Sanctions Sometimes Smart: Targeted Sanctions in Theory and Practice

This essay reviews the literature and origins of the targeted sanctions framework. The development of smart sanctions has solved many of the political problems that prior efforts at comprehensive trade sanctions had created. In so doing, the idea of smart sanctions served as a useful focal point for policy coordination among key stakeholders. Nevertheless, there is no systematic evidence that smart sanctions will yield better policy results vis-à-vis the targeted country. Indeed, in many ways, the smart sanctions framework has been too successful. It would behoove policymakers and scholars to look beyond the targeted sanctions framework to examine the conditions under which different kinds of economic statecraft should be deployed.