ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the contribution of the public choice approach to enhancing our understanding of the use of international economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy, particularly in the context of developing countries. Sanctions have been applied with increasing frequency in recent years by the U.S. and other industrialized countries, often aimed against developing countries. The traditional or instrumental approach to sanctions suggests that sanctions work by imposing significant economic damage on target countries, but that such sanctions are rarely successful. In contrast, the public choice approach suggests that countries applying sanctions will often deliberately choose policies that are weak or designed to benefit special interests domestically. Such sanctions might still achieve their foreign policy objectives, however, if they are designed in such a way as to boost the political effectiveness of interest groups pursuing change in a target country.
