ABSTRACT
This chapter is divided into two parts. The fi rst examines trends in US sanctions policy more generally. A number of prominent historical examples are provided to illustrate the extent to which sanctions have long been used as an instrument of American statecraft. This fi rst part of the chapter goes on to detail the surge in the US use of sanctions which has occurred in the period since the ending of the Cold War and to analyze the factors contributing towards this marked increase. The second part of the chapter outlines the US domestic political context from which sanctions are inevitably employed. As noted in Chapter 2 of this book, the domestic politics of the sender state has thus far received surprisingly little attention as a factor conditioning the use of sanctions. This chapter seeks to avoid that neglect by identifying the four domestic political factors most likely to condition the US use of sanctions – public opinion considerations, interest group pressures, inter-branch tensions (i.e. between Congress and the Executive), and bureaucratic tensions. As the second part of this chapter discusses in further detail, such an approach is somewhat problematic from a methodological perspective in that the distinctions between these various categories are rarely clear cut. While acknowledging this diffi culty, the chapter nevertheless goes on to conclude that gaining a clear appreciation of the domestic context from which sanctions episodes emanate is absolutely essential for a study of this nature.
