Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/307660 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
Research Papers in Economics No. 11/24
Publisher: 
Universität Trier, Fachbereich IV - Volkswirtschaftslehre, Trier
Abstract: 
Political leaders matter, but statistical evidence for their relevance in international politics is scarce. We estimate panel probit models with data for the period 1970 to 2004 and sender-year and dyad fixed effects to evaluate whether more similar leaders are less likely to sanction each other. We find that higher leader similarity significantly reduces the likelihood of sanction imposition. The effect is especially pronounced when UN and EU sanctions are excluded, that is, when focusing on sanctions imposed through unilateral political decisions. In this case, going from no correlation to perfect correlation in the characteristics of the leader pair lowers the likelihood of sanctions by 5.7 pp. Moreover, leader similarity seems to matter especially for sanctions aimed at democratic change or human rights improvements, where political leaders are expected to enjoy more discretion.
Subjects: 
International sanctions
Leader similarity
Political leaders
JEL: 
D70
F51
K33
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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