive commodity. It requires signiŽ cant economic and diplomatic expenditures by the primary sanctioner.4 If unilateral sanctions are on average more successful, then the United States has wasted signiŽ cant