Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213898 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
GIGA Working Papers No. 320
Publisher: 
German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg
Abstract: 
Research on sanctions has hitherto focused on their implementation and effectiveness, whereas the termination of such measures has received only little attention. The traditional model, which looks at sanctions and their removal in terms of rational, interstate bargaining, focuses on how cost-benefit calculations affect the duration and termination of such measures. Yet, this research insufficiently captures the back and forth between easing sanctions, stagnation, and renewed intensification. It also fails to account for the multifaceted social relations between senders, targets, and third actors that shape these termination processes, as well as for the signalling dimension of ending sanctions - not least because existing datasets tend to operationalise sanctions as a single event. To help fill these gaps, the paper proposes a process-oriented and relational understanding that also recognises how sanctions termination conveys the message of ending the visible disapproval of the target, which may be heavily contested. Case studies on Zimbabwe and Iran illustrate how such an approach sheds light on the different logics of action that shape processes of sanctions termination, and thereby contributes to a more holistic understanding of sanctions in general.
Subjects: 
sanctions
termination
processes
signals
third state actors
Zimbabwe
Iran
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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