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Claims to legitimacy count: Why sanctions fail to instigate democratisation in authoritarian regimes
Author(s) -
Grauvogel Julia,
von Soest Christian
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/1475-6765.12065
Subject(s) - democratization , sanctions , authoritarianism , legitimacy , legitimation , political science , political economy , flemish , qualitative comparative analysis , democracy , law and economics , economic sanctions , economics , politics , law , statistics , mathematics , archaeology , history
International sanctions are one of the most commonly used tools to instigate democratisation in the post‐ C old W ar era. However, despite long‐term sanction pressure by the E uropean U nion, the U nited S tates and/or the U nited N ations, non‐democratic rule has proven to be extremely persistent. Which domestic and international factors account for the regimes' ability to resist external pressure? Based on a new global dataset on sanctions from 1990 to 2011, the results of a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis ( fsQCA ) provide new insights for the research on sanctions and on authoritarian regimes. Most significantly, sanctions strengthen authoritarian rule if the regime manages to incorporate their existence into its legitimation strategy. Such an unintended ‘rally‐round‐the‐flag’ effect occurs where sanctions are imposed on regimes that possess strong claims to legitimacy and have only limited economic and societal linkages to the sender of sanctions.