Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security: A Systematic Analysis of the Conditions under which UN Targeted Sanctions Work 9783658377434, 9783658377441, 3658377437

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Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research

Christopher Huber

Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security A Systematic Analysis of the Conditions under which UN Targeted Sanctions Work

Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research Series Editor Rafael Biermann, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany

Diese Buchreihe Innovative Konfliktforschung bietet eine Plattform zum besseren Verständnis internationaler Konflikte und ihrer Lösung. Sie fokussiert auf Theorien, Methoden und Themen, die in der Forschung zukunftsträchtig, aber eher vernachlässigt sind. Sie zielt auf theoretische und methodologische Innovation auf der Basis fundierter Feldstudien. Wir stimulieren interdisziplinäre Ansätze, die Konzepte aus dem Völkerrecht, der Soziologie, Psychologie oder anderen Nachbarwissenschaften in die Konfliktforschung einführen. Wir betrachten Konflikte aus allen Weltregionen, oberhalb wie unterhalb der Gewaltschwelle. Unsere Reihe formuliert, soweit möglich, praxistaugliche Politikempfehlungen in den existenziellen Fragen von Krieg und Frieden, die wir erforschen. Rafael Biermann Mitglieder des wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Buchreihe Thomas Bagger, Diplomat, Auswärtiges Amt; Thorsten Bonacker, Professor für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Universität Marburg; Manuel Fröhlich, Professor für Internationale Politik und Außenpolitik, Universität Trier; Andrea Gawrich, Professorin für Internationale Integration, Universität Gießen; Andreas Hasenclever, Professor für Friedensforschung und Internationale Politik, Universität Tübingen; Michael Lipson, außerordentlicher Professor für Politikwissenschaft, Concordia University of Montreal; Stefan Oeter, Professor für deutsches und ausländisches Öffentliches Recht, Völkerrecht und Europarecht an der Universität Hamburg und Direktor des Instituts für internationale Angelegenheiten; Stefan Wolff, Professor für Internationale Sicherheit, University of Birmingham

Christopher Huber

Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security A Systematic Analysis of the Conditions under which UN Targeted Sanctions Work

Christopher Huber GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies Hamburg, Germany Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security A Systematic Analysis of the Conditions under which UN Targeted Sanctions Work Universität Hamburg Fakultät für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften Dissertation Zur Erlangung der Würde des Doktors der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften „Dr. phil.“ (gemäß der PromO vom 18. Januar 2017) Vorgelegt von Christopher Huber aus Tübingen Hamburg 2022 Vorsitzender: Prof. Dr. Andreas von Staden Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Matthias Basedau Zweitgutachterin: Prof. Dr. Elvira Rosert Drittgutachter: Prof. Dr. Dursun Peksen Datum der Disputation: 27. Januar 2022 ISSN 2945-9788 ISSN 2945-9796 (electronic) Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research ISBN 978-3-658-37743-4 ISBN 978-3-658-37744-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Responsible Editor: Stefanie Eggert This Springer VS imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Acknowledgements

Writing a dissertation is mostly a lonely affair with books, articles, and one’s own thoughts. However, without the support of many great people, this work would have never been possible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Matthias Basedau, for his valuable suggestions and discussions as well as his positive encouragement throughout the entire process of writing. Furthermore, I gratefully acknowledge my integration into the doctoral program of the GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies. Taking part in the institute’s various formats for exchange enabled me to successfully accomplish my research project. I am particularly grateful to my colleagues Hana Attia, Julia Grauvogel and Christian von Soest for their very constructive comments. I would also like to thank Lena Marie Schackmann for her valuable feedback and Yannik Buhl for his continuous and extremely helpful assistance with the statistical analyses of this dissertation project. This research was made possible by a scholarship from the Claussen-SimonStiftung. I really enjoyed being part of the ‘Dissertation Plus’ program and participating in the wide range of events, trainings and activities organized by the foundation. I am also indebted to the FAZIT-STIFTUNG that funded the work in its final stage. Last but not least, I would like to thank Annika Lohse for her unconditional love during the time of writing.

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Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1

2

International Sanctions as a Policy Instrument to Address Challenges to International Peace and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Do International Sanctions Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 The Purposes of International Sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 5 11 15

3

4

The United Nations as a Sanctioning Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 The Evolution of UN Targeted Sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Legal Framework of UN Targeted Sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Types of UN Targeted Sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Policy Goals Behind the Imposition of UN Targeted Sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19 19 20 23 26

Conceptual and Methodological Challenges in the Study of Sanctions Effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Diverging Definitions and Dimensions of Effectiveness . . . . . . 4.2 The Attribution Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Other Conceptual and Methodological Challenges . . . . . . . . . .

29 30 31 32

Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

6

Empirical Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

7

Quantitative Analysis I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47 47 49

5

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Contents

7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6

8

9

Dependent Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Independent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Control Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.1 The Effectiveness of UN Sanctions Targeted on Violent Non-State Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.2 Testing the Determinants of UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Coercing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.6.3 Testing the Determinants of UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Constraining . . . . . . . . . . . .

Qualitative Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Case Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 Empirical Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.1 Case Study Coercing—UN Sanctions Against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3.2 Case Study Constraining—UN Sanctions Against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 New Hypotheses Generated from Studying the Deviant Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51 54 57 58 58 61 67 75 75 77 78 78 93 106

Quantitative Analysis II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Operationalization of Additional Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Descriptive Analysis of Additional Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Final Analysis of the Factors Determining UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Coercing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Final Analysis of the Factors Determining UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Constraining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.5 Testing the Robustness of the Quantitative Results . . . . . . . . . .

109 109 112

10 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.1 Empirical Findings and Gaps for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . 10.2 Recommendations for Future UN Sanctions Policy . . . . . . . . . .

153 153 162

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

167

113 129 144

Abbreviations

AIAI AMIS AMISOM AU DDPD DPA ECOWAS EU GIGA GSDB HSE JEM LJM LRA RUF SNSA SLA/AW SLA/MM SLM/A SPLM SRF TFG TIES TNG TSC UCDP

Al Ittihad Al Islamiya African Union Mission in Sudan African Union Mission to Somalia African Union Doha Document for Peace in Darfur Darfur Peace Agreement Economic Community of West African States European Union German Institute for Global and Area Studies Global Sanctions Data Base Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott Justice and Equality Movement Liberation and Justice Movement Lord’s Resistance Army Revolutionary United Front Sanctioning Non-State Actors Abdel Wahid’s faction of the Sudan Liberation Army Minni Minawi’s faction of the Sudan Liberation Army Sudan Liberation Movement/Army Sudan People’s Liberation Movement Sudan Revolutionary Front Transitional Federal Government Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions Transitional National Government Targeted Sanctions Consortium Uppsala Conflict Data Program

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x

UIC UN UNAMID UNITA UNITAF UNOSOM US VNSA

Abbreviations

United Islamic Courts United Nations United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur National Union for the Total Independence of Angola Unified Task Force United Nations Operation in Somalia United States Violent non-state actor

List of Figures

Figure 7.1 Figure 7.2 Figure 7.3

Figure 7.4

Figure 7.5

Figure 7.6

Figure 8.1

Figure 8.2

Figure 9.1

Figure 9.2

UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing . . . . . . . . . UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the sanctioned group’s ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the simultaneous imposition of autonomous US sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the sanctioned group’s ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by sanctions’ direct economic impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Timeline of the events contributing to the effective outcome of the UN sanctions applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in 2018 . . . . . . . . . . Timeline of the events contributing to the effective outcome of the UN sanctions applied against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab in 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the sanctioned group’s ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the simultaneous imposition of autonomous US sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60 60

64

66

70

72

92

105

116

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Figure 9.3 Figure 9.4

Figure 9.5

Figure 9.6

Figure 9.7

Figure 9.8

Figure 9.9

Figure 9.10

Figure 9.11

List of Figures

Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by a target’s fragmentation . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by simultaneously applied mediation efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the interaction effect of international mediation efforts and a target’s fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the interaction effect of international mediation efforts and a target’s organizational structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the sanctioned group’s ideology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by military operations conducted against the sanctioned group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the interaction effect of targeted military operations and sanctions’ direct economic impact on the target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the interaction effect of targeted military operations and a target’s organizational structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the interaction effect of targeted military operations and a target’s fragmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

121

123

125

127

132

137

139

141

143

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 7.1

Table 7.2

Table 9.1

Table 9.2

Table 9.3 Table 9.4 Table 9.5

Table 10.1

Comparison of existing studies on sanctions effectiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Determinants of sanctions effectiveness identified by previous empirical studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jackknife Robustness Test of the factors determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing . . . . . . . . . . Jackknife Robustness Test of the factors determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining . . . . . . Explanatory variable (robustness) test of the factors determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of the empirical results regarding the determinants of the diverging purposes of UN targeted sanctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10 14

62

69

114

130 146 148

151

158

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1

Introduction

While the 20th century witnessed classic inter-state wars, today’s armed conflicts and international crisis situations are primarily provoked by violent non-state actors (VNSAs). Almost every contemporary threat to international peace and security comprises a wide range of non-state participants, including rebel factions fueling civil wars as well as terrorist groups conducting domestic and transnational attacks.1 The international community, particularly the United Nations (UN), has reacted to this development by redirecting its conflict resolution efforts to these VNSAs. This has turned international sanctions into one of the most vital and indispensable tools available to the UN Security Council in responding to these emerging security threats caused by VNSAs. Whereas UN sanctions were imposed exclusively on states before the 1990 s, the UN has increasingly sanctioned non-state groups and their leaders for breaking international law. Intertwined with this move to non-government actors as targets of sanctions, the post-Cold War era saw an overall proliferation of UN sanctions in which the UN Security Council—given the tremendous negative humanitarian effects of the applied sanctions against Iraq—resolutely moved away from the imposition of

1

A report published by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) revealed that the number of non-state conflicts and the fatalities associated with this type of violence have been on the rise in recent years, whereas the overall number of conflicts and casualties has witnessed a downward trend (Dupuy/Rustad 2018).

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_1.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_1

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Introduction

comprehensive (economic) sanctions and has begun to utilize targeted sanctions as the tool of choice.2 Although non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups now constitute targets of UN sanctions in the majority of cases, the topic remains greatly under-researched in academia.3 Most scholars investigating the functioning and effectiveness of international sanctions have confined their studies to state actors as targets of sanctions. Thus, previous sanctions research has generated a statecentric theory of international sanctions that is largely insufficient to understand how sanctions imposed on non-government entities work. This dissertation therefore aims to shift the focus on non-state actors by ascertaining the general mechanisms through and conditions under which UN targeted sanctions against VNSAs tend to work.4 What factors account for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs? And how do these determinants differ compared to those factors that make sanctions applied against state actors work? This dissertation project contributes to the existing literature on international sanctions in several ways. First, it introduces an innovative and newly constructed dataset on UN targeted sanctions against VNSAs—the Sanctioning Non-State Actors (SNSA) dataset—that is the very first quantitative dataset providing specific and fine-grained information on the effectiveness of sanctions targeted at VNSAs. Second, it is arguably the first scholarly effort that develops a nuanced and specific theory on the effective sanctioning of VNSAs by combining the literature on international sanctions with the literature on conflict and terrorism. Overall, this study is to my knowledge the first comprehensive analysis that empirically traces the factors determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist movements.

2

In fact, no new sanctions imposed by the United Nations since 1994 have included comprehensive economic measures (Biersteker et al. 2016: 11). Targeted sanctions differ from comprehensive sanctions in that they are designed to affect only the responsible individuals or entities of the target country, while limiting the humanitarian, often disproportionate, consequences for the general population. However, targeted sanctions vary in their degree of discrimination and thus can be ranked, depending on the specific types of sanctions, on a continuum, with the most “targeted” measures on one end and the relatively more “comprehensive” ones on the other (Biersteker et al. 2016: 26f.). 3 According to the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) dataset, non-state actors were targeted by UN sanctions in 34 of 63 UN sanctions episodes during the 1991–2014 period (Targeted Sanctions Consortium 2016). More information on all UN sanctions regimes applied against VNSAs can be found in Table A1 in the Electronic Supplementary Material. 4 As Kirshner argues, it is important to understand how sanctions function instead of focusing on whether they work (Kirshner 1997).

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Introduction

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As non-government groups are now frequently targeted by UN sanctions, our understanding of how sanctions work needs to be adjusted to this new reality. This in turn has direct implications for the sanctions strategy that the UN should adopt in order to successfully prevent VNSAs from threatening international peace and security. Only if scholars manage to uncover the working logic of sanctions imposed on non-state actors, UN policymakers will have the knowledge to design and implement targeted sanctions in a more strategic and systematic manner. Consequently, UN targeted sanctions could become a promising foreign policy tool that can effectively deal with the increasing number of security threats emanating from armed rebel factions and international terrorist organizations. This book is organized as follows. Chapter 2 summarizes the findings of previous sanctions research regarding the effectiveness and functioning of international sanctions. Chapter 3 outlines the main characteristics of UN targeted sanctions, while Chapter 4 reflects on conceptual and methodological challenges in the course of studying the effectiveness of international sanctions. After introducing my theoretical framework for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs in Chapter 5, Chapter 6 discusses the study’s empirical strategy. Chapter 7 then presents the analytical framework and empirical results of my quantitative analysis testing the various hypotheses developed in Chapter 5. In the subsequent chapter (Chapter 8), a qualitative analysis of two UN sanctions cases applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab that deviate from my statistical results is conducted in order to identify additional factors which may impact the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. After appending the factors identified within the scope of the two deviant case studies to the existing dataset, Chapter 9 reemploys quantitative research methods in order to run a final statistical analysis of the factors determining the effectiveness of UN sanctions targeted at VNSAs. The concluding Chapter 10 summarizes the empirical results of this dissertation project, proposes new avenues for future research and discusses the implications of these findings with respect to the design and implementation of future UN sanctions imposed on VNSAs.

2

International Sanctions as a Policy Instrument to Address Challenges to International Peace and Security

International sanctions are among the vital and indispensable foreign policy instruments available to the international community in addressing threats to international peace and security. In the light of the increased use of international sanctions, scholars from political science and economics have produced a multitude of studies exploring the effectiveness and functioning of sanctions. This chapter summarizes the findings of previous sanctions research regarding the effectiveness of international sanctions and the determining factors of sanctions success. Since international sanctions intend to influence targets through differing working mechanisms, this chapter concludes by discussing the multiple purposes of sanctions.

2.1

Do International Sanctions Work?

The relevance of international sanctions has enhanced since the end of the Cold War as states and international organizations have utilized this foreign policy tool with much greater frequency than in the past. In the light of the increased use of international sanctions, the effectiveness of sanctions as a foreign policy instrument has been by far the most hotly analyzed and debated inquiry among sanctions scholars. While the literature on international sanctions both in economics and political science is voluminous, scholarly studies have produced inconsistent empirical evidence on the effectiveness of sanctions.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_2

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International Sanctions as a Policy Instrument to Address Challenges …

The most comprehensive and probably most often-cited large-N study of sanctions effectiveness was first published in 1985 and updated in 1990 by Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott (hereafter HSE). Their study “Economic Sanctions Reconsidered” reviewed the universe of sanctions from 1914 to 1990 and identified a total of 115 sanctions cases. In order to assess the effectiveness of sanctions, Hufbauer and colleagues developed a combined score of sanctions effectiveness based on the policy result sought by the sender and sanctions’ contribution to the achieved outcome.1 They reported sanctions success in 40 cases or 34 percent of the total, much greater than the old conventional wisdom would have expected and a sufficiently high proportion to be viewed as credible alternative to military force (Hufbauer et al. 1990). As the first major quantitative study of international sanctions and despite some serious caveats, the HSE database has become the bedrock study on the effectiveness of sanctions. In 1997, however, Robert Pape challenged the emerging optimism about the effectiveness of economic sanctions. In his critical re-analysis of the HSE dataset, Pape excluded 30 HSE cases from the analysis since he considered these cases to be inappropriate instances of sanctions, concluding that sanctions were effective in only 6 percent of the remaining 85 HSE sanctions cases (Pape 1997). This apparent and great gap regarding the effectiveness of international sanctions led to a controversial academic debate about the general prospects of sanctions success (see Elliott 1998; Pape 1998). In 2002, David Cortright and George A. Lopez were the first sanctions scholars that exclusively examined the effectiveness of UN sanctions. They conducted a qualitative analysis of fourteen cases of UN sanctions that were imposed between 1990 and 2001.2 They evaluated the effectiveness of UN sanctions in relation to their ability to coerce a change in target behavior, to lead to a negotiated settlement and to isolate or weaken the target. Their overall assessment showed that UN sanctions were at least partially effective in five of the fourteen cases that translated into a 36 percent success rate (Cortright/Lopez 2002: 7f.). In 2007, almost twenty years after the release of their original dataset, Gary Hufbauer and colleagues published a new edition of “Economic Sanctions Reconsidered” analyzing 204 sanctions cases from 1914 to 2000. The analysis of their updated HSE dataset revealed that sanctions were at least partially successful in 1

Each element is scaled from 1 to 4 and the two elements are multiplied and combined into a ‘total success score’ that ranges in value from 1 to 16. Sanctions with a total score of 9 or above are considered as ‘successful’ (Hufbauer et al. 1990). 2 Of these 14 UN sanctions cases, ten cases included targeted sanctions, while four cases involved comprehensive sanctions (Cortright/Lopez 2002: 8f.).

2.1 Do International Sanctions Work?

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70 of the 204 cases, resulting in an overall success rate of 34 percent (Hufbauer et al. 2007: 158f.). In 2009, Clifton Morgan, Navin Bapat, and Valentin Krustev released new data on the effectiveness of international sanctions and introduced the Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) dataset (Morgan et al. 2009). Compared to the HSE data, the TIES dataset also involved low profile cases and was therefore much more extensive, containing 888 sanctions cases from 1971 to 2000. More importantly, in contrast to previous databases, the TIES dataset systematically included sanctions threats and not only cases of imposed sanctions and thus enabled researchers to account for the effects of issuing threats of sanctions in order to coerce a change in a target’s behavior.3 Their assessment of sanctions effectiveness was based upon an outcome variable capturing the behavior of the target and the sender. In contrast to the HSE dataset, Morgan and colleagues considered cases where the sender capitulated and instances of stalemate to be sanctions failures. Their analysis of the TIES data demonstrated that sanctions were effective in 23 percent of the time (Bapat/Morgan 2009: 1082). In 2014, Clifton Morgan and colleagues updated their TIES dataset that now included 1412 cases from 1945 to 2005 in which sanctions were threatened and/or imposed.4 Their analysis of the new dataset showed that sanctions were effective in coercing a target to acquiesce to the sender’s demands in over 27 percent of the cases.5 Moreover, Morgan and colleagues also employed a more relaxed definition of sanctions success that also considered negotiated settlements as successful outcomes. They found that sanctions were effective in leading to a negotiated settlement in over 40 percent of the cases and the success rate even increased up to 56 percent when cases with missing final outcomes were removed from the analysis. In addition to the negotiated settlement variable, the TIES dataset included a third measure of sanctions success capturing the proportion of the sender’s and the target’s goals that were met through a negotiated settlement. Sanctions cases were considered to be successful if the sender achieved more of its objectives

3

The TIES dataset comprised a total of 888 cases, including 527 cases of imposed sanctions and 361 cases in which sanctions were threatened. For the assessment of sanctions effectiveness, sanctions threats were excluded from the analysis (Morgan et al. 2009: 98). 4 This updated version of the TIES dataset comprised 845 cases of imposed sanctions and 567 cases that involved sanctions threats. For the assessment of sanctions effectiveness, sanctions threats were excluded from the analysis (Morgan et al. 2014: 545). 5 The success rate of sanctions even increased up to 37.5 percent if those cases were removed from the sample that were still ongoing or for which the researchers were unable to determine the outcome (Morgan et al. 2014: 546).

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through the negotiated settlement than did the target.6 Based on this definition of success, sanctions were found to be effective in 32 percent of the cases and this success rate rose up to 44 percent when cases with missing final outcomes were excluded from the analysis (Morgan et al. 2014: 546). Finally, in 2016, the first quantitative empirical study was published by Thomas Biersteker, Marcos Tourinho and Sue Eckert, dealing explicitly with the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. Using newly comprised data from the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC), Biersteker and colleagues analyzed 63 UN sanctions episodes from 1991 to 2014, concluding that UN targeted sanctions were overall effective in 22 percent of the cases (Biersteker et al. 2016). Whereas existing sanctions databases (Bapat/Morgan 2009; Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007; Morgan et al. 2014; von Soest/Wahman 2015) all focused on a target’s behavioral changes in their assessment of sanctions effectiveness, Biersteker and colleagues measured the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions not only against their ability to coerce a change in target behavior, but also against their ability to constrain and to signal targets.7 Their analysis disaggregating sanctions into these three distinct purposes revealed that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining and signalling purpose were effective in 27 percent of the time and thus turned out to be far more effective than coercive sanctions that were found to be effective in only 10 percent of the sanctions episodes (Biersteker et al. 2016: 233–236).8 Overall, as Table 2.1 reveals, existing empirical studies examining the effectiveness of international sanctions have produced diverging results with success rates ranging between 6 and 56 percent. The reasons for this empirical inconsistency are manifold. First and foremost, the results differ remarkably as researchers have utilized different definitions of sanctions success that ultimately determine their assessment of sanctions effectiveness. The analysis of the updated TIES

6

Morgan and colleagues generated two variables that capture the coder’s perception of the proportion of the sender’s and the target’s goals that were met through the negotiated settlement. Each variable was scaled from 1 to 10. Sanctions were considered as ‘successful’ if the value of the variable for the sender was greater than the value of the variable for the target (Morgan et al. 2014: 546). 7 This builds upon the tripartite typology of sanctions purposes proposed by Francesco Giumelli (Giumelli 2011) which will be discussed in detail in Section 2.3. 8 Biersteker and colleagues evaluated the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions as a function of the overall policy outcome for each purpose and the distinct contribution of UN sanctions to that outcome. Policy outcome was scaled from 1 to 5, while sanctions’ contribution was scaled from 0 to 5. To be considered as ‘success’, a minimum score of 4 must be attained for policy outcome and a minimum score of 3 must be attained for sanctions’ contribution (Biersteker et al. 2016: 230f.).

2.1 Do International Sanctions Work?

9

dataset exemplifies this issue very well. Morgan and colleagues use three different definitions of sanctions success and their calculated success rates vary from 27 to 56 percent depending on the underlying definition of success (Morgan et al. 2014). Other reasons comprise the actual measure of sanctions effectiveness and the sample of sanctions cases under study. These conceptual and methodological challenges in the study of sanctions effectiveness are crucial and thus will be discussed in more detail in chapter 4. Recently, in addition to the traditional datasets discussed in Table 2.1, two other quantitative databases on international sanctions have emerged. In 2020, Gabriel Felbermayr and colleagues introduced the Global Sanctions Data Base (GSDB) that covered 729 bilateral, multilateral, and plurilateral sanctions cases during the 1950–2016 period. The GSDB identified five different policy objectives and produced an average success rate of around 34 percent across these diverging objectives, which is fairly similar to the effectiveness rates reported by prior sanctions research (Felbermayr et al. 2020). In the same year, Patrick Weber and Gerald Schneider published the EUSANCT dataset that contained case-level information on 326 threatened and imposed sanctions by the EU, the UN, and the US.9 This dataset covered the post-Cold War period 1989–2015 and was created by merging and updating the most widely used databases of international sanctions (HSE, TIES, and GIGA).10 The project adopted the effectiveness measures from the HSE and TIES datasets, but also identified its own outcome for each sanctions case. Weber and Schneider found that sanctions were at least partially effective in 51 percent of the cases when using the TIES outcome variable, while the success score decreased to 33 percent when applying the HSE measure of sanctions success. Regrettably, the EUSANCT database does not involve any sanctions cases directed at non-state actors (Weber/Schneider 2020). As outlined above, most of previous sanctions research has tended to discuss international sanctions and their effectiveness in state-centric, aggregate terms. The great majority of case study collections and virtually all large-N studies have examined the effectiveness of sanctions in terms of national units, employing the target country as their core unit of analysis. Therefore, empirical results 9

The dataset included 209 cases of imposed sanctions of which 148 cases were preceded by a threat of at least one of the senders. Moreover, the dataset comprised 117 cases of sanctions threats that did not result in the imposition of sanctions (Weber/Schneider 2020: 6). 10 It is important to note that the EUSANCT dataset only used the existing databases for the identification of relevant sanctions cases and relied on an independent coding of all included variables. Furthermore, the dataset contained 107 cases, which have not been captured by any of the three existing databases (Weber/Schneider 2020: 5).

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Table 2.1 Comparison of existing studies on sanctions effectiveness Studies

Success rate

Data & Sample

Assessment of effectiveness

Hufbauer et al. 1990

34%

Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott (HSE) Dataset: 115 sanctions cases 1914–1990

Combined score based on policy result sought by the sender (change in target behavior) and sanctions’ contribution to the achieved outcome

Pape 1997

6%

Re-analysis of the HSE Dataset: 85 sanctions cases 1914–1990

Combined score based on policy result sought by the sender (change in target behavior) and sanctions’ contribution to the achieved outcome

Cortright/Lopez 2002

36%

Qualitative analysis of 14 Overall assessment of UN sanctions cases sanctions effectiveness 1990–2001 according to three criteria: (1) sanctions’ ability to coerce a change in target behavior (2) sanctions’ ability to lead to a negotiated settlement (3) sanctions’ ability to isolate or weaken the target

Hufbauer et al. 2007

34%

Updated version of the HSE Dataset: 204 sanctions cases 1914–2000

Combined score of sanctions effectiveness based on policy result sought by the sender (change in target behavior) and sanctions’ contribution to the achieved outcome

Bapat/Morgan 2009

23%

Threat and Imposition of Economic Sanctions (TIES) Dataset: 888 sanctions cases (527 cases of imposed sanctions) 1971–2000

Assessment of effectiveness is based upon an outcome variable capturing the behavior of the target and the sender (continued)

2.2 The Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness

11

Table 2.1 (continued) Studies

Success rate

Data & Sample

Assessment of effectiveness

Morgan et al. 2014

27–56%

Updated version of the TIES Dataset: 1412 sanctions cases (845 cases of imposed sanctions) 1945–2005

3 different definitions of sanctions success: (1) Target partially or fully meets the sender’s demands (2) Sanctions lead to a negotiated settlement (3) Settlement nature: achievement of sender’s goals vs. achievement of target’s goals

Biersteker et al. 2016

10–27%

Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) Database: 63 UN sanctions episodes 1991–2014

Effectiveness is measured in relation to sanctions’ ability to coerce, to constrain and to signal targets. Effectiveness is evaluated as a function of the overall policy outcome for each purpose and the distinct contribution of UN sanctions to that outcome

Source: Author’s own compilation

with respect to sanctions imposed on non-state actors and their prospects of success are still missing. This dissertation project seeks to fill this gap in existing sanctions research by generating an innovative dataset on UN targeted sanctions against VNSAs—the Sanctioning Non-State Actors (SNSA) dataset—that is the very first quantitative dataset providing specific and fine-grained information on the effectiveness of sanctions applied against VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist movements.

2.2

The Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness

Besides the overall evaluation of sanctions effectiveness, there is also a large literature that seeks to address the question of what factors determine whether or not sanctions are effective in achieving their political objectives. The starting

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point for this literature has been the pioneering work by Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott (Hufbauer et al. 1990). Their HSE dataset has been the subject of almost all prior quantitative studies exploring the conditions under which international sanctions tend to be effective. The determinants of sanctions success that have been identified by previous empirical studies can be classified into three categories: (1) target-specific factors, (2) sanctions-specific factors and (3) sender-specific factors. Target-specific factors refer to certain features of the target, whereas sanctions-specific factors correspond to key characteristics of the applied sanctions measures. Senderspecific factors, on the contrary, relate to certain attributes of the sanctioning organization and/or individual state that imposed the sanctions measures. One target-specific factor that presumably influences the success of sanctions seems to be the nature of the political system in the target state. Prior empirical studies found that sanctions applied against target states characterized by a more institutionalized and competitive political process are more likely to be effective than sanctions measures directed at rather autocratic states (Allen 2008; Bolks/Al-Sowayel 2000; Cortright/Lopez 2000; Nooruddin 2002). The underlying assumption is that autocratic regimes are able to resist sanctions pressure by developing effective policies or using repression to oppress dissent and growing opposition emanating from the imposition of sanctions, while targeted states with stronger democratic institutions are restricted by the rule of law and thus unlikely to apply repressive means, which makes democratic governments more likely to accommodate the sender’s demands in return for the revocation of sanctions. In addition to the regime type, the economic situation in the target country also appears to be of high importance. Previous empirical findings suggest that sanctions imposed on countries with profound economic problems are more likely to be effective since these countries are more sensitive to the economic costs created by the applied sanctions than countries with a robust and expansionist economy (Dashti-Gibson et al. 1997; Hufbauer et al. 2007; Jing et al. 2003; van Bergeijk 1994). Besides these target-specific factors, the effectiveness of sanctions is also dependent upon key characteristics of the imposed sanctions measures. Prior empirical studies demonstrated that sanctions inflicting high economic costs on the target are more likely to succeed (Allen 2008; Dashti-Gibson et al. 1997; Drury 1998; Hufbauer et al. 2007). The underlying theoretical explanation for this finding is that targets weigh the costs imposed by the sanctions against the benefits derived from continuing their proscribed activities. Thus, targets are more likely to concede to sanctions pressure when the economic costs caused by the application of sanctions are substantial.

2.2 The Determinants of Sanctions Effectiveness

13

The duration of a given sanctions case also seems to have an impact on the effectiveness of sanctions, but the direction of this relationship is a highly controversial issue among sanctions scholars. Some analysts found that shortlived sanctions are more likely to be effective as targets gradually adjust to the new circumstances and often find ways to evade them (Bolks/Al-Sowayel 2000; Dashti-Gibson et al. 1997; Hufbauer et al. 1990; van Bergeijk 1994). Other academics, on the contrary, came to the conclusion that prolonged sanctions are prone to be more effective as the costs associated with the imposition of sanctions increase over time (Bonetti 1998). In addition to target-specific and sanctions-specific factors, certain attributes of the sanctions issuer are also presumed to have an impact on the effectiveness of sanctions. One of these sender-specific factors is the enforcement effort made by the sender. Previous research demonstrates that sanctions-busting behavior by sender states can significantly undermine sanctions success as targets can mitigate the costs associated with the application of sanctions to tolerable levels (Early 2011; Lektzian/Souva 2007; McLean/Whang 2010). Another sender-specific factor that is frequently asserted to have an impact on sanctions success is whether sanctions are imposed unilaterally by a single sender or multilaterally by a coalition of senders. Intuitively, it seems obvious that multilateral sanctions would be more effective as the costs to the target should be greater and the target should have fewer options to cope with the impact of sanctions. However, analyses using the HSE data consistently showed that unilateral sanctions are more likely to be successful than are multilateral sanctions (Drury 1998; Hufbauer et al. 1990). In recent years, however, empirical studies employing the TIES dataset have refuted this finding, showing that multilateral sanctions are more effective than sanctions that were imposed unilaterally by a single sender (Bapat/Morgan 2009; Morgan et al. 2009). The main empirical findings on the causes of sanctions success that have been discussed in this section are summarized in Table 2.2.11 As this literature review demonstrated, almost all prior empirical work has taken the state as a reference point for the study on the factors that may account for the success of international sanctions. Thus, previous results generated a rather state-centric understanding of how international sanctions work which might not have any 11

Table 2.2 contains only those factors that received the most robust empirical support by prior sanctions studies. In addition, scholars identified other factors such as the size of the sender relative to the target (Jing et al. 2003), strategic ties and trade linkages between the sender and the target (Hufbauer et al. 2007; McLean/Whang 2010; van Bergeijk 1994) and perceptions of issue salience (Ang/Peksen 2007) that may have an impact on the effectiveness of sanctions.

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meaning for the effective sanctioning of violent non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups. Only in recent years, some scholars have started to shift the focus on non-government actors by exploring the effects of international sanctions on civil war dynamics. Table 2.2 Determinants of sanctions effectiveness identified by previous empirical studies Categories of factors

Determining factors

Target-specific factors

Target with a democratic political system

Impact on sanctions effectiveness

Economic weakness of target Sanctions-specific factors

Economic costs to target Duration of sanctions

Sender-specific factors

Sanctions-busting assistance to target Multilateral coalition of senders

Source: Author’s own compilation

In 2018, Mitchell Radtke and Hyeran Jo analyzed the impact of UN sanctions applied against rebel groups and investigated the conditions under which UN sanctions can be an effective tool to reduce conflict. Their quantitative analysis combining a macro-analysis with a micro-analysis of Angola’s National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab revealed that UN sanctions can successfully constrain rebel movements’ ability to fight when they cut off certain revenue streams and curtail their ability to evade the economic impact of the applied sanctions measures (Radtke/Jo 2018). These results partly coincide with previous empirical findings on UN targeted sanctions’ impact over rebel groups. In 2016, Nestani Kapanadze explored how UN targeted sanctions affect rebel organizations by conducting qualitative case studies on the Sierra Leonean rebel group Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and Angola’s UNITA. His comparative case analysis showed that targeted sanctions— particularly in the form of arms embargoes and diplomatic sanctions—have the capacity to shorten rebels’ military and political resources (Kapanadze 2016).

2.3 The Purposes of International Sanctions

15

In addition to these two scholarly studies that explicitly dealt with the effect of sanctions directed at rebel movements, other scholars investigated the impact of international sanctions on the duration and outcome of intrastate conflicts and discovered that sanctions—especially when they are applied in the form of arms embargoes—have negative effects on war duration and thus significantly increase the likelihood of conflict resolution (Escribà-Folch 2010; Hultman/Peksen 2017; Strandow 2006). Alongside these empirical studies, some researchers focused on the sanctioning of non-state actors from an international law perspective (Addis 2010; Lapaš 2010). However, as this literature review revealed, a scholarly study that theoretically explains and empirically traces the factors determining the effective sanctioning of violent non-state actors is still missing. This dissertation project endeavors to fill this gap through a systematic theorizing and analysis of the conditions under which UN targeted sanctions against rebel and terrorist organizations tend to be effective.

2.3

The Purposes of International Sanctions

Studying the effectiveness of international sanctions also requires a clear understanding of the multiple and differing purposes sanctions are intended to serve. By purpose it is meant “the way in which sanctions intend to influence targets, which differs from its objective, that is the policy goal senders broadly want to achieve” (Giumelli 2016: 39). To date, scholars dealing with international sanctions have produced different assumptions about sanctions’ varying mechanisms of influence. Based on the wealth of theories in the sanctions literature, Crawford and Klotz developed four models of influence, which they call the compellance, the normative communication, the resource denial, and the political fracture model (Crawford/Klotz 1999). The compellance model assumes that decision-makers are rational actors that weigh the costs imposed by the sanctions against the benefits of pursuing a particular policy. Thus, for sanctions to work, sanctions must strongly damage the responsible elite actors in the target state so that they are willing to change their unwanted behavior (Crawford/Klotz 1999: 26f.). The normative communication model, on the contrary, supposes that government officials are responsive to moral and normative arguments. Therefore, instead of imposing high costs on the targeted actors, the act of sanctioning itself is considered to be the key to success by sending a clear signal to the target.

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International Sanctions as a Policy Instrument to Address Challenges …

From this perspective, sanctions work by persuading the target to comply with international norms and multilateral rules (Crawford/Klotz 1999: 27f.). The resource denial model presumes that responsible elite actors are stubborn and thus respond neither to normative arguments nor to considerable costs caused by the imposition of sanctions. Consequently, sanctions intend to alter the behavior of the target by depriving the target state of its ability to pursue its objectionable policy (Crawford/Klotz 1999: 28). The political fracture model, on the other hand, assumes that government officials are very much dependent on the support of their domestic constituency. Hence, for sanctions to work, they must foster a legitimation crisis within the target state by inflicting economic hardship that ultimately results in a revolution or at least leads to an increased dissent with the responsible elite (Crawford/Klotz 1999: 28). Although these four models created by Crawford and Klotz still represent a good overview of the different working mechanisms through which international sanctions can impact targets, their assumptions are too generic and outdated as their models of influence primarily concentrate on state actors as targets of sanctions. Therefore, this study employs the tripartite typology of sanctions purposes developed by Francesco Giumelli. According to Giumelli, the international community generally imposes sanctions to achieve three strategic purposes: to coerce, to constrain, and to signal targets (Giumelli 2011). Sanctions with a coercive purpose seek to change the behavior of targets “by imposing a cost on some misconduct in order to affect the target’s cost-benefitcalculation in a way that change of behavior becomes more likely” (Giumelli 2016: 45). Thus, coercive sanctions aim at convincing targets to comply with established international norms by requesting them to abandon their unwanted behavior and rather meet a set of demands explicitly stated by the sender (Biersteker et al. 2016: 21). However, targets can only change their behavior and accommodate the demands placed on them if these demands do not endanger the targets’ political survival (Giumelli 2016: 46). Therefore, sanctions issuers need to make ‘feasible’ requests if they want to persuade a target to behave in a way that it would not otherwise do (Giumelli 2011: 34). Sanctions with a constraining purpose, on the contrary, attempt to prevent the target from continuing one specific action by restricting its access to essential resources needed to engage in this proscribed activity (Giumelli 2011: 34). While coercive sanctions try to persuade targets and require action to comply with the demands of the sender, constraining sanctions do not require a target to do something, but rather are intended to thwart a target’s ability to pursue its condemnable behavior. Thus, while coercion contains a voluntary aspect in the sense that targets

2.3 The Purposes of International Sanctions

17

do not continue their objectionable behavior despite possibly having the capabilities to do so, sanctions with a constraining purpose lack this persuasive element and are considered to be successful when targets are no longer able to engage in a proscribed activity due to the financial, material and/or logistical difficulties caused by the applied sanctions measures. For this reason, constraining sanctions are often employed in cases where targets are fundamentally unwilling or unable to comply with the established norms of the international society (Giumelli 2016: 46f.). Beyond coercing and constraining, international sanctions also entail a signalling function. Signalling and stigmatizing sanctions intend to publicly assert the target’s deviation from an international norm without the mandatory imposition of direct material costs (Biersteker et al. 2016: 21). Sanctions with a signalling purpose are not limited to the behavioral change of the target, but rather attempt to stigmatize or isolate targets for violating prevailing norms, reinforcing at the same time the value of norms in the international system (Giumelli 2016: 46). Thus, signalling sanctions aim at exerting diplomatic pressure on the target, which in the end may induce the target to change its behavior in order to avoid the high reputational costs developed from the application of sanctions and to continue to benefit from multilateral diplomacy (Giumelli 2011: 35). However, some targets such as rebel and terrorist movements are deemed highly unlikely to correct its deviant behavior and return to prevailing norms. In such cases, signalling sanctions intend to isolate the target to the fullest extent possible (Biersteker 2015: 167f.). Seeking to shape specific international norms, sanctions with a signalling purpose are not only directed at targets but also at domestic and international audiences. Therefore, whereas the effectiveness of coercive and constraining sanctions is solely dependent upon the target’s reaction to the applied sanctions, the effectiveness of signalling sanctions is rather determined by whether a message is sent and received, and by the social consequences imposed by other actors in the international community, regardless of how exactly a target behaves in response to the imposition of sanctions (Giumelli 2016: 48). Distinguishing between the coercive, constraining and signalling purposes of international sanctions enables researchers to get a more nuanced understanding of the different ways sanctions can affect targets—regardless of whether the targets are state or non-state actors. Although these three purposes may be interrelated, each operates under different working logics and, for analytical reasons, should thus be treated separately (Eckert 2017: 58).

3

The United Nations as a Sanctioning Organization

Before empirically analyzing the general mechanisms through and conditions under which UN targeted sanctions applied against violent non-state actors are more likely to be effective, it is first necessary to outline the main characteristics of targeted sanctions imposed by the United Nations. This chapter starts by briefly presenting the evolution and legal framework of UN targeted sanctions. Subsequently, the different types of UN targeted sanctions and the varying policy goals behind their imposition are discussed.

3.1

The Evolution of UN Targeted Sanctions

While the end of the Cold War led to an overall proliferation of sanctions adopted by the United Nations, the last three decades also witnessed a significant transformation in the use of UN sanctions. Until the early 1990 s, the UN Security Council predominantly resorted to the application of comprehensive economic sanctions. The underlying logic was to weaken a state’s economy in order to force the government to alter or modify its objectionable actions and policies (Giumelli 2015: 1352). However, comprehensive economic sanctions soon came under strong criticism since they resulted in massive deprivation in life and liberty for the targeted country’s innocent citizens, as the UN sanctions against Iraq after the first Gulf War strikingly demonstrated.1 Moreover, comprehensive sanctions mostly failed to bring the desired behavioral change because the political leaders 1

The negative humanitarian effects of the UN sanctions regime against Iraq were considerable by causing high levels of infant mortality and malnutrition among the innocent civilian population (Wallensteen et al. 2005). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_3

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3 The United Nations as a Sanctioning Organization

of the target countries often successfully insulated themselves from the effects of the applied sanctions measures (Addis 2010: 191). As a response to the mounting evidence that comprehensive economic sanctions were ineffective and caused negative humanitarian consequences for the general population, the UN Security Council resolutely moved away from the imposition of comprehensive sanctions and developed a system of targeted sanctions. In fact, no new sanctions imposed by the United Nations since 1994 have included comprehensive economic measures (Biersteker et al. 2016: 11). Targeted sanctions differ from comprehensive sanctions in that they are designed to maximize the impact on the responsible individuals or entities in the target country, while limiting the unintended adverse effects of sanctions on the innocent population (Giumelli 2015: 1352). Although targeted sanctions are focused on specific individuals and entities, they vary in their degree of discrimination and thus can be ranked—depending on the specific types of sanctions (see section 3.3)—on a continuum, with the most “targeted” measures on one end and the relatively more “comprehensive” ones on the other (Biersteker et al. 2016: 26 f.). Acknowledging the increasing importance of UN targeted sanctions, the governments of Switzerland, Germany and Sweden initiated three sanctions reform processes in the late 1990 s—the Interlaken, Bonn-Berlin, and Stockholm Processes, respectively—in order to improve the design and implementation of targeted sanctions. These initiatives brought together diplomats, experts, and academics and resulted in a multitude of specific recommendations for imposing and administering UN targeted sanctions, promoting the normative shift away from comprehensive sanctions (Eckert 2017: 59). Intertwined with this move from comprehensive to targeted sanctions, the UN Security Council institutionalized the practice of directly sanctioning individuals and non-government entities responsible for certain activities and policies that pose a threat to international peace and security. Whereas the Security Council applied sanctions exclusively against states before the 1990 s, today’s UN sanctions measures are primarily directed at non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist movements and are rather rarely imposed on governments and their elite actors.

3.2

Legal Framework of UN Targeted Sanctions

The legal basis of UN targeted sanctions is located in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which bestows responsibility upon the Security Council for taking action in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. The key provisions

3.2 Legal Framework of UN Targeted Sanctions

21

governing the application of UN sanctions can be found in Articles 39 and 41 of the UN Charter (Farrall 2009: 63). Before the UN Security Council is authorized to impose sanctions, it needs to determine the existence of a threat to peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression according to Article 39 of the UN Charter (Eriksson 2011: 117). Once this decision is made through the support of at least nine members of the Security Council and without attracting the veto of any of the five permanent members (Charron/Portela 2015: 1372), the Security Council can invoke Article 41 for further legal justification and apply sanctions measures including the “complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations” (United Nations 1945).2 This extensive spectrum of potential sanctions to be employed has given the UN Security Council great flexibility to determine the appropriate measures to apply in response to a given threat to international peace and security (Farrall 2009: 65). Once the Security Council decides to impose targeted sanctions, all UN member states are under legal obligation to comply with and implement the applied sanctions measures.3 In order to make sure that UN member states do in fact enforce the respective sanctions measures, however, the Security Council bestows additional responsibilities for the administration and monitoring of sanctions upon a variety of subsidiary actors (Farrall 2009: 146). Sanctions committees have been the most prevalent form of subsidiary organ created to facilitate the administration, monitoring and implementation of sanctions. In the great majority of sanctions regimes, the Security Council has set up such sanctions committees, which come to known by the number of the UN resolution by which they were established (Farrall 2009: 147). The composition of these sanctions committees mirrors that of the Security Council (Eriksson 2011: 118). From a formal point of view, sanctions committees operate the United Nations’ sanctions policy as they are in charge of the following duties necessary to the success of sanctions: taking charge of different reporting activities to monitor the impact and implementation of sanctions and if necessary to propose further measures; administering the list of persons and entities against which targeted sanctions were to be applied; improving sanctions implementation by 2

Interestingly, Article 41 of the UN Charter does not mention the word “sanctions” and rather refers to sanctions as “measures not involving the use of armed force” (United Nations 1945). 3 Pursuant to Article 25 of the UN Charter, UN member states agree to carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the Charter (United Nations 1945).

22

3 The United Nations as a Sanctioning Organization

sending a mission to the region in which the targeted actor is located; and liaising with other relevant subsidiary organs of the United Nations (Farrall 2009: 149 f.). Yet, sanctions committees alone are not able to deal with this multitude of tasks. Decisive to the daily work of a sanctions committee is the Subsidiary Sanctions Branch at the UN Department of Political Affairs. The Sanctions Branch provides support to the daily business of the sanctions committee by implementing decisions made by the committee, conducting sanctions-related analyses, screening reports coming in and out of the committee, disseminating information among committee members and when needed among other relevant bodies within the UN system, and managing and guiding expert groups mandated to monitor sanctions regimes (Eriksson 2011: 118). To ensure a better monitoring of the compliance with the adopted sanctions measures, the Security Council has increasingly established Monitoring Teams, Expert Groups and Panels of Experts. These civilian and independent expert bodies consist of researchers or former ambassadors and have regularly been appointed to collect additional information on all critical aspects of the imposed UN sanctions regime. Their periodic reports spotlight flaws in the enforcement of the respective sanctions regime, monitor human rights violations and analyze key actors and dynamics of conflict. In doing so, the reports issued by these expert groups have become crucial in documenting the effectiveness, implementation and enforcement of the UN sanctions measures and providing on-site information on continuing threats to peace and security (see Boucher/Holt 2009; Vines 2003). Whereas the core task of a sanctions committee and its subordinated bodies is to administer the implementation of and monitor compliance with UN targeted sanctions, the Security Council oversees the political developments of a sanctions regime and responds to the impact of sanctions by either expanding or contracting the scope of the sanctions measures. Once a sanctions regime achieved its political objectives, the Security Council can suspend or terminate the respective sanctions regime (Farrall 2009: 82). Irrespective of the particular sanctions regime’s success, the termination of UN sanctions can usually follow one of three procedures. First, UN sanctions may include a sunset clause that determines the expiration of the imposed sanctions measures at a certain time.4 Second, UN sanctions may contain no criteria for termination and the Security Council thus needs to pass a new resolution to lift the measures. The third and most frequent 4

After the sanctions period expired, a new decision by the Security Council is required in order to reauthorize sanctions for a renewable time period (Boon 2017: 240).

3.3 Types of UN Targeted Sanctions

23

termination model involves sanctions that include a commitment to review (often linked with particular deadlines or events) but without a definite timetable. Such sanctions are imposed for an indefinite time span and require another resolution to terminate the applied sanctions measures (Boon 2017: 239–241).

3.3

Types of UN Targeted Sanctions

In broad terms, UN targeted sanctions can be classified into six different types: (1) individual and entity sanctions, (2) diplomatic sanctions, (3) arms embargoes, (4) commodity sanctions, (5) transportation sanctions, and (6) financial sector sanctions (Biersteker et al. 2016: 25–27). Depending on the situation at hand, the United Nations adopts these sanctions measures either singularly or in a combination with other types of sanctions. First, UN targeted sanctions may be applied to individuals and corporate entities (companies, political parties or non-government groups) which are directly associated with violent action or human rights abuses. These individual and entity sanctions often encompass asset freezes and travel bans imposed on the responsible actors and their supporters (family members, wider entourage of the target) and thus are considered to be the most discriminating and promising forms of targeted sanctions (Biersteker et al. 2016: 25, 27). Travel bans are usually related to individuals and aim to prevent the targeted actors from entering and transiting through any country other than his or her homeland (Carisch et al. 2017: 96). Originally, it was thought that such travel restrictions might impede a target’s access to assets and weapons outside the home country. However, in today’s world of instant communication and logistics, financial and other resources can be accessed easily without travel, eliminating most of these travel needs (Wallensteen/Grusell 2012: 214). Thus, travel bans have rather become a tool to publicly single out and ostracize targeted individuals by undermining and minimizing a target’s leadership abilities and lavish lifestyles (Carisch et al. 2017: 96).5 Asset freezes, on the contrary, intend to temporarily block a target’s financial resources. These asset freezes are usually applied against individuals and entities 5

Travel bans may create personal discomfort to targeted individuals and their lifestyles by precluding them from travelling to international destinations for holidays or shopping trips (Wallensteen/Grusell 2012: 214). Moreover, when travel restrictions are imposed on government officials, they seek to bar them from carry out official visits or conduct negotiations with foreign policymakers that may in turn strengthen their domestic positions (Giumelli 2010: 95 f.).

24

3 The United Nations as a Sanctioning Organization

presumably utilizing their assets to fund or facilitate policies and actions that violate international norms (Carisch et al. 2017: 101).6 The underlying rationale behind travel bans and asset freezes is that targets will be more inclined to meet the sender’s demands once their personal positions are hit (Tostensen/Bull 2002: 386).7 In addition to these individual and entity sanctions, UN targeted sanctions may include restrictions on the diplomatic activity of a governing body. These diplomatic sanctions refer to measures such as the limitation of accredited personnel, travel and visa bans for diplomats, and general suspensions from intergovernmental organizations (Biersteker et al. 2016: 25). These diplomatic restrictions are intended to make it more difficult for sanctioned elites to maintain their political and commercial relations and thus contribute to the isolation of the target from normal international interaction which in turn will lead to the delegitimization of the target’s behavior (Tostensen/Bull 2002: 390). Diplomatic sanctions, however, are rarely implemented as they limit the international community’s ability to continue their interaction with the targeted state and thus undermine the potential positive effects of sanctions. Diplomatic restrictions may also be applied against non-government groups although these non-state entities as such could not have been denied diplomatic status but could be prevented from participating in international dialogues and conferences (Carisch et al. 2017: 108). By far the most frequently applied UN sanctions measures are arms embargoes which involve the general or limited suspension of international arms and other military equipment to a specific country or region, or to particular armed groups or individuals (Biersteker et al. 2016: 25). By blocking the circulation of arms, ammunition and other military material to the wrongdoers, arms embargoes seek to interrupt the flow of precisely those goods that lead to the escalation of conflict or facilitate human rights abuses (Gordon 2011: 321). Besides arms embargoes, one of the UN Security Council’s most frequently adopted sanctions measures are commodity sanctions which attempt to limit the trade in certain commodities coming from and going in the targeted country or region. To date, these sanctions have been imposed on valuable natural resources 6

Just like travel bans, the freezing of one’s assets may also induce a private discomfort to the daily routine of the listed individuals and families (Giumelli 2010: 96). 7 While travel bans have a great symbolic and psychological impact by impeding travelling of targeted individuals or groups, asset freezes may cause a severe economic damage to the target. However, for asset freezes to be effective, targeted individuals and entities must have identifiable financial assets abroad (Gordon 2011: 328). In reality, however, targets are often able to hide their assets from international regulatory bodies which undermines the effectiveness of sanctions (Tostensen/Bull 2002: 387).

3.3 Types of UN Targeted Sanctions

25

such as diamonds, timber and oil, which have often contributed to the outbreak of civil war (Biersteker et al. 2016: 25 f.). The intention behind the deployment of commodity sanctions is to stop natural resources from funding armed groups’ ability to wage brutal intra-state conflicts and terrorist activities (Dam-de Jong 2017: 147). Prominent examples of such natural resource restrictions involve diamond sanctions against UNITA in Angola and the RUF in Sierra Leone. Furthermore, UN targeted sanctions may also include measures such as aviation or shipping bans which aim to prohibit the international transit of carriers (by sea or air) from or to the targeted state (Biersteker et al. 2016: 26 f.). These transportation sanctions seek to reduce the target’s revenue generating exports and, more importantly, to prevent violations of arms embargoes or commodity sanctions by thwarting the importation of military materiel and other commodities necessary for the continuation of the target’s objectionable policies (Tostensen/Bull 2002: 390).8 Ultimately, the United Nations may also impose financial sanctions on core economic sectors of the target state in order to diminish its financial capacity (Biersteker et al. 2016: 26). These measures commonly include the suspension or discontinuation of loans and aid from national governments and multilateral organizations, the restriction or denial of access to international financial markets and bans on capital investment into the targeted state (Tostensen/Bull 2002: 385). In order to prevent an economic damage to the whole society, financial sanctions only blacklist particular persons or entities, while exempting ‘innocent’ groups and individuals from these measures (Gordon 2011: 327). Nevertheless, financial sector sanctions can be considered as the most “comprehensive” type of targeted sanctions since they usually affect the broader population and not only the responsible elite actors. Depending on how discriminating each sanctions measure is for the targeted actors, it makes sense to think about these different types of UN targeted sanctions on a continuum, with the most targeted and thus most discriminating measures (e.g. travel bans and asset freezes) on one end and the more “comprehensive” and thus least discriminating types of sanctions (e.g. financial sector sanctions) on the other (Biersteker et al. 2016: 26 f.).

8

Aviation and shipping sanctions may also have negative humanitarian consequences and thus include a comprehensive component by undermining the import of goods and medical resources necessary for the general population (Gordon 2011: 325 f.).

26

3.4

3 The United Nations as a Sanctioning Organization

Policy Goals Behind the Imposition of UN Targeted Sanctions

Targeted sanctions are employed by the UN Security Council to address a variety of different challenges to international peace and security. Based on Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, the principal goal behind the imposition of targeted sanctions is to counter any threats to peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression in the international system. The UN Security Council has determined the existence of a threat to the peace in four differing types of situations: (1) where a state has a history of maintaining an aggressive foreign policy, combined with the potential to possess or produce weapons of mass destruction; (2) where a state or non-state entity has engaged in or provided support for acts of international terrorism; (3) where two states have been engaged in international conflict; and (4) where states have undertaken acts of interference in the affairs of another state (Farrall 2009: 86). In addition to that overall objective of maintaining or restoring international peace and security by addressing the identified threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, UN sanctions regimes usually pursue more specific policy goals (Farrall 2009: 133). As the UN Security Council has faced an extensive and evolving array of threats to international peace and security, the specific goals behind the application of UN sanctions have expanded over time. These political objectives range from ending destructive violent conflicts and civil wars to the prevention of international terrorism or nuclear proliferation (Biersteker et al. 2016: 23 f.). To date, more than half of the UN targeted sanctions episodes were imposed on national rulers and non-state entities with the aim of ending armed conflicts and civil wars.9 Through the imposition of different types of sanctions measures, as discussed in section 3.3, targeted sanctions attempt to persuade the warring parties to cease hostilities, to engage in the negotiation of a peace settlement, to enforce a peace agreement, and to respect human rights (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24). In addition, countering international terrorism has also been a frequent political objective of UN targeted sanctions.10 Particularly after 9/11, the United 9

According to the data provided by the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC), 59 percent of the UN targeted sanctions episodes have sought to tackle problems associated with armed conflict (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24). 10 Pursuant to the TSC database, the prevention of terrorism has been the major policy goal in 14 percent of the UN targeted sanctions episodes (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24).

3.4 Policy Goals Behind the Imposition of UN Targeted Sanctions

27

Nations have employed a variety of measures against various individuals and entities accused of engaging in international terrorism (Lopez 2012: 138). A third arena for UN targeted sanctions concerns the promotion of democracy, often through the restoration of a legitimate government and the retrieval to constitutional order, such as the sanctions imposed in response to the military coup in Guinea-Bissau in 2012 (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24).11 Thus, targeted sanctions are applied in situations where power has been seized from a democratically elected government as a result of a military coup or coup d’état (Farrall 2009: 97). Furthermore, UN sanctions regimes, such as the ones against Iran and North Korea, have also been established in order to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (Lopez 2012: 138). In these cases, the United Nations utilize targeted sanctions as a tool in order to induce specific states to reduce their nuclear proliferation activities (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24).12 Other policy goals have also been included in UN resolutions as additional rationales for the imposition of targeted sanctions. Though never as the primary objective, numerous UN sanctions regimes also aim at protecting human rights in the midst of war by proactively shielding innocent civilians under the principle of Responsibility to Protect (Lopez 2012: 138). Moreover, the United Nations occasionally apply sanctions in support of judicial processes, such as the situation following the Hariri assassination in Lebanon in 2005, and in support for better governance of natural resources (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24 f.).13

11

According to the TSC database, promoting democracy represents a policy goal in about 10 percent of the UN targeted sanctions episodes (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24). 12 Pursuant to the TSC database, sanctions seeking to slow down nuclear proliferation constitute about 11 percent of the episodes in which the UN has imposed targeted sanctions (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24). 13 According to the TSC database, these policy goals account for 7 percent of the UN targeted sanctions episodes (Biersteker et al. 2016: 24).

4

Conceptual and Methodological Challenges in the Study of Sanctions Effectiveness

Before introducing the theoretical argument and analytical framework of my dissertation project, I deem it necessary to discuss some major challenges in the study of sanctions effectiveness. These problems are by no means specific to my own research. Rather, they represent typical issues when scholars deal with effectiveness in International Relations.1 Numerous empirical studies in the field of sanctions research address the effectiveness of international sanctions—whether sanctions measures cause or at least affect specific policy results. In many cases, however, it is often not clear what exactly researchers mean when they speak of effectiveness since there are often “overlaps with and conflations between the term effectiveness and terms such as effect, outcome, impact and consequence” (Kahl 2013: 35). Therefore, it may be worthwhile to reflect on these conceptual and methodological difficulties. This chapter first outlines the diverging definitions and dimensions of effectiveness. Subsequently, I address the attribution problem and then discuss further conceptual and methodological challenges in the study of sanctions effectiveness.

1

See the excellent book “Studying ‘effectiveness’ in International Relations. A guide for students and scholars” by Hendrik Hegemann and colleagues (Hegemann et al. 2013). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_4

29

30

4.1

4

Conceptual and Methodological Challenges …

Diverging Definitions and Dimensions of Effectiveness

A multitude of scholars from various disciplines have developed several approaches to conceptualize and measure effectiveness. Early researchers of effectiveness distinguished between the goal attainment approach and the system resource approach as ways of conceptualizing organizational effectiveness. Based on the assumption that organizations have identifiable and distinct goals, the goal attainment approach defines effectiveness as the extent to which organizations succeed in meeting their goals (Campbell 1977: 19). The system resource approach, on the contrary, presumes that it is impossible to identify unambiguous organizational goals since the demands placed on an organization are too dynamic and complex. In this view of organizations, the overall goal of any organization is to maintain its viability and existence (Campbell 1977: 20). In order to ensure its own survival, an organization needs to be able to perpetuate an inflow of essential resources from its environment (Hannan/Freeman 1977: 109). Thus, according to the system resource approach, effectiveness is assessed in terms of an organization’s ability to exploit resources from its environment and sustain its own functioning by using its political, institutional, and economic means (Forbes 1998: 186). The differing strengths of these two main approaches have led a broad range of management researchers to develop multidimensional approaches to effectiveness by involving measures based on both the goal attainment and the system resource model. One variant of such a multidimensional approach is the competing values framework developed by Quinn and Rohrbaugh (Quinn/Rohrbaugh 1983). This model incorporates three value dimensions that shape most definitions of effectiveness—organizational focus, organizational structure, and organizational means and ends—and thus illustrates that organizations encompass ambiguous and often conflicting goals and values (Forbes 1998: 186). Hence, the competing values approach assesses the effectiveness of organizations by their ability to balance their contradictory values and manage their operations accordingly (Sheehan 1996: 112). Once scholars have decided which of these varying approaches they want to choose in order to conceptualize effectiveness in their study, they are immediately faced with another issue, namely the multidimensionality of effectiveness. It is basically distinguished between three dimensions of effectiveness: output, outcome, and impact. Generally speaking, output relates to the mere performance of specific tasks, whereas outcome refers to the observed effects of the output on human behavior. Impact, on the contrary, applies to the direct problem-solving

4.2 The Attribution Problem

31

effect of the output (Hegemann 2013: 67). With regard to the effectiveness of sanctions, this implies that output corresponds to the mere imposition of sanctions measures. Outcome, on the other hand, refers to the behavioral changes among the targeted groups or individuals that arise from the application of sanctions, whereas impact measures the extent to which sanctions have contributed to resolving the conflict they were designed to address. Related to the different dimensions of effectiveness, the assessment of sanctions effectiveness is ultimately determined by the definition and measurement of sanctions success that researchers employ. The analysis of the updated TIES dataset exemplifies this issue very well. Morgan and colleagues use three different definitions of sanctions success—a target’s compliance with the sender’s demands, negotiated settlements and the proportion of the sender’s and the target’s achieved goals (see section 2.1 and Table 2.1)—and their calculated success rates vary from 27 to 56 percent depending on the underlying definition of success (Morgan et al. 2014). The effectiveness of a particular sanctions case would obviously depend on a researcher’s choice of entry point. Empirical studies evaluating the outcome of sanctions would certainly show a higher level of effectiveness than studies measuring the impact of sanctions (Underdal 2004: 34). Therefore, it is essential that scholars determine clear standards against which effectiveness will be measured (Kahl 2013: 37). The dominant view within the scholarly community, however, is that studying just the outcome of sanctions is not sufficient for analyzing the effectiveness of international sanctions, and that the ultimate goal of researchers dealing with sanctions effectiveness should be to measure the impact of sanctions (Brzoska 2013: 146).

4.2

The Attribution Problem

As already mentioned in the previous section, scholars that intend to assess the effectiveness of certain actions or measures applied by policymakers should seek to measure the impact of these policies (Brzoska 2013; Underdal 2004). Since impact refers to the direct contribution of these actions or measures to solving the specific problem they were designed to address, researchers inevitably need to deal with the causal pathways at work by linking a cause (the applied actions or measures) to a certain effect (the observed solution to a problem). This means that scholars are confronted with the so-called attribution problem—the challenge of plausibly attributing a certain action or measure to a particular result, while eliminating alternative explanations (Kahl 2013: 38 f.).

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4

Conceptual and Methodological Challenges …

Thus, with respect to the effectiveness of international sanctions, researchers cannot make a precise statement about the effectiveness of the imposed sanctions measures if their empirical analysis fails to demonstrate that it was actually the sanctions that led, at least partly, to the desired solution of the specific problem. Though, recent studies of sanctions effectiveness have often ignored this attribution problem by using simple calculations of success rates, while disregarding the variety of other factors that may explain the success or failure of the respective sanctions measures (Brzoska 2013: 149).2 This methodological underdevelopment of prior sanctions research is astonishing as international sanctions are rarely applied in isolation and are frequently imposed alongside other foreign policy tools which in turn makes it absolutely necessary to investigate how much these simultaneously employed policy instruments contributed to an outcome of a given sanctions case. Scholars studying the effectiveness of sanctions therefore need to include these various potentially explanatory factors in their analyses in order to assess the actual contribution of sanctions to a certain outcome.

4.3

Other Conceptual and Methodological Challenges

In addition to the aforementioned challenges including a sophisticated conceptualization of effectiveness and an adequate consideration of the attribution problem, academics face some other conceptual and methodological difficulties when addressing the effectiveness of international sanctions. One common issue is the so-called subjectivity problem. This refers to the phenomenon that all evaluations of effectiveness inevitably depend on the subjective judgement or inference of the researchers engaged in the assessment (Schroeder 2013: 227 f.). Thus, whether specific sanctions cases are classified as either success or failure is in the eye of the beholder. Obviously, such a classification primarily depends on the conceptualization of effectiveness and the chosen standard of evaluation (as discussed in section 4.1). The simplest and most frequently practiced way to study sanctions effectiveness is to rate the particular sanctions case as either success or failure. Such a binary coding of success, however, has some serious flaws. First, in a binary coding system, the evaluation of sanctions cases would depend on the cut-off point 2

Some influential studies examining the effectiveness of international sanctions sought to address the attribution problem by measuring sanctions effectiveness based on a combined evaluation of the overall policy outcome and the specific contribution to that outcome. However, these assessments are entirely made on the basis of expert views (see Biersteker et al. 2016; Hufbauer et al. 2007).

4.3 Other Conceptual and Methodological Challenges

33

between success and failure (Brzoska 2013: 148 f.). Moreover, a dichotomous measure of effectiveness usually sets a high benchmark for sanctions success and does not allow a more differentiated analysis of sanctions effectiveness by including the partial success of sanctions measures. This study therefore measures the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions on a three-point ordinal scale in order to be able to differentiate between the different degrees of sanctions effectiveness. Furthermore, recent large-N studies investigating the functioning and effectiveness of international sanctions have primarily analyzed sanctions in the aggregate, without necessarily distinguishing neither between targeted and comprehensive sanctions nor between unilateral and multilateral sanctions (UN, EU, or other regional sanctions) in their analyses. Moreover, virtually all prior studies that have scrutinized the effectiveness of international sanctions have fallen short of differentiating between state actors and non-state actors as targets of sanctions which has produced a rather state-centric understanding of how sanctions tend to work.

5

Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

Having presented the insights of previous sanctions research, this chapter develops a theoretical framework for the effective sanctioning of violent non-state actors (VNSAs) by combining the literature on international sanctions with the literature on conflict and terrorism. In the last decades, VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist organizations have proved their capacity to break international law. The international community, particularly the United Nations, has reacted to this development by redirecting its conflict resolution efforts to these non-state entities.1 This has turned targeted sanctions into one of the most vital and indispensable tools available to the UN Security Council in combating terrorism and contributing to the peaceful resolution of (intra-state) conflicts. Despite the UN Security Council’s growing tendency to sanction VNSAs, there has been little research analyzing the effects of UN sanctions on these nongovernment actors. Most scholars investigating the functioning and effectiveness of international sanctions have confined their studies to state actors as targets of sanctions. Thus, previous sanctions research has generated a state-centric theory of international sanctions that is largely insufficient to understand how sanctions imposed on non-state entities such as rebel and terrorist groups work. This dissertation project therefore seeks to fill this gap by advancing our knowledge on the patterns and factors accounting for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs.

1

The UN Security Council defined non-state actors as “individuals or entities not acting under the lawful authority of any State” (United Nations 2004a: 1). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_5

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5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

Targeting non-state actors is not the same thing as sanctioning states. This is the driving logic behind the decision to develop a nuanced and specific theory on the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Combining the literature on international sanctions with the literature on conflict and terrorism, this study identifies several factors that are expected to shape the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. These factors can be categorized into four separate categories: (1) target-specific factors, (2) sanctions-specific factors, (3) sender-specific factors and (4) contextual factors. Target-specific factors refer to key features of the sanctioned actor that presumably affect the effectiveness of sanctions. It is assumed that some non-state entities have certain characteristics that make them more susceptible to sanctions pressure compared to other groups. Sanctions-specific factors correspond to certain attributes of the imposed sanctions measures. As outlined in Section 3.3, the UN Security Council can choose from a large package of possible sanctions measures and it is supposed that specific characteristics of the applied measures may have an impact on the overall effectiveness of sanctions. Sender-specific factors, on the contrary, relate to the behavior of the sanctioning body or individual sender states during a sanctions case. It is presumed that UN member states’ conduct and position in the course of a sanctions regime may influence the effectiveness of the imposed sanctions. Sanctions represent one instrument in the UN toolbox and are always part of an integrated and comprehensive approach to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives. Given the fact that UN sanctions are frequently utilized in conjunction with other foreign policy instruments, it is reasonable to assume that sanctions alone do not work and thus need to be embedded into a broader policy package in order to achieve the goals associated with their imposition. Therefore, contextual factors referring to other foreign policy tools that were employed alongside UN sanctions are also assumed to have an impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs.2 In addition to other foreign policy instruments, contextual factors may also comprise certain features of the targeted country and underlying conflict in which the sanctioned VNSA operates and which possibly also account for the effectiveness of sanctions. One target-specific factor that is hypothesized to impact the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is the organizational structure of the sanctioned entity. 2

The inclusion of contextual factors deals with the so-called attribution problem (see Section 4.2) and allows to investigate how much these simultaneously employed policy instruments contributed to the outcome of a given sanctions case.

5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

37

Generally, organizations can have either a hierarchical or a decentralized structure. A hierarchically structured group has one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top that oversees the planning of the group’s activities. A decentralized organization, on the contrary, consists of loosely independent clusters which operate autonomously within a group (Jordan 2009: 729). Previous research indicates that the organizational structure of rebel and terrorist groups is essential to their proscribed activities and that leadership targeting can lead to organizational collapse which makes conflict termination more likely (Johnston 2012; Price 2012; Tiernay 2015). These studies employ the theories of leadership capabilities and social network analysis to explain why organizations may implode. According to theorists arguing for the importance of leadership capabilities, leaders are central to the functioning of a group as they are responsible for attracting members and inducing them to commit acts of violence on behalf of the organization (Jordan 2009: 724). If a capable leader is removed, the organization may have difficulties finding a replacement leader that is equally capable of convincing members to join the group (Tiernay 2015: 178). Social network analysis provides another explanation why leadership removal may result in organizational collapse. This scholarship argues that actors with the most social ties are crucial to the operation of a group. Thus, if the functioning of a group is heavily dependent on its leader’s social ties, then the removal of the leader should lead to the dissolution of the organization (Jordan 2009: 722). Though, some organizations seem to be more vulnerable to leadership targeting than others. Carley and colleagues found that hierarchically structured organizations are more susceptible to leadership targeting, while it is harder to weaken decentralized organizations (Carley et al. 2002). However, existing research has dealt with leadership targeting only in the form of leaders’ decapitation and incarceration (see e.g. Johnston 2012; Price 2012; Tiernay 2015). This study argues that leadership sanctioning—particularly through the imposition of individual sanctions such as asset freezes and travel bans—can also be an effective tool to cause organizational collapse and thus may lead to conflict termination. It is hypothesized that sanctions are more likely to be effective when they target hierarchically structured organizations and their central actors as the functioning of these groups is very much dependent upon these leading figures. Therefore, rebel and terrorist movements with a hierarchical structure are presumably more vulnerable to the sanctioning of their organization, whereas decentralized groups are assumed to be rather resilient to leadership sanctioning due to their composition of loosely independent clusters.

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5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

Hypothesis 1:

UN targeted sanctions that are imposed on hierarchically structured VNSAs are more likely to be effective.

Another target-specific factor that is presumed to have an impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is the ideology of the sanctioned group. Ideology refers to a group’s internalized values and sentiments which act as a source of collective action motivating rebels’ and terrorists’ engagement in conflict (Weinstein 2007: 48). This study distinguishes between two types of ideology: religious and secular ideologies. Groups with a religious ideology pursue religious ideas and goals, including the introduction of religious law or a religious state. Secular organizations, on the contrary, argue for non-religious goals such as the overthrow of the incumbent regime or the protection of marginalized groups (see Basedau/Deitch 2018). Prior research attests that terrorist groups with a religious ideology are more violent than other terrorist movements (Abrahms/Potter 2015; Henne 2012). Moreover, religious conflicts, especially those which contain religious-ideological issues, are generally much harder to solve (Svensson/Harding 2011; Svensson 2007). The academic community provides several theoretical explanations for these findings. Some scholars argue that religious ideologies are capable of legitimizing violence by promising heavenly rewards which in turn make believers more willing to engage in conflict and sacrifice their lives for it (De Juan 2015; Hasenclever/Rittberger 2000; Walter 2017). Another argument claims that religion can emphasize the identity differences between the belligerent parties, regarding myths, beliefs and rituals, leading to a continued struggle of primacy and increasing levels of hostility (Thomas 2002: 4f.). A third explanation states that religious demands are indivisible and much harder to be solved because religious issues “cannot be parceled out or subdivided without significantly diminishing its subjective value” and “cannot be substituted for or exchanged for something of equal value” (Hassner 2003: 12f.). These theoretical arguments suggest that the depth of religious faith may reduce the readiness to compromise and increase the willingness to sustain rebellion. Thus, it is assumed that sanctions which are directed at VNSAs with secular demands are more likely to be effective, while sanctions applied against VNSAs with a religious ideology tend to be less effective since these groups are less likely to yield to sanctions pressure.

5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

Hypothesis 2:

39

UN targeted sanctions that are applied against VNSAs with secular demands are more likely to be effective.

In addition to target-specific factors, certain characteristics of the imposed sanctions measures are also supposed to have an impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. One of these sanctions-specific factors that are expected to account for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs is the direct economic impact of the applied sanctions measures. Previous studies indicate that sanctions creating profound economic problems for the target are more likely to be effective (Allen 2008; Dashti-Gibson et al. 1997; Drury 1998; Hufbauer et al. 2007). Generally, it is assumed that targets weigh the costs provoked by the application of sanctions against the benefits derived from continuing its proscribed activities. Moreover, existing research on armed groups indicates that the survival of VNSAs and thus their continuation of warfare is often contingent upon the groups’ ability to generate sufficient revenue to pay their fighters.3 Therefore, it is hypothesized that VNSAs are more likely to concede to sanctions pressure when the economic costs caused by the imposition of sanctions are substantial and thus create significant financial and material difficulties for the target. Sanctions’ direct economic impact is expected to be of particular importance when UN targeted sanctions seek to constrain VNSAs since these economic costs help to deplete a targeted group’s financial and material resources so that the sanctioned VNSA is no longer able to continue its objectionable activities. Hypothesis 3:

UN targeted sanctions that inflict substantial economic costs on VNSAs are more likely to be effective.

Besides key features of both the targeted actors and the imposed sanctions measures, it is also important how sender states position themselves during a sanctions case. One crucial sender-specific factor that is hypothesized to impact the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is the enforcement effort made by UN member states. Prior research demonstrates that sanctions-busting behavior by sender states can significantly undermine sanctions success (Early 2011; Lektzian/Souva 2007). The provision of sanctions-busting assistance to targets reduces the likelihood of a target capitulating as targets can mitigate the costs associated with the application of sanctions to tolerable levels (Early 2011: 383).

3

Fighters often join a group because membership offers a financial incentive and enables them to escape from poverty (Hazen 2013: 35).

40

5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

Even though UN member states should have a common interest to address challenges to international peace and security provoked by VNSAs, many rebel and terrorist organizations receive significant assistance from external governments while engaging in conflict.4 External support—whether it comes through the supply of financial assistance, the provision of military goods, or the granting of safe haven—alters the dynamics of war and makes conflicts more difficult to resolve by boosting the access to resources available to the warring factions (Hazen 2013; Salehyan et al. 2011). Building upon the scholarly literature on sanctions-busting behavior and external involvement in conflict, it is assumed that UN targeted sanctions are less likely to be effective when a targeted VNSA can cope with the impact of sanctions by receiving sanctions-busting assistance from noncompliant UN member states.5 Hypothesis 4:

UN targeted sanctions are less likely to be effective when the targeted VNSA receives sanctions-busting assistance from noncompliant UN member states.

UN sanctions are always part of a broader strategic framework and are often utilized in combination with other foreign policy instruments. Thus, contextual factors referring to other foreign policy tools that were employed alongside UN

4

The reasons for sanctions-busting behavior by sender states can be manifold. States have different interests in conflict. Sponsoring a rebel or terrorist movement is often a tactic that states employ to destabilize governments or regions. The specific goals behind this external support may vary including the weakening of hostile regimes or gaining leverage over territorial issues (Salehyan et al. 2011: 712). Furthermore, sanctions do not only impose high costs on the target, but they may also cause disadvantages for the sender. Therefore, UN member states may have an incentive to break sanctions and rather continue their traditional relationship with the target in order to avoid harm to themselves (Mack/Khan 2000: 282). As Drezner rightly asserts, enforcement problems among sanctioners may resemble a prisoners’ dilemma scenario, in which individual states strive to maximize their own benefit by choosing to defect, while everyone else cooperates (Drezner 2000: 83). 5 In contrast to sanctions regimes imposed on states, the level of enforcement should generally be higher when sanctions target rebel and terrorist groups since the international community agrees on the threat posed by VNSAs and should therefore be eager to enforce the applied sanctions measures. Nevertheless, Iran’s sanctions-busting support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen clearly demonstrates that UN member states still appear to have an incentive to violate sanctions directed at VNSAs which in turn can significantly undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions.

5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

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targeted sanctions are also presumed to have an impact on the effectiveness of sanctions.6 One of these contextual factors are regional sanctions. Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of sanctions imposed by reginal organizations such as the European Union (EU) or the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Targets subject to UN sanctions are usually sanctioned by a combination of UN and regional sanctions (Charron/Portela 2016). This raises the question regarding the complementarity between UN sanctions regimes and additional sanctions imposed by regional organizations. Generally, a vital differentiation should be made between regional sanctions simply implementing UN sanctions, and the imposition of autonomous sanctions by regional organizations that go beyond existing UN sanctions with the aim to foster the impact of the UN sanctions regime in place (Sossai 2017: 396, 401). Autonomous sanctions by regional organizations are expected to increase the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions since these additional measures focus on vulnerabilities not addressed by UN sanctions and thus place significantly more pressure on the targeted VNSA.7 Hypothesis 5:

UN targeted sanctions that are accompanied by autonomous regional sanctions are more likely to be effective.

While UN targeted sanctions are frequently supplemented by sanctions imposed by regional organizations, there is also a substantial overlap between unilateral sanctions, in particular sanctions applied by the United States (US), and those mandated by the UN Security Council (Brzoska 2015). The US administration is by far the most active sender of sanctions and previous empirical studies found that US sanctions enhance the probability of sanctions success (Early/Spice 2015). Especially due to its economic and political power, the US administration has been successful in expanding existing UN sanctions regimes through the imposition of additional unilateral measures. These autonomous sanctions imposed by the United States are hypothesized to enhance the effectiveness of

6

Other contextual factors that refer to certain features of the targeted country and underlying conflict such as a country’s GDP, its level of corruption and military strength are included as control variables in the final quantitative analysis (see chapter 9). 7 As Brzoska rightly asserts, sanctions measures imposed by the UN Security Council usually represent the least common denominator upon which key UN member states can agree. Thus, when international actors are dissatisfied with the effects of UN sanctions, they often decide to apply stronger sanctions on their own authority (Brzoska 2015: 1343).

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5 Theorizing the Effective Sanctioning of Violent Non-State Actors

UN targeted sanctions as additional US sanctions significantly boost the sanctions pressure on the targeted VNSA. Hypothesis 6:

UN targeted sanctions that are accompanied by autonomous US sanctions are more likely to be effective.

Besides autonomous sanctions by other international actors, military measures taken by the United Nations or regional organizations are also often deployed in conjunction with UN sanctions regimes. Among these military efforts, peacekeeping operations probably constitute one of the most important and widely used foreign policy tools. As peacekeeping missions and sanctions are often utilized simultaneously to resolve conflicts, the effectiveness of UN sanctions also depends on the coordination and integration with these peacekeeping operations. In recent years, UN Security Council resolutions have mandated that peacekeeping forces support the implementation of existing UN sanctions regimes by assisting with the monitoring of arms embargoes and the trade in natural resources (Cortright et al. 2010: 9, 14). Therefore, peacekeeping missions are crucial for improving the enforcement of the imposed sanctions measures and are expected to increase the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. The presence of peacekeeping forces is presumably of particular importance when UN targeted sanctions strive to constrain VNSAs since they significantly contribute to the enforcement of critical sanctions measures and thus help to curtail a target’s ability to continue its objectionable activities by cutting off arms supply and revenue streams generated from the trade in natural resources. Hypothesis 7:

UN targeted sanctions that are accompanied by peacekeeping operations are more likely to be effective.

6

Empirical Strategy

In order to conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the factors determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs, I apply a “nested research design” (Lieberman 2005) by combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. In the first part of my tripartite empirical analysis, I conduct a quantitative analysis, testing several possible explanatory factors derived from classical sanctions literature as well as from research on conflict and terrorism introduced above. In the following part, a qualitative analysis of two deviant cases is conducted that seeks to complement the empirical findings of my quantitative analysis by detecting additional key factors regarding the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. In the third and final part of my empirical analysis, I re-employ quantitative research methods in order to investigate whether the factors that have been identified within the framework of the qualitative case studies may be generalizable to a wider population of sanctions cases and thus can be considered as general determinants of the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. In the first quantitative part of my empirical analysis, I analyze data from an innovative and newly constructed dataset—the Sanctioning Non-State Actors (SNSA) dataset—that was generated by the author and that is to my knowledge the very first quantitative database including specific and fine-grained information on UN targeted sanctions imposed on VNSAs. This statistical analysis primarily involves variables discussed in classical state-centric sanctions research and strives to examine whether these factors are also of high importance for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. To test the various factors hypothesized to determine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions applied against VNSAs (see chapter 5), ordinal logistic regression analyses are conducted. More detailed information on the dataset and the methodology will be provided in the subsequent chapter.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_6

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Empirical Strategy

The following qualitative part then seeks to complement the empirical findings of my quantitative analysis by searching for additional factors which may account for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs and which have so far been neglected by prior sanctions research. In order to select the cases for the qualitative analysis, this study employs a deviant case study approach. The case selection procedure is thereby structured by the results of the previously conducted statistical analysis. Thus, the deviant case method chooses that case which is in direct contradiction to the empirical findings of the statistical measurement (Gerring 2010: 655 f.). Related to the purpose of my dissertation, this means that the deviant cases will have to be sanctions cases whose outcome is poorly explained by the ordinal logistic regression models. More precisely, two cases are selected, which have proven to be effective UN targeted sanctions cases, although the results of my quantitative analysis suggest that these sanctions cases are actually most likely to experience an ineffective sanctions outcome. The primary purpose of this deviant case analysis is to uncover new, but as yet disregarded or unspecified, explanations for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. In order to discover these additional key factors, the case studies proceed inductively and employ elements of process tracing as the qualitative method of choice. Chapter 8 will provide more detailed information on the case selection and the methodology. Aiming to expand the external validity of the empirical findings generated from studying the deviant cases, a final quantitative analysis is conducted. Hence, in the third part of my empirical analysis, I operationalize and then add the additional key factors that have been identified within the framework of the two case studies to the existing dataset. These newly detected variables are then translated into additional hypotheses on the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Subsequently, I re-employ statistical research methods in order to investigate whether these possible determining factors may be generalizable to a wider population of sanctions cases and thus can be considered as general determinants of the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. While qualitative research in general and prior qualitative case studies dealing with the effectiveness of international sanctions in particular have often failed to test the extent to which the empirical results of their particular case(s) can be generalized to a larger population of cases, this study’s nested research design allows me to produce more valid insights into the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. The aim of this comprehensive and systematic empirical analysis is to explore the conditions that maximize the likelihood of UN sanctions’ success. The empirical findings are then translated into some practical recommendations for future UN sanctions policy. This is of high political relevance since the United Nations are universally considered the most legitimate international body of sanctions

6

Empirical Strategy

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action, which makes it all the more important to enhance the effectiveness of its sanctions measures. However, only if UN targeted sanctions are designed and implemented effectively, targeted sanctions represent a promising foreign policy tool to address challenges to international peace and security that are increasingly caused by violent non-state actors such as rebel groups fueling civil wars as well as terrorist movements conducting transnational attacks.

7

Quantitative Analysis I

In this chapter, I test the various hypotheses developed in chapter 5 by conducting a quantitative analysis of the compiled dataset. Before presenting the empirical results of my statistical analyses, I outline my analytical framework by introducing the data and methodology employed in this quantitative analysis and discussing the operationalization of the different variables.

7.1

Data

In order to test the various factors hypothesized to determine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions imposed on violent non-state actors, I generated an innovative dataset—the Sanctioning Non-State Actors (SNSA) dataset—that is to my knowledge the very first quantitative database involving specific and fine-grained information on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist groups. The SNSA dataset is composed of the entire universe of UN targeted sanctions applied against VNSAs which were imposed between 2000 and 2018.1 The database comprises 219 actor-year observations with a total of 37 different non-state groups that were targeted within the framework of 11 UN sanctions regimes (see Table A1 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). 1

UN Panels of Experts, Expert Groups and Monitoring Teams have been regularly established after the end of the 20th century. Therefore, the period under investigation starts in 2000.

Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_7. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_7

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Quantitative Analysis I

The data was retrieved from numerous primary and secondary sources. Annual reports issued by the UN Panels of Experts, Expert Groups and Monitoring Teams represent the primary source of information. As outlined in chapter 3.2, these expert bodies conduct detailed and often on-site investigations into all critical aspects of the respective UN sanctions regime and therefore represent a highly valuable source of information. While sanctions committees and the Security Council are usually constricted by diplomatic procedure, protocol and consensusseeking, these civilian and independent teams of experts are not tied to these diplomatic niceties and thus can provide unbiased and valid analyses on key features of the UN sanctions regime and the underlying conflict (Vines 2003: 251). Moreover, additional information was gathered from several other sources, including the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and the UN Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) databases. As the data is primarily based on the official reports published by the UN Panels of Experts, Expert Groups and Monitoring Teams, the dataset includes only those sanctions cases for which the UN established such expert groups.2 The SNSA dataset has several advantages compared to existing quantitative datasets dealing with the effectiveness of international sanctions. First, it is the most-up-to date database analyzing the effectiveness of international sanctions and the very first one that explicitly collects data on the effectiveness of sanctions directed at VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist movements. Second, whereas existing quantitative datasets take sanctions episodes or sanctions regimes as a basis for the assessment of sanctions effectiveness (Bapat/Morgan 2009; Biersteker et al. 2016; Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007; Morgan et al. 2014; von Soest/Wahman 2015), this study evaluates UN targeted sanctions on an annual basis. Information regarding UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness and the explanatory variables possibly predicting their effectiveness are coded per each VNSA that was targeted by UN sanctions in any given year. Thus, the primary unit of analysis is the sanctioned VNSA per year. In sharp contrast to the very static assessment of existing databases, this actor-year dataset allows for a much more dynamic and fine-grained evaluation of sanctions effectiveness. Particularly when sanctions are imposed on VNSAs that often operate under fastchanging circumstances in intra-state conflicts, the effectiveness of the applied 2

The establishment of UN Panels of Experts, Expert Groups and Monitoring Teams has become common practice. Only some UN sanctions regimes lacked these expert groups for a certain period of time and were thus excluded from the analysis. These cases include: Al-Qaida/Taliban (1999–2000), Angola (1993–1999, 2001–2002), Liberia (1992–2002), Rwanda (1995–2008), Sierra Leone (1997–1999, 2001–2010) and Somalia (1992–2001).

7.2 Methodology

49

sanctions measures and key features affecting the outcome of sanctions may change rapidly. Therefore, it is more fruitful to disaggregate UN sanctions cases into sanctions years in order to capture the sometimes significant variation that can take place within a single sanctions regime over time and thus to be able to re-evaluate the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions and their determining factors accordingly. Third, this novel dataset enables researchers to conduct a systematic and finegrained analysis of the factors accounting for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs as it involves information on the outcome of UN targeted sanctions as well as on the possible predictor variables that may determine their effectiveness. These factors hypothesized to have an impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness encompass key characteristics of the targeted non-state actors (target-specific factors) and the imposed UN sanctions measures (sanctions-specific factors). Furthermore, the collected database involves detailed information on UN sender states and their behavior during a sanctions case (sender-specific factors) as well as on conflict-related features and other foreign policy instruments that were employed alongside UN sanctions (contextual factors). These independent variables are coded per each VNSA that was targeted by UN sanctions in any given year. This allows scholars to capture annual variations in important aspects of the respective sanctions regime which may have a considerable impact on the outcome of the particular sanctions case. Fourth, this dataset is primarily based on original UN documents. These official documents provide detailed and on-site information on all critical aspects of the respective UN sanctions regime that the traditional datasets do not include as this kind of data cannot be retrieved from media reports which most of the existing and state-based sanctions databases predominantly used for coding (see Bapat/Morgan 2009; Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007; Morgan et al. 2014).

7.2

Methodology

Since this study measures the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions on a threepoint ordinal scale, ordinal logistic regression analyses are conducted to test the various hypotheses developed in chapter 5. Such a methodological approach is enormously advantageous to this dissertation project as it quantifies the effect of

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Quantitative Analysis I

multiple predictor variables (selected independent variables) on an ordinal dependent variable.3 An ordinal logistic analysis thereby assists to address the question of what factors correlate with a higher likelihood of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness. Positive regression coefficients indicate variables that are positively associated with the effectiveness of sanctions, while negative coefficients denote factors that make UN targeted sanctions less likely to be effective. Furthermore, an ordinal logistic regression analysis enables researchers to obtain predicted probabilities by each independent variable of interest. In the case at hand, where UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness is measured on a threepoint scale (ranging from completely effective to totally ineffective), scholars are able to calculate the predicted probabilities and showcase the effect of each explanatory variable on the effectiveness of sanctions. The result is a probability of a given sanctions case falling into one of the three possible sanctioning outcome categories.4 This study uses the statistic software R to get the predicted probabilities, but these probabilities may also be computed by hand, using this formula:5 Pr(Y = i|X) = 11 + (−ki + bjXj)−11 + e(−ki − 1 + bjXj) (Treiman 2009: 343) As illustrated, this methodological approach is most suitable for the purpose of this dissertation project as it allows to estimate how much each predictor variable contributes, on average and everything else being equal, to a given outcome of a sanctions case. Thus, an ordinal logistic regression analysis makes it possible to explore which factors are most significant in explaining the success of UN targeted sanctions imposed on VNSAs. To analyze the impact of the selected independent variables on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions, the ordinal logistic regression analysis also incorporates random effects. Since the SNSA dataset involves observations that can be grouped across the different targeted actors (sanctioned VNSAs) and UN sanctions regimes, it is reasonable to assume that the effects of the various 3

An ordinal variable is a variable that has two or more categories, and these categories can be ordered on some dimension. However, in contrast to categorical variables, the distance between the different categories of an ordinal variable is unknown (Treiman 2009: 342). More information on the ordinal scale of the dependent variables employed in this study will be provided in the next section (Section 7.3). 4 When predicted probabilities of a particular predictor variable are calculated, all other independent variables in the respective model are held at their mean or mode. Only the value of the independent variable of interest varies on its range (Hart 2000: 278). 5 ki is the upper-bound cutting point; k − 1 is the lower-bound cutting point; bj is the i regression coefficient of variable j; Xj is the value of variable j (Treiman 2009: 342f.).

7.3 Dependent Variable

51

explanatory variables may vary randomly from target to target as well as from sanctions regime to sanctions regime. Random effects models enable researchers to account for these group-level variations by estimating regression coefficients for particular units within the population (Gelman/Hill 2007: 245f.).6 The distinction between random effects and other parameters in the regression model is that the random effects are treated as unobserved random variables that are uncorrelated with the observed predictor variables (Allison 2009: 2f.; Agresti/Finlay 2009: 520). In contrast to basic regression analysis, the statistical results generated from random effects models are more balanced since they comprise the estimated average deviation across the different targeted actors and sanctions regimes included in the dataset. The underlying assumption behind the decision to include random effects in the regression models is that the statistical results were drawn from groupings within the population that differ from each other in ways that could impact the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. In doing so, the random effects model supposes that each targeted VNSA as well as each UN sanctions regime involved in the SNSA dataset has its own unique effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness and the quantitative analysis therefore controls for these actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects.

7.3

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable employed in this investigation is the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at violent non-state actors. As outlined in Section 4.1, effectiveness can be conceptualized through different approaches. This study applies the goal attainment approach and measures the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions against their ability to achieve the varying purposes associated with their imposition.7 Considering the multiple and differing purposes of international sanctions—namely to coerce, to constrain, and to signal targets (Giumelli 2011)—UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness will be measured in relation to two

6

Random effects models are often described as mixed models as they include both random effects and fixed effects parameters for the predictor variables (Agresti/Finlay 2009: 500). 7 It is important to note that the assessment of sanctions effectiveness does not consider the unintended consequences, economic costs, or harmful effects that may have accompanied each of these “effective” sanctions cases (Biersteker et al. 2016: 32). The concept of effectiveness leaves any kind of costs out of the equation and should therefore not be confused with efficiency (Underdal 2004: 27).

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Quantitative Analysis I

of these three dimensions.8 The specific purposes behind the application of UN sanctions against VNSAs are defined on the basis of UN resolutions and are reconciled with the TSC database. In contrast to previous quantitative studies that fixated their analysis of sanctions effectiveness on its coercive function (Bapat/Morgan 2009; Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007; Morgan et al. 2014; von Soest/Wahman 2015), this research project includes constraining as an additional purpose of sanctions. Notwithstanding its conceptual importance, the signalling function of sanctions is excluded from the analysis due to several reasons. First, sanctions’ effectiveness in signalling is often very difficult to assess since scholars need to evaluate how clearly the message is communicated to the audience (target, domestic constituencies and international community) and how extensively the target is stigmatized and isolated for violating international norms (see Giumelli 2011, 2016). This task is extremely challenging, especially for scholars conducting quantitative research. Second, as this study focusses on violent non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups that usually do not approve and comply with international norms and thus are deemed highly unlikely to be stigmatized through the imposition of sanctions, the signalling function of sanctions is considered to be rather negligible when it comes to the sanctioning of these VNSAs. Previous influential studies examining the effectiveness of international sanctions have based their operationalization of the dependent variable of interest (sanctions effectiveness) on a combined evaluation of the overall policy outcome and the specific contribution of the applied sanctions to that outcome (Biersteker et al. 2016; Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007; Pape 1997). These scholars rightly asserted that, in order to assess sanctions effectiveness, it is insufficient to evaluate whether the goal behind the application of sanctions (the desired policy outcome) is achieved. In addition, it is absolutely necessary to scrutinize the distinct contribution of sanctions to that outcome by considering all other foreign policy instruments that were employed by the international community at the same time and thus accompanied the imposition of sanctions, such as diplomatic measures, threats of or the use of force, unilateral or regional sanctions, and so forth (Biersteker et al. 2016: 229). This study, however, does not include a contribution measure in the dependent variable since this empirical analysis includes other foreign policy measures as 8

Distinguishing between the different purposes of sanctions enables researchers to get a more nuanced understanding of the different ways sanctions can affect targets (see Section 2.3). Although these three purposes may be interrelated, each operates under different working logics and, for analytical reasons, should thus be treated separately (Eckert 2017: 58).

7.3 Dependent Variable

53

explanatory variables in the statistical analysis.9 Therefore, the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is measured only in relation to the overall policy outcome for each purpose. Building on the typology of sanctions purposes developed by Giumelli (2011), the dependent variable for this quantitative analysis includes two different measures of sanctions effectiveness. These two separate variables capture UN targeted sanctions’ ability to persuade the sanctioned VNSA to change its condemnable behavior (variable Coercing) as well as their ability to prevent the targeted VNSA from continuing its proscribed action by restricting its access to essential resources needed to pursue its objectionable activity (variable Constraining). UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are considered to be effective if the sanctioned VNSA complied with the demand(s) that was/were explicitly stated in the underlying UN resolution. UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing is measured on a three-point ordinal scale ranging from 0 to 2, where 0 means ‘ineffective’ and is coded when the reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team do not provide evidence that the targeted VNSA met the demand(s) explicitly stated by the UN Security Council. A value of 1 means ‘partly effective’ and is coded when the reports published by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team offer some evidence that the sanctioned VNSA partly acquiesced to the demand(s) explicitly stated by the UN Security Council. An ‘effective’ sanctions case takes the value of 2 when the reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team provide clear evidence that the targeted VNSA fully complied with the demand(s) explicitly stated by the UN Security Council. UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose, on the contrary, are considered to be effective when the sanctioned VNSA was no longer able to engage in a proscribed activity due to the financial, material and/or logistical difficulties caused by the applied sanctions measures. UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining is also measured on a three-point ordinal scale ranging from 0 to 2, where 0 means ‘ineffective’ and is coded when the reports published by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team do not provide evidence that the sanctions restricted the target’s access to essential resources and thus the sanctioned VNSA was still able to pursue its condemnable activity without any difficulty. This variable takes the value of 1 indicating a ‘partly effective’ 9

As Drury rightly asserts, the dependent variable needs to be exogenous by being independent of the explanatory variables. Thus, if the predictor variables in the statistical model already control for the effect of other foreign policy tools, the dependent variable should not include a contribution measure, because that would be redundant and therefore endogenous (Drury 1998: 500).

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sanctions outcome when the reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team offer some evidence that the imposed sanctions—at least to some extent—curtailed the target’s access to essential resources and the targeted VNSA therefore faced some difficulties to continue its proscribed activity. A value of 2 means ‘effective’ and is coded when the reports published by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team provide clear evidence that the sanctions significantly restricted the target’s access to essential resources so that the sanctioned VNSA had serious difficulties or was even no longer able to pursue its objectionable activity. The effectiveness of these varying sanctions purposes may also be related to the three different dimensions of effectiveness (see Section 4.1). Assessing UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining, scholars would measure the outcome of sanctions since both coercive and constraining sanctions are considered to be effective when they have succeeded in generating behavioral changes among the targeted groups.10

7.4

Independent Variables

The two different dependent variables—UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining—are tested against seven independent variables in order to explore their probable importance in determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness for each purpose. As outlined in chapter 5, the various hypotheses and thus the selected explanatory variables can be categorized into four separate categories: (1) target-specific factors, (2) sanctions-specific factors, (3) senderspecific factors and (4) contextual factors. In relation to these four categories, the following predictor variables were selected for the following statistical analysis.11 One target-specific factor that is hypothesized to impact the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is the organizational structure of the sanctioned VNSA (Hypothesis 1). In order to determine the organizational structure of each targeted non-state group, information was collected from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from

10

While coercive sanctions persuade a target to change its behavior by complying with the sender’s demands, constraining sanctions lack this persuasive element and rather force the target to alter its behavior by thwarting its ability to continue its proscribed activity (Giumelli 2016: 46f.). 11 The codebook involving much more detailed information on the coding principles and the coded variables can be found in the Electronic Supplementary Material.

7.4 Independent Variables

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group profiles provided by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Uppsala University 2019). Based on the gathered information, the variable Group Structure was created which takes the value of 0 if the sanctioned entity is a decentralized and distributed organization consisting of loosely independent clusters which operate autonomously within a group. The variable is coded as 1 if the targeted VNSA has a centralized and hierarchical structure with one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top of the organization. Another target-specific factor that is presumed to have an impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is the ideology of the sanctioned VNSA (Hypothesis 2). In order to gauge the ideological position of every targeted rebel and terrorist group, information was retrieved from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from group profiles provided by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Uppsala University 2019). The gathered information was reconciled with and, if necessary, supplemented by the Rebels and Religion in Intrastate Armed Conflict Dataset (Basedau/Rudolfsen 2015). I then generated the variable Religious_Ideology which takes the value of 1 if the sanctioned VNSA pursues religious goals by promoting religious beliefs and ideas such as the introduction of religious law or a religious state. This variable is coded as 0 if the targeted group has secular ideological claims by exclusively promoting non-religious beliefs and goals such as the overthrow of the incumbent regime or the protection of marginalized groups.12 In addition to target-specific factors, certain characteristics of the imposed sanctions measures are also assumed to account for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions.13 One of these sanctions-specific factors that are expected to affect sanctions effectiveness is the direct economic impact of the applied sanctions measures (Hypothesis 3). Information on UN targeted sanctions’ direct economic impact on the sanctioned VNSA was retrieved from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team. Then the variable Economic Impact was created that captures whether the applied sanctions had a direct economic impact by causing economic disadvantages to the

12

The conceptualization of religious (theological) and non-religious/secular ideological claims is taken from the Rebels and Religion in Intrastate Armed Conflict Dataset (Basedau/Rudolfsen 2015). 13 Initially, it was intended to include the use of arms embargoes as one sanctions-specific factor. However, since the UN Security Council imposed arms embargoes in 217 of the 219 cases in the sample, this variable does not show enough variance, so that theory cannot be falsified. Therefore, the factor ‘arms embargo’ was excluded from the statistical analysis.

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targeted VNSA. This dichotomous measure equals to 1 if clear-cut indications of sanctions-related economic difficulties for the target were found, and 0 otherwise. Besides key features of both the targeted actors and the imposed sanctions measures, it also seems to be important how sender states position themselves during a sanctions case. One crucial sender-specific factor that is hypothesized to influence the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions is the enforcement effort made by the sender. It is assumed that sanctions-busting behavior by UN member states can significantly undermine UN sanctions’ success (Hypothesis 4). In order to gauge whether the sanctioned VNSA received sanctions-busting assistance by non-compliant UN member states, information was drawn from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from group profiles provided by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (Uppsala University 2019). Based on the gathered information, the binary variable Sanctions-busting was created that is coded as 1 if evidence was found that the targeted VNSA received external support through the supply of financial assistance, the provision of military goods, or the granting of safe haven by UN member states during the year under investigation, and 0 otherwise. UN targeted sanctions are always part of a broader policy package and are often utilized in combination with other foreign policy instruments. Thus, contextual factors referring to other foreign policy tools that were employed alongside UN sanctions are also assumed to have an impact on the effectiveness of sanctions. One of these contextual factors are regional sanctions that are hypothesized to increase the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions (Hypothesis 5). In order to capture whether UN targeted sanctions were accompanied by autonomous regional sanctions in a given year, information was gathered from the UN Targeted Consortium Database (Targeted Sanctions Consortium 2016), the International Sanctions Termination (IST) Dataset (Attia/Grauvogel 2020) and the EU Sanctions Map (European Union 2019). The dummy variable Regional Sanctions was then created which equals to 1 if autonomous regional sanctions were in place during the year under investigation, and 0 otherwise.14 UN targeted sanctions are not only supplemented by multilateral sanctions imposed by regional organizations. There is also a substantial overlap between unilateral sanctions, in particular sanctions imposed by the United States, and those mandated by the UN Security Council. Autonomous sanctions by the 14

Again, these regional sanctions need to go beyond the scope of UN sanctions by imposing further sanctions measures or targeting additional individuals or entities. Sanctions imposed by regional organizations that solely implement the sanctions measures authorized by the UN Security Council are coded as 0.

7.5 Control Variable

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United States are hypothesized to enhance the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions (Hypothesis 6). Based on information collected from the UN Targeted Consortium Database (Targeted Sanctions Consortium 2016), the International Sanctions Termination (IST) Dataset (Attia/Grauvogel 2020) and the OFAC Sanctions List issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (U.S. Department of the Treasury 2019), the dummy variable US Sanctions was generated. This variable is coded as 1 if autonomous US sanctions that go beyond the scope of existing UN sanctions were in place during the year under investigation, and 0 otherwise. In addition to autonomous sanctions by other international actors, military measures taken by the United Nations or regional organizations are also often deployed alongside UN sanctions. Among these military efforts, peacekeeping operations probably constitute one of the most important and widely used foreign policy tools and they are expected to boost the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions (Hypothesis 7). In order to determine whether UN targeted sanctions were supplemented by peacekeeping missions, information was drawn from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from other UN documents. Based on the gathered information, the dummy variable Peacekeeping was created that takes the value of 1 if peacekeeping operations were deployed during the year under investigation, and 0 otherwise.

7.5

Control Variable

In addition to the various independent variables introduced in the previous section, another sanctions-specific factor—the duration of sanctions—is included as control variable in the quantitative analysis. The duration of a given sanctions case is a highly controversial issue among sanctions scholars studying the effectiveness of international sanctions. Some analysts found that short-lived sanctions are more likely to be effective as targets gradually adjust to the new circumstances and often find ways to evade them (Bolks/Al-Sowayel 2000; Dashti-Gibson et al. 1997; Hufbauer et al. 1990; van Bergeijk 1994). Other researchers, on the contrary, came to the conclusion that prolonged sanctions are prone to be more effective as the costs associated with the imposition of sanctions increase over time (Bonetti 1998). As classical sanctions research has produced ambiguous results regarding the relationship between the duration of sanctions and sanctions effectiveness, this variable is avoided as an independent variable and is rather included as a control

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variable in the statistical analyses. To gauge the duration of a given UN sanctions case, the variable Duration was generated. This is a continuous variable which measures how long (in months) each VNSA was targeted by UN sanctions. Information was retrieved from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from other UN documents and the UN Targeted Sanctions Consortium Database (Targeted Sanctions Consortium 2016).

7.6

Empirical Findings

The following part of this chapter introduces the results of my first empirical analysis. To begin with, I outline the descriptive statistics regarding the effectiveness and other key characteristics of UN targeted sanctions imposed on violent non-state actors. Since this dissertation project endeavors to uncover the factors accounting for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs, I then present the statistical results of what factors determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining VNSAs.

7.6.1

The Effectiveness of UN Sanctions Targeted on Violent Non-State Actors

This section showcases the descriptive results regarding the effectiveness and other key features of UN targeted sanctions directed at violent non-state actors. The effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions was measured in relation to UN sanctions’ ability to coerce and to constrain the targeted VNSAs (see Section 7.3). While all prior research evaluated the effectiveness of international sanctions in state-centric and aggregate terms, this study is the first scholarly effort that exclusively deals with the effective sanctioning of VNSAs and thus produces specific success rates of UN sanctions applied against rebel and terrorist organizations. The descriptive analysis of this newly constructed dataset reveals that UN targeted sanctions were effective or at least partially effective in coercing VNSAs to abandon their proscribed behavior and comply with the United Nations’ demands in over 25 percent of the cases (see Figure 7.1). On the contrary, UN targeted sanctions were found to be effective or at least partially effective in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their condemnable activities in 52 of the 216 cases, resulting in an overall success rate of about 24 percent (see

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Figure 7.2). This disaggregated assessment of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness demonstrates that the specific success rates are virtually identical and do not differ considerably among the diverging purposes of UN sanctions. This finding is contrary to previous empirical results generated from the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) database which found that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are slightly more effective than UN sanctions seeking to coerce a change in a target’s behavior (Biersteker et al. 2016: 233–236). Furthermore, whereas the analysis of the TSC data unveiled that coercive sanctions are effective in only 10 percent of the sanctions cases, UN targeted sanctions intending to coerce VNSAs to alter their behavior are found to be effective in 25 percent of the cases and thus seem to have considerably higher chances of success. Despite some incompatibilities with the TSC data, the detected success rates of about 25 percent largely coincide with the success rates of international sanctions that were attested by most of the existing sanctions research (see Section 2.1 and Table 7.1). Yet, comparing my results to the success rates of prior studies that exclusively analyzed sanctions applied against states (see Cortright/Lopez 2002; Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007), UN targeted sanctions imposed on VNSAs are found to be slightly less effective. The low success rate also points to the importance of studying the factors accounting for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. It is reasonable to assume that one reason for the fact that UN sanctions targeted at VNSAs turned out to be effective in only slightly more than 2 of 10 sanctions cases may be the policymakers’ scarce knowledge about the factors contributing to the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Therefore, this dissertation project seeks to fill this gap by uncovering the patterns and factors that render UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs more likely to be effective. The descriptive analysis of this newly compiled dataset also discovers some interesting insights about key characteristics (selected independent variables) of the UN sanctions regimes imposed on VNSAs. The descriptive results confirm that UN sanctions are always part of a broader policy package and are often utilized in combination with other foreign policy instruments. The analysis shows that UN targeted sanctions applied against VNSAs were accompanied by autonomous regional sanctions in over 43 percent of the sanctions years, while autonomous US sanctions even complemented the imposition of UN sanctions in almost 89 percent of the sanctions years. In addition to autonomous sanctions by other international actors, peacekeeping missions were deployed in conjunction with UN sanctions regimes directed at VNSAs in 77 percent of the sanctions years.

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EFFECTIVENESS IN COERCING 7 4.55%

18.18% 7.27%

Ineffecve

Partly effecve

Effecve

Figure 7.1 UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. (Note: The dataset comprises 165 cases in which UN targeted sanctions had a coercive purpose)

EFFECTIVENESS IN CONSTRAINING 7 5.93%

17.13% 6.94%

Ineffecve

Partly effecve

Effecve

Figure 7.2 UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. (Note: The dataset comprises 216 cases in which UN targeted sanctions had a constraining purpose)

The descriptive statistics of the target-specific factors also provide some interesting findings on key features of the VNSAs that were targeted by UN sanctions. The SNSA dataset reveals that almost two-thirds (65 percent) of the sanctioned rebel and terrorist groups are hierarchically organized with one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top of the organization. Moreover, UN sanctions were predominantly imposed on VNSAs that pursued rather secular and

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non-religious goals, whereas only 30 percent of the targeted rebel and terrorist movements had explicit religious demands. Moreover, the descriptive analysis discloses that 19 of the 37 rebel and terrorist organizations involved in the dataset enjoyed—at least over a certain period of time—the provision of external assistance from noncompliant UN member states, while being subject to UN sanctions. In addition to this alarming finding, it also becomes apparent that UN targeted sanctions were able to inflict a direct economic impact on the sanctioned VNSA in only 5 percent of the recorded sanctions years.

7.6.2

Testing the Determinants of UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Coercing

The following section presents the findings of my ordinal logistic regression analysis testing the various factors hypothesized to determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their proscribed behavior. The statistical results are displayed in Table 7.1. Model 1 includes the explanatory variables developed in the study’s theoretical framework in chapter 5.15 Model 2 represents the main model and introduces random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects. Table 7.1 reveals that a target’s organizational structure is statistically insignificantly associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. Moreover, the relationship seems to be ambiguous. While Model 1 shows that the structure of a sanctioned group is positively related to the success of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose, indicating that sanctions imposed on hierarchically organized VNSAs are more likely to be effective, the coefficient on this variable turns negative when comprising random effects (see Model 2). Due to this inconsistent and statistically insignificant finding, my statistical analysis does not provide empirical support to Hypothesis 1. The quantitative results rather suggest that when UN targeted sanctions intend to coerce VNSAs to abandon their objectionable behavior by complying with established international norms, the effectiveness of the applied sanctions measures is not necessarily 15

Hypothesis 3 on the effect of sanctions’ direct economic impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing could not be tested since the variable Economic Impact did not show enough variance across the different observations and thus was excluded from the analysis. Of the 165 cases in which UN targeted sanctions intended to coerce VNSAs, only one sanctions case was found in which the applied UN sanctions had a direct economic impact on the targeted VNSA.

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dependent upon a target’s organizational structure. In contrast to the expectation, it appears that leadership sanctioning does not really represent an effective tool to terminate conflicts by leading to concessions or even organizational collapse of the sanctioned conflict parties. On the contrary, a group’s ideology seems to be of high importance when UN targeted sanctions seek to coerce VNSAs to alter their condemnable behavior. The religious ideology of the sanctioned entity is statistically significant at the 0.05 level and has a negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing (see Model 1). As Model 2 demonstrates, this negative relationship retains its statistical significance at the 5% level when controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects. Table 7.1 Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing

Group_Structure

Model 1

Model 2

0.407 (0.534)

−0.531 (0.819)

−1.003** (0.489)

−2.081** (0.926)

0.299 (0.483)

0.756 (0.756)

Regional_Sanctions

−0.725 (0.463)

−0.767 (0.750)

US_Sanctions

−1.509** (0.676)

−1.622* (0.913)

Peacekeeping

0.909 (0.901)

0.845 (1.383)

Duration

0.002 (0.004)

0.007 (0.005)

Religious_Ideology Sanctions-busting

Observations

165

165

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 Model 2 introduces random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regimespecific effects. The variable Economic Impact was excluded from the analysis due to lacking variance.

This result strongly supports Hypothesis 2, indicating that coercive sanctions imposed on VNSAs with a secular ideology are more likely to be effective, while VNSAs with a religious ideology are less likely to yield to sanctions pressure.

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To demonstrate the significance of the relationship between a sanctioned group’s ideology and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose, predicted probabilities are generated and illustrated in Figure 7.3. It becomes apparent that the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 37 percent when coercive sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with secular demands (variable Religious_Ideology is 0). Yet, when this variable is changed to 1, showing that the targeted group pursues religious demands, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome drops to 7 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are 30 percent more likely to be effective when they are applied against VNSAs with non-religious demands. This finding suggests that targeted sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council are a rather inappropriate tool to resolve religious conflicts. Instead, UN targeted sanctions tend to be more effective when they are imposed in the context of (intra-state) conflicts in which armed groups pursue explicit non-religious goals such as the overthrow of the incumbent regime or the protection of marginalized groups. A theoretical explanation for this finding may be that the depth of religious faith reduces a group’s readiness to compromise and agree on a negotiated settlement which in turn makes them less likely to acquiesce to the sender’s demands (see Hassner 2003). My finding is also consistent with the results of existing research showing that religious-ideological conflicts are generally much harder to solve than non-religious disputes (Svensson/Harding 2011; Svensson 2007). In opposition to the expectation, sanctions-busting assistance to targeted VNSAs by noncompliant UN member states is positively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. However, this positive relationship does not reach statistical significance in both models. Given that this finding lacks statistical significance, this result should be treated with considerable caution and I therefore need to reject Hypothesis 4. The statistical insignificance of this variable rather indicates that UN member states’ sanctions-busting behavior does not represent a crucial factor determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their behavior. Moreover, this quantitative finding considerably differs from previous results reported in classical sanctions literature, showing that sanctions-busting behavior by sender states significantly undermines the prospects of sanctions success (Early 2011; Lektzian/Souva 2007). Table 7.1 demonstrates that autonomous sanctions by regional organizations are statistically insignificant and negatively correlated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. The statistical analysis thus indicates that UN

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Figure 7.3 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the sanctioned group’s ideology. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 7.1) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Religious_Ideology varies on its range from 0 to 1)

targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are less likely to be effective when they are accompanied by autonomous regional sanctions. This is in direct contradiction to Hypothesis 5 as it was presumed that additional sanctions by regional organizations, which go beyond existing UN sanctions and focus on vulnerabilities not addressed by the UN Security Council, place significantly more pressure on the sanctioned VNSA. However, given the lack of statistical significance, I should have less confidence in this result. Instead, it appears that the relative

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importance of autonomous regional sanctions is rather small when it comes to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their unwanted behavior. One of the most noteworthy findings of my quantitative analysis is that autonomous US sanctions have a statistically significant and negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their proscribed behavior. As Model 1 reveals, this negative effect is statistically significant at the 5% level. It is striking that the negative coefficient on this variable remains statistically significant at the 0.1 level when comprising actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects (see Model 2). This completely contradicts Hypothesis 6 as it was assumed that additional US sanctions make UN targeted sanctions more likely to be effective by placing considerably more pressure on the targeted VNSAs. My statistical results, however, suggest that exactly the opposite seems to be the case. It appears that UN sanctions applied against VNSAs tend to be less effective when they are accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. Figure 7.4 visualizes the significance of this negative relationship by presenting the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. When UN targeted sanctions are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions (variable US Sanctions is 0), the predicted probability of recording an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 49 percent. However, when this variable takes the value of 1, indicating that UN targeted sanctions are supplemented by autonomous US sanctions, the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is just 16 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose have a 33 percentage points higher chance of being effective when they are not complemented by autonomous US sanctions. This finding allows for the assumption that UN sanctions regimes and simultaneously applied US sanctions rather conflict than complement each other. To date, prior research has speculated about the complementarity between UN sanctions and additional sanctions measures imposed by regional organizations and individual states but failed to produce empirical evidence (see Brzoska 2015; Charron/Portela 2016). The results of my quantitative analysis suggest that additional autonomous sanctions—either applied multilaterally by regional organizations or unilaterally by individual states—are a crucial factor that may impact the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Future research should therefore pay more attention to the interaction between UN sanctions regimes and concurrent sanctions measures adopted by other international actors. Another possible explanation for the negative association between autonomous US sanctions and the success of UN targeted sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs

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Figure 7.4 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the simultaneous imposition of autonomous US sanctions. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 7.1) are held at their mean) (Only the variable US Sanctions varies on its range from 0 to 1)

to alter their objectionable behavior may be that the United States apply additional sanctions measures that go beyond existing UN sanctions only in those cases which are extremely hard to solve. Therefore, autonomous US sanctions per se may not undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions and it may rather be the complexity of the particular conflict which may explain this negative relationship. Surprisingly, the quantitative results do not lend any empirical support to the notion that UN targeted sanctions are more likely to be effective when they are

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accompanied by international peacekeeping missions. As Table 7.1 demonstrates, peacekeeping missions are positively associated with sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing but this effect does not reach statistical significance in both models. Due to a lack of statistical significance, I need to reject Hypothesis 7 as I cannot make a strong inference about the effect of international peacekeeping missions on the success of UN sanctions applied against VNSAs. Furthermore, the statistical analysis does not show any statistically significant correlation between the duration of sanctions and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their condemnable behavior. The coefficient on this variable is positive but very small. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the duration of a given UN sanctions case is of minor importance for the effective sanctioning of rebel and terrorist movements. In sum, UN targeted sanctions seem to be more likely to be effective in coercing VNSAs to abandon their unwanted behavior and rather comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. Other factors hypothesized to determine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose including a target’s organizational structure, sanctions-busting assistance by UN member states, autonomous sanctions by regional organizations and simultaneously deployed peacekeeping missions received inconsistent and less robust statistical support.

7.6.3

Testing the Determinants of UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Constraining

This section presents the findings of my ordinal logistic regression analysis testing the various factors hypothesized to determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities. The statistical results are illustrated in Table 7.2. Model 1 includes the explanatory variables developed in the study’s theoretical framework in chapter 5. Model 2 represents the main model and comprises random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects. As Table 7.2 reveals, a target’s organizational structure has a negative and statistically insignificant effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. This negative relationship is in direct contradiction to Hypothesis 1 as it indicates that UN sanctions intending to thwart a target’s ability to continue its objectionable activity are less likely to be effective when they are applied against hierarchically organized VNSAs. This finding allows for the assumption

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that leadership sanctioning does not inevitably weaken the functioning of a group by causing difficulties to the target. However, given the lack of statistical significance, I should treat this result with caution. In line with the quantitative results for coercive sanctions, it rather appears that a target’s organizational structure does not play an important role in accounting for the effective sanctioning of rebel and terrorist groups. On the contrary, a group’s ideology seems to be of high importance when sanctions seek to constrain VNSAs in their ability to engage in their proscribed activities. Table 7.2 demonstrates that the religious ideology of the sanctioned entity is statistically significant and negatively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. The negative coefficient on this variable retains its statistical significance at the 5% level when controlling for actorspecific and sanctions-regime-specific effects (see Model 2). This result offers vital evidence for Hypothesis 2, indicating that UN sanctions imposed on VNSAs with secular demands tend to be more effective, while VNSAs with a religious ideology are less likely to be constrained by the applied UN sanctions measures. Figure 7.5 visualizes this assumption by showing the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. When constraining sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with a secular ideology (variable Religious_Ideology is 0), the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 37 percent. However, when this variable is changed to 1, indicating that the targeted VNSA pursues religious demands, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome drops to 7 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are 30 percent more likely to be effective when they are applied against VNSAs with non-religious demands. This finding conforms to the statistical results for UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose that were also found to be less likely to be effective when they are directed at VNSAs with religious demands. This suggests that UN sanctions— irrespective of their specific purpose—represent a rather inappropriate foreign policy tool to resolve religious conflicts. Instead, UN targeted sanctions tend to be more effective when they are imposed within the scope of (intra-state) conflicts in which armed groups pursue explicit non-religious goals such as the overthrow of the incumbent regime or the protection of marginalized groups. A theoretical explanation for this empirical finding may be that the depth of religious faith— regardless of the difficulties caused by the imposition of sanctions—increases a targeted group’s willingness to sustain rebellion which in turn reduces the likelihood that UN sanctions are able to effectively constrain VNSAs with an explicit religious agenda. My quantitative results are also consistent with prior research

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Table 7.2 Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining Model 1

Model 2

Group_Structure

−0.056 (0.429)

−0.299 (0.691)

Religious_Ideology

−1.070** (0.460)

−1.988** (0.870)

Economic_Impact

2.001*** (0.660)

1.741** (0.817)

Sanctions-busting

0.368 (0.429)

0.743 (0.705)

Regional_Sanctions

0.240 (0.391)

−0.059 (0.595)

US_Sanctions

−1.203** (0.536)

−0.695 (0.797)

Peacekeeping

−0.189 (0.607)

−0.612 (1.068)

0.003 (0.003)

0.007 (0.005)

Duration Observations

216

216

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 Model 2 introduces random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regimespecific effects.

attesting that religious-ideological conflicts are generally much harder to solve than non-religious disputes (Svensson/Harding 2011; Svensson 2007). The economic impact of the applied sanctions measures also seems to be crucial when UN targeted sanctions attempt to constrain VNSAs. As Model 1 reveals, UN sanctions’ direct economic impact is highly statistically significant at the 0.01 level and positively related to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. This positive effect retains its statistical significance at the 5% level in the random effects model (see Model 2). This finding provides strong empirical evidence to Hypothesis 3, suggesting that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are more likely to be effective when they inflict substantial economic costs on the sanctioned VNSAs. To demonstrate the significance of this positive relationship between sanctions’ direct economic impact and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions

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Figure 7.5 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the sanctioned group’s ideology. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 7.2) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Religious Ideology varies on its range from 0 to 1)

with a constraining purpose, predicted probabilities are generated and graphed in Figure 7.6. It becomes apparent that the predicted probability of recording an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is just 18 percent when UN targeted sanctions do not inflict any economic costs on the target (variable Economic Impact is 0). Yet, when this variable takes the value of 1, indicating that the imposed UN sanctions measures have a direct economic impact on the targeted VNSA, the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective

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sanctions outcome rises to 56 percent. Therefore, UN targeted sanctions that seek to constrain VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities have a 38 percentage points higher chance of being effective when the direct economic impact on the target is substantial. This result confirms previous findings on UN sanctions’ impact on rebel groups, detecting that UN sanctions can successfully constrain rebel movements’ ability to fight when they cut off certain revenue streams and curtail their ability to evade the economic impact of the applied sanctions measures (Radtke/Jo 2018). Moreover, this finding fits neatly with the results of conventional sanctions studies that exclusively dealt with sanctions imposed on states and showed that sanctions, which have a direct economic impact and thus create profound economic problems for the target, tend to be much more effective (Allen 2008; Dashti-Gibson et al. 1997; Drury 1998; Hufbauer et al. 2007). This implies that a substantial economic impact is also essential for UN targeted sanctions applied against rebel and terrorist organizations in order to deplete a group’s financial resources and cause major difficulties to the target so that the sanctioned VNSA is no longer able to engage in its proscribed activities. In opposition to Hypothesis 4, Table 7.2 demonstrates that sanctions-busting assistance to targeted VNSAs by noncompliant UN member states is positively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. However, since this variable does not approach statistical significance in both models, I should have less confidence in this result. The statistically insignificant effect of this variable rather suggests that sanctions-busting assistance does not play a crucial role in accounting for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their unwanted activities. Table 7.2 shows that autonomous sanctions by regional organizations are statistically insignificant when it comes to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Moreover, this relationship seems to be ambiguous. While Model 1 shows that the imposition of additional regional sanctions is positively related to the success of constraining sanctions, the coefficient on this variable turns negative when controlling for random effects (see Model 2). Due to this inconsistent and statistically insignificant finding, the statistical analysis does not lend empirical support to Hypothesis 5. Given the lack of statistical significance, it appears that the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions intending to constrain VNSAs is not necessarily dependent upon additional regional sanctions and that there are other factors which are more important in determining the success of UN sanctions with a constraining purpose. Whereas autonomous sanctions imposed by regional organizations are found to have a statistically insignificant impact on the effectiveness of constraining

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Figure 7.6 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by sanctions’ direct economic impact. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 7.2) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Economic Impact varies on its range from 0 to 1)

sanctions, autonomous US sanctions are statistically significant at the 0.05 level and negatively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to engage in their proscribed activities (see Model 1). However, as Model 2 demonstrates, the statistical significance of this negative effect disappears when controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects.

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Although the negative coefficient on this variable loses its statistical significance in Model 2, the results are in direct contradiction to Hypothesis 6, indicating that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are less likely to be effective when they are accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. This finding coincides with the quantitative results for UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose that also revealed a negative association between autonomous US sanctions and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. As Table 7.2 displays, international peacekeeping missions have a statistically insignificant and negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. This finding is in direct contradiction to Hypothesis 7 as it was expected that peacekeeping missions increase the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. However, given that the quantitative results do not reach statistical significance, it appears that international peacekeeping missions are not of high importance when UN targeted sanctions intend to constrain VNSAs in their ability to engage in their objectionable activities. This is consistent with the statistical results for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose. Furthermore, the quantitative analysis does not show any statistically significant correlation between the duration of sanctions and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities. As it was the case for coercive sanctions, the coefficient on this variable is positive but very small. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the duration of a given UN sanctions case is generally of minor relevance for the effective sanctioning of rebel and terrorist movements. To summarize, UN targeted sanctions appear to be more likely to be effective in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied sanctions measures have a substantial economic impact on the target. Moreover, autonomous US sanctions were found to have a negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining, but this negative effect lost its statistical significance when introducing random effects. Other hypotheses referring to a target’s organizational structure, sanctions-busting assistance by UN member states, autonomous sanctions by regional organizations and simultaneously deployed peacekeeping missions received inconsistent and less robust statistical support. Overall, the findings of my quantitative analyses have revealed that the variables determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing do not differ considerably from those factors that make UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose work. My statistical results indicated that the ideology of a sanctioned group is generally of high importance for the effective sanctioning of

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VNSAs. Irrespective of the specific purpose they serve, UN targeted sanctions tend to be much more effective when they are applied against VNSAs with nonreligious demands, while UN sanctions seem to be an ineffective tool to target VNSAs with an explicit religious agenda. Furthermore, autonomous US sanctions were found to be negatively associated with the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Particularly when UN sanctions intend to coerce VNSAs to alter their objectionable behavior, additional US sanctions significantly diminish the likelihood of UN sanctions’ success.16 However, it remains unclear whether this finding suggests that simultaneous US sanctions rather conflict than complement existing UN sanctions or whether it may be the complexity of the particular conflict which may explain this negative relationship. When it comes to UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose, the quantitative results showed that sanctions are more likely to be successful when they inflict a substantial economic impact on the sanctioned VNSAs so that the targeted rebel and terrorist groups are no longer able to pursue their proscribed activities. Generally, the first part of my tripartite empirical analysis confirmed the continued validity of some determinants of sanctions success established in classical state-based sanctions literature. However, some hypotheses derived from statecentric sanctions theory received inconsistent and less robust statistical support. This points to the relevance of some other factors determining the effective sanctioning of VNSAs that have so far been neglected by scholarship. The subsequent qualitative case analyses therefore strive to uncover these possible key variables.

16

The statistical significance of this negative relationship between UN targeted sanctions and concurrent US sanctions only remained robust for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. Nevertheless, the variable’s negative impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose should not be underestimated (see Figure A1 in the Electronic Supplementary Material).

8

Qualitative Analysis

The following qualitative part of my dissertation seeks to complement the above presented empirical findings of my quantitative analysis by aiming to identify additional key factors regarding the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Before conducting the two case studies, I first discuss the case selection procedure and introduce the methodology employed in the investigation of the selected UN sanctions cases.

8.1

Case Selection

In order to select the cases for the qualitative analysis, this study employs a deviant case study approach. The case selection procedure is thereby structured by the statistical results of the previously conducted quantitative analysis. Thus, the deviant case method chooses that case which is in direct contradiction to the empirical findings of the statistical measurement (Gerring 2010: 655 f.). Related to the purpose of my dissertation, this means that the deviant case will have to be a sanctions case whose outcome is poorly explained by the ordinal logistic regression model. More precisely, I will select a case, which has proven to be an effective UN targeted sanctions case, although my statistical results suggest that this particular sanctions case is actually most likely to experience an ineffective sanctions outcome. Since this study measures the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions in relation to their ability to coerce and to constrain VNSAs (see Section 7.3), one deviant case for each of these two dimensions is selected. The primary purpose of this deviant case analysis is to detect new, but as yet disregarded or unspecified, explanations for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_8

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As my ordinal logistic regression analysis has revealed, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions (see Section 7.6.2). The selection of the deviant case was self-evident as the SNSA dataset includes only one sanctions case—the UN sanctions applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in 2018—that turned out to be completely effective in coercing, even though the determinants identified in my quantitative analysis would rather suggest the opposite.1 This sanctions case was classified as ‘effective’ (variable Coercing is 2), although the sanctions were imposed on a VNSA with a religious ideology (variable Religious Ideology is 1) and the applied UN sanctions measures were supplemented by autonomous US sanctions (variable US Sanctions is 1). As demonstrated, this sanctions case is in direct contradiction to my statistical results and is thus selected for further in-depth case analysis in order to search for additional factors that may account for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their objectionable behavior. When UN targeted sanctions seek to constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities, my statistical results indicate that these constraining sanctions are more likely to be effective if they are directed at VNSAs with secular demands and if the applied sanctions measures have a substantial economic impact on the target (see Section 7.6.3).2 Similar to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing, the selection of a deviant case was self-evident as the SNSA dataset includes only one UN sanctions case—the UN sanctions applied against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab in 2011—that turned out to be totally effective in constraining, even though the determinants identified in my quantitative analysis would rather suggest the opposite.3 This sanctions case was classified 1

Four other UN sanctions cases—the sanctions applied against Central African Republic’s Anti-Balaka forces in 2018, the Taliban in 2015 and Sudan’s JEM in 2006 and 2014—would have also been eligible for a deviant case study. However, whereas these four sanctions cases were only coded as partly effective in coercing (variable Coercing is 1), the UN sanctions case against Sudan’s JEM in 2018 constitutes the most deviant case (variable Coercing is 2) and is therefore selected for further in-depth case analysis. 2 Autonomous US sanctions are also found to be significantly associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining, but the statistical significance of this negative effect disappears in the main model when controlling for random effects (see Table 7.2). Thus, this variable is not incorporated in the case selection procedure. 3 Nine other UN sanctions cases—the sanctions directed at Al-Qaida from 2010 to 2013, the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2008, 2009 and 2011 as well as Sudan’s JEM in 2017 and 2018—would have also been eligible for a deviant case study. However, whereas these nine sanctions cases were only coded as partly effective

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77

as ‘effective’ (variable Constraining is 2), although the sanctions were imposed on a VNSA with a religious ideology (variable Religious Ideology is 1) and the applied UN sanctions measures did not have a significant economic impact on the target (variable Economic Impact is 0). As this sanctions case is in direct contradiction to my statistical results, it is selected for further in-depth case analysis seeking to uncover additional factors that may determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining.

8.2

Methodology

Since I am in the dark with reference to the possible factors accounting for the effectiveness of the selected UN sanctions cases, this study proceeds inductively by utilizing elements of theory-building process tracing. Generally, process tracing is particularly suitable for such a single-case research design as it enables researchers to test and develop theoretical assumptions by making withincase inferences about the presence or absence of causal mechanisms in single case studies, whereas most other small-n methods attempt to draw cross-case inferences about causal relationships. One specific variant of this method is theory-building process tracing that aims to generate a theoretical explanation for a specific outcome by detecting a systematic and relatively simple causal mechanism between one or several independent variables and the outcome of the dependent variable (Beach/Pedersen 2013: 4, 11, 60). Within the framework of the following case studies, elements of theorybuilding process tracing are used to explore new, but as yet disregarded or unspecified, explanations for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. In a manner comparable to classical detective work, these explorative case analyses work backward from the outcome and strive to uncover relatively parsimonious mechanisms that contributed to the effective outcome of the respective UN sanctions case. Information for the case analyses is collected from multiple sources. The core of the information is derived from the official reports issued by the UN Panel of Expert, Expert Group or Monitoring Team for the respective UN sanctions regime under study. Moreover, additional information is gathered from the scholarly literature dealing with the VNSA under investigation (Al-Shabaab and the in constraining (variable Constraining is 1), the UN sanctions case against Somalia’s AlShabaab in 2011 represents the most deviant case (variable Constraining is 2) and is therefore selected for further in-depth case analysis.

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Justice and Equality Movement) as well as the conflicts in Somalia and Sudan. The case studies start with a structured analysis of the empirical material and the search for empirical evidence is inspired by the theorization of existing scholarship. In doing so, the following in-depth analyses of the UN sanctions cases against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab seek to detect additional factors that may account for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. After the case studies are conducted, general hypotheses based on the empirical findings are generated and operationalized as new variables which are then appended to the existing dataset. The final quantitative analysis of the updated SNSA dataset then aims to investigate whether the factors identified within the scope of the two case studies may be generalizable to a wider population of sanctions cases and thus can be considered as general determinants of the effective sanctioning of VNSAs.

8.3

Empirical Findings

In the subsequent part of this dissertation, I present and discuss the empirical findings of the in-depth case analyses. As outlined in Section 8.1, one deviant case for each dimension of UN targeted sanctions is selected in order to uncover additional key factors regarding the effective sanctioning of VNSAs.

8.3.1

Case Study Coercing—UN Sanctions Against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement

This section deals with UN targeted sanctions directed at Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Before empirically analyzing the sanctions case at hand, I deem it necessary to outline the historical background of the underlying Darfur Conflict as well as the main characteristics of the JEM. Historical background Following decades of communal fighting in Sudan’s western province of Darfur, large-scale violence erupted in April 2003, when two loosely connected rebel movements—the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A)—began attacking government forces. The rebels targeted military bases and airports in Darfur, killing hundreds of soldiers and destroying aircrafts, helicopters, and other military equipment. In response to the

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rebellion, the Sudanese government led by President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling National Congress Party mobilized a militia of loyal Arab tribes known as the Janjaweed4 and assisted them in a massive counterinsurgency campaign aimed at the African rebels as well as Darfur’s non-Arab civilian population. The Sudanese army supplied the militias with weapons and equipment and supported their attacks with military intelligence and air bombings (De Waal 2007; Prunier 2005). In 2008, after massive human rights abuses, the International Criminal Court accused President al-Bashir of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Overall, the conflict in Darfur resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of civilians and caused over two million long-term internally displaced persons (International Crisis Group 2015). The Darfur Conflict can be understood as a multidimensional armed conflict and the root causes of the rebellion are manifold. At the local level, the conflict has emerged between different ethnic and tribal groups—Arab nomads and non-Arab farmers—which compete for power and access to natural resources (Abiodun 2011; Buchanan-Smith/Bromwich 2016). At the national level, the conflict has taken place between Darfuri rebel groups and the federal government located in the capital of Khartoum. This struggle centers on long-term inequalities between the center’s ruling Arab elite and non-Arab groups that are mainly found in the peripheries, particularly in Darfur. Hence, Darfur’s non-Arab people have been systematically underrepresented in national governments in post-independence Sudan (BuchananSmith/Bromwich 2016; McCutchen 2014). Moreover, the groups living in Darfur have suffered from economic discrimination as the political regime exploited the southern and western regions’ natural resources such as oil, cotton, grains, and spices (McCutchen 2014). In addition, there has been a regional and cross-border dimension to the conflict in Darfur. The conflict has also involved Sudan’s neighboring countries, especially Chad and Libya, with Darfuri rebel movements finding safe haven in these countries and receiving financial and military support from the respective governments (Abiodun 2011; Buchanan-Smith/Bromwich 2016). The various diplomatic efforts by regional and international actors aiming to resolve the conflict have further confirmed the international dimension of the Darfur Conflict. All these aforementioned factors together have led the rebel movements to take up arms against the state. Since the eruption of the conflict in 2003, the international community started several diplomatic initiatives to bring peace to Darfur. The first serious attempt took place in Abuja, Nigeria, in May 2006, with the signing of the Darfur Peace 4

The term “Janjaweed” is a traditional Darfuri term “denoting an armed bandit or outlaw on a horse or camel” (International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur 2005: 24).

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Agreement (DPA) by the Sudanese Government and one faction of the SLM/A led by Minni Minawi. The agreement provided seats for Minawi’s SLM/A faction in the national and regional parliaments including several top positions. The DPA also called for the disarmament and demobilization of the Janjaweed. However, since two key rebel movements—the JEM and Abdel Wahid’s faction of the SLM/A— refused to sign the DPA, fighting even intensified and the humanitarian situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate in the following years (International Crisis Group 2007). In 2010, after ongoing violations of the DPA by both signatories, Minawi and his SLM/A faction left the agreement and resumed their rebellion. Following several unsuccessful diplomatic initiatives, the second Darfur peace agreement, known as the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD), was signed in July 2011 by the Government of Sudan and the Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM), a militarily weak and loosely united umbrella organization consisting of several smaller rebel groups. The DDPD contained provisions for power and wealth sharing and intended to integrate the LJM forces into the Sudanese Armed Forces and the police (McCutchen 2014: 10). The DDPD, however, did not bring peace to Darfur because the major rebel groups such as the JEM and the two main SLM/A factions refused to sign it. Meanwhile, after South Sudan gained independence in 2011, the three main Darfuri rebel groups, which did not sign the DDPD, allied with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North) and formed a loose alliance known as the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF). After years of fragmentation, the SRF united all the anti-government rebel movements with the objective of overthrowing the political regime and removing President al-Bashir (International Crisis Group 2015; McCutchen 2014). This made it even more difficult to engage the non-signatory parties on the DDPD. As a result, violence continued in the following years. In 2018, however, talks on the DDPD resumed and the non-signatory rebel movements JEM and Minawi’s SLM/A faction reached an agreement regarding the implementation mechanisms and announced a ceasefire (United Nations 2019, paras. 8–11). In December 2018, a major shift of political power in Sudan started with street protests due to a deterioration of the economic conditions at all levels of society. The protests quickly turned into a massive anti-government movement leading to the removal of President al-Bashir through a military coup d’état in April 2019. After long lasting negotiations, the Transitional Military Council transferred executive power to a mixed military-civilian collective body—the Sovereignty Council of Sudan—and the widely respected economist, Abdalla Hamdok, became the new prime minister of Sudan. In August 2019, a draft constitutional declaration was signed by military and civilian representatives requiring that a peace agreement regarding the Darfur Conflict should be reached within the first six months of the

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39-month transition period to democratic government (International Crisis Group 2019). In October 2020, the JEM and other SRF members eventually signed a peace agreement with the Transitional Government of Sudan and now participate in the transition to democracy in Sudan through peaceful means (International Crisis Group 2021). Alongside various diplomatic efforts, the international community has employed other foreign policy tools to create peace in Darfur. The African Union (AU) thereby played a major role and established the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in 2004, deploying over 6,000 military personnel and about 1,500 police officers to Darfur by October 2005 (Abiodun 2011). As the security situation continued to worsen and AMIS suffered numerous fatalities, the AU noted that the AMIS mandate was not robust enough and agreed to accept an UN peacekeeping mission for Darfur. In July 2007, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1769, authorizing the deployment of a robust peacekeeping force to Darfur. The resolution called for the deployment of over 20,000 peacekeeping troops to Darfur and authorized the hybrid United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) that aimed to bring stability to Darfur. UNAMID ultimately completed its mandate in December 2020. In addition to peacekeeping forces, the UN resorted to the use of sanctions in order to restore peace and security in Darfur. In 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1556 applying an arms embargo on all non-state actors, including the JEM, operating in the region of Darfur (United Nations 2004b). The UN demanded all warring parties to cease hostilities and reach a political solution to the conflict (United Nations 2004c). However, since violence continued to intensify despite the sanctions in place, the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions in 2005 expanding the arms embargo to include the Government of Sudan. Moreover, it authorized the application of asset freezes and travel bans to all individuals5 who impeded the peace process and constituted a threat to stability. Resolution 1591 also established a Panel of Experts for the Sudan sanctions regime which has been in place to date (United Nations 2005).

5

No individuals were designated for sanctions until 2006, when UNSC Resolution 1672, in an unusual procedural move, named four individuals including Major General Elhassan (Commander of the Western Military Region for the Sudanese Armed Forces), Adam Yacub Shant (Sudanese Liberation Army Commander), Sheikh Musa Hilal (Paramount Chief of the Jalul Tribe in North Darfur), and Gabril Abdul Kareem Badri (National Movement for Reform and Development Field Commander) (United Nations 2006). These four individuals have remained the only designations to date.

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The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) is an armed opposition group mainly operating in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. The political and ideological basis of the JEM traces back to the “Black Book”, a manuscript published by an underground group in 2000. The book criticizes the country’s regional imbalance and marginalization of Sudan’s western population in post-independence Sudan that is reflected in the predominance of elite groups from the central Nile valley in government, commerce, and the military (Cobham 2005). In 2001 the physician Dr. Khalil Ibrahim, who was associated with the publication of the “Black Book”, officially announced the formation of the JEM, while completing a master’s degree in public health in the Netherlands. Ibrahim himself held government posts during the 1990s before he broke up with the ruling regime when he realized that the Sudanese government did not invest in Darfur’s development and the wellbeing of its inhabitants (Deckert 2012: 42). Khalil Ibrahim was a long-time follower of Sheikh Hassan Al Turabi who used to be the architect of Sudan’s Islamic Revolution (Tanner/Tubiana 2007: 31). Although many JEM members had in fact been followers of Turabi and retained its revolutionary radicalism, Ibrahim constantly denied JEM’s affiliation with Turabi (Deckert 2012; Tanner/Tubiana 2007). The JEM is an Islamic group that in contrast to the other main rebel group in Darfur—the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A)—does not advocate a separation of state and religion. The JEM has a strong Islamic tradition, and this is visible through the fact that many of its members had been part of the National Islamic Front that was responsible for Sudan’s Islamic Revolution (Uppsala University 2019). Ibrahim was a member of the Kobe tribe, an ethnic subgroup of the Zaghawa, and the leadership of the JEM has also been largely made up of members of the Kobe tribe. Nevertheless, the JEM promotes itself as a national movement and has been recruiting other ethnic groups and tribes in Darfur (Tanner/Tubiana 2007: 34 f.). However, since political and military power was largely concentrated in the hands of members belonging to the Kobe tribe, members of other tribes became frustrated leading to some fragmentation of the movement (Flint/de Waal 2008: 111). From the outset, the JEM sought national reform and regime change, using the atrocities in Darfur to delegitimize the Sudanese government internationally. The agenda of the JEM is to change the entire political structure of Sudan, arguing for more justice and equality in place of social injustice and political tyranny and advocating a comprehensive constitutional reform that would guarantee all regions access to political power through a rotating presidency (Uppsala University 2019). In its “Proposal for Change” document, the movement states that it intends to achieve its objectives through “a war against the government in Khartoum with the aim

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of liberating the entire Sudan and in conjunction with other movements that share common objectives” (Justice and Equality Movement 2005: 3). Notwithstanding that the JEM experienced some fragmentation along clan lines and opportunistic alliances, it proved to be much more disciplined than other Sudanese rebel groups and became the most powerful force in the Darfur Conflict after 2005. As fighting further escalated, the JEM received significant support from Chad and became involved in the civil war in Chad on the side of President Idriss Déby, himself a Zaghawa. In 2010, however, following a rapprochement between Chad and Sudan, the JEM lost its bases and supply lines in Chad, and Ibrahim was evicted to Libya. While Ibrahim was hiding in Tripoli, the JEM allegedly acted as mercenaries for the Libyan dictator Muammar Al Gaddafi. After the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Ibrahim returned to Sudan where he was killed by a government air-strike in December 2011 (Deckert 2012: 42 f.). He was succeeded by his brother Gibril Ibrahim. In 2011, the JEM joined the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), an alliance of anti-government rebel movements consisting of the SPLM-North and the two main SLM/A factions. The SRF sought to end the marginalization of the peripheries and called for a federal and decentralized political system in which power and wealth is distributed equally among the regions based on their population size (International Crisis Group 2013: 22). Following the military coup d’état and the resulting removal of President al-Bashir in April 2019, the JEM eventually abandoned its armed struggle and signed a peace agreement—the Juba Peace Agreement—with the Sudanese government in October 2020 (International Crisis Group 2021). After the signature of the peace agreement, Gibril Ibrahim was appointed as Sudan’s new finance minister in February 2021 (Abdelaziz 2021). Empirical analysis While the UN sanctions regime against the Sudan has multiple purposes, this case study exclusively focusses on UN targeted sanctions’ ability to coerce the JEM to agree on a ceasefire and reach a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Darfur. As already outlined in Section 8.1, UN sanctions directed at the JEM are classified as effective in the year of 2018 since the JEM announced a ceasefire and reached an agreement regarding the implementation mechanisms for the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur. This outcome, however, is in direct contradiction to my statistical results and is thus selected for further in-depth case analysis as the determinants identified in my quantitative analysis would rather suggest an ineffective outcome of this particular sanctions case. Therefore, in an effort to better understand why UN sanctions applied against the JEM still turned out to be effective, this deviant case study seeks to address two

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central questions. First, why did the sanctions work although the factors detected in my statistical analysis rather point to an ineffective sanctions outcome? And secondly, what other factors that have so far been neglected may have contributed to the success of this sanctions case? To begin with, this deviant case analysis strives to ascertain why the sanctions turned out to be effective notwithstanding that the factors identified in my quantitative analysis rather suggest an ineffective sanctions outcome. To state it more precisely, why did the sanctions work even though the JEM had a religious ideology and the sanctions were supplemented by autonomous US sanctions? As demonstrated in Section 7.6.2, my statistical analysis revealed that both factors—a target’s religious ideology and simultaneously applied US sanctions—have a statistically significant and negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their proscribed behavior. Taking a closer look at the JEM’s ideology, it appears that the movement’s ideological motivation is not as clear-cut as it was initially assumed.6 On the one hand, the JEM has a strong Islamist background since the central figures of the group used to be part of the National Islamic Front—the party orchestrating Sudan’s Islamic Revolution (Uppsala University 2019). While the movement has often denied its Islamist roots and affiliation with Islamic ideologue Hassan Al Turabi, the JEM—in contrast to the other Darfuri rebel groups—does not advocate a secular constitution, which promotes a separation of the state and religion, and rather argues that Sudanese Muslims should have the right to apply Sharia law for themselves (Tanner/Tubiana 2007: 34). On the other hand, the movement has an explicit political agenda seeking to change Sudan’s political structure and ending the systematic marginalization of the population living in the peripheries. Moreover, the JEM promotes itself as a national movement and has been attracting both Arabs and non-Arabs to the movement (Tanner/Tubiana 2007: 35). Due to its ambiguous character, the JEM apparently represents a special case as it combines a religious background (Islamist roots and an affiliation with Turabi and the National Islamic Front) with explicit political demands such as the restructuring of Sudan’s political system and the equal distribution of power and wealth among all regions and ethnic groups. The group’s religious ideology thus seems to be rather moderate, particularly compared to other rebel and terrorist movements such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Somalia’s Al-Shabaab which are predicated on a distinct religious ideology and pursue explicit religious goals, including the introduction of religious law or a religious state. 6

Tanner and Tubiana (2007: 31) describe the JEM as “a puzzling and sometimes contradictory movement”.

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As a result, the religious-ideological dimension of the conflict between the JEM and the Sudanese government is rather negligible as the struggle predominantly centers on political issues which increases the likelihood of reaching a negotiated settlement. The group’s general objectives listed in its “Proposal for Change” document provide empirical evidence to this assumption, showing that the JEM mainly pursues political goals (see Justice and Equality Movement 2005). This political character of the conflict may explain why the JEM’s religious ideology did not have the expected negative impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions and thus contradicts my statistical results which pointed to a statistically significant and negative relationship between a target’s religious ideology and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their condemnable behavior. As already mentioned above, my statistical analysis also demonstrated that autonomous US sanctions that go beyond existing UN sanctions have a statistically significant and negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. In the case at hand, however, it appears that autonomous US sanctions did not negatively impact the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. US sanctions against the Sudan date back to 1992 when the US government imposed economic sanctions and a trade embargo in response to Sudan’s support of Al-Qaida and its hosting of Osama bin Laden in the 1990s. Since its imposition, the sanctions measures have been revised, updated, and altered several times. In 1997 the US administration under President Clinton issued Executive Order 13067 which prevented Sudanese people or companies from exporting or importing goods to and from the United States and blocked individuals serving in the Sudanese government from owning property in the United States. Later, in 2002, the US Congress passed the Sudan Peace Act, which required US representatives in international financial institutions to vote against—and thus in effect block—any loans or credits to the Sudan. Four years later, in 2006, the Bush administration imposed another set of sanctions through Executive Orders 13400 and 13412, targeting both government and rebel forces involved in the Darfur Conflict and preventing them from owning property in the United States (International Crisis Group 2017a: 3 f.). Executive Order 13400 also applied sanctions directly against the JEM accusing the movement of being responsible for rebel activity aimed at further destabilizing the Darfur region. In 2016, after a series of bilateral talks between US and Sudanese officials, both sides agreed on a roadmap listing five tracks on which positive actions would have to be taken by the Sudanese government in order that sanctions would be

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lifted.7 In 2017, after sustained progress by the Sudanese government, the Obama administration issued Executive Order 13761 and revoked three of the most significant components of the US sanctions regime.8 This resulted in the lifting of (1) comprehensive prohibitions on US individuals’ or entities’ involvement in trade of financial transactions with Sudanese individuals or entities; (2) the freezing of Sudanese government property in the United States or under the control of US companies, including banks; and (3) prohibitions on the involvement of US citizens and companies in Sudan’s oil industry. The US sanctions that have remained in place still go beyond existing UN sanctions on the Sudan covering a larger list of individuals and companies than the UN Security Council lists (Small Arms Survey 2018: 16). Although the revocation of US sanctions exclusively applied to the Sudanese government and US sanctions against Darfuri rebel groups including the JEM have remained in place, the partial lifting of US sanctions changed the dynamics at the negotiating table. The sanctions-easing process was an important political signal and ushered in a new phase of engagement with the Bashir regime leading to a considerable improvement of the diplomatic relations between Sudanese officials and diplomats from foreign powers. As a result, foreign diplomats were able to reinvigorate the political dialogue aimed at resolving the Darfur Conflict arguing Bashir’s government into further positive steps and concessions (International Crisis Group 2017b: 2). This reinforced diplomatic exchange persuaded the Bashir regime to continue talks with the non-signatory movements including the JEM regarding the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) and finally resulted in a ceasefire and an agreement regarding the implementation mechanisms for the DDPD among the major conflict parties. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that autonomous US sanctions did not have a negative impact in this particular case since the partial lifting of the US sanctions measures enabled the international community to enhance their diplomatic relations with the Bashir regime which revitalized the Darfur peace process. This may explain why the US sanctions in place did not have the expected negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and this sanctions case thus stands in direct contradiction to the empirical results of my quantitative analysis. This qualitative case analysis rather suggests that the precise nature and gradual revocation of concurrent US sanctions possibly played a 7

The five tracks, on which advances would be gauged, included counterterrorism cooperation; addressing the threat of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA); ending hostilities in the “Two Areas” (South Kordofan and Blue Nile) and Darfur; improving humanitarian access; and ending negative interference in South Sudan (International Crisis Group 2017a: 1 f.). 8 In July 2017, the Trump administration issued Executive Order 13804 allowing the Sudanese government additional time to fulfill their requirements.

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crucial role in stimulating the peace process, even though the US sanctions applied against the VNSAs have remained in place. As a next step, this in-depth case analysis seeks to detect additional factors that may have contributed to the effective outcome of this particular sanctions case. These factors may have been disregarded in the previously conducted quantitative analysis, although they may be of high importance when UN sanctions intend to coerce VNSAs to alter their objectionable behavior. Investigating the empirical material of this sanctions case, it becomes apparent that military operations against the JEM contributed significantly to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing the JEM to agree on a ceasefire and reach an agreement regarding the implementation mechanisms for the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD). During the first half of 2015, the JEM experienced some major military setbacks when Sudanese security forces, the so-called Rapid Support Forces, conducted Operation Decisive Summer 2 killing hundreds of JEM fighters and confiscating a significant quantity of vehicles (United Nations 2016, paras. 52– 54). The success of this government-led operation considerably reduced the JEM’s military capacity and caused internal dissent as well as high-profile defections of several field commanders (United Nations 2017b: 62). This significant decline of the group’s military strength affected the movement’s position toward the peace process since it took the option of an armed struggle from the JEM, while it increased the leadership’s willingness to reach a political settlement with the Sudanese government. This allows for the assumption that VNSAs experiencing major military setbacks, which in turn result in a significant degradation of their military capabilities, are more likely to accept a political solution to the conflict and concede to sanctions pressure as their declining military strength deprives them of the possibility of winning the conflict militarily. Thus, targeted military operations against the sanctioned rebel and terrorist groups appear to be a crucial tool that may ultimately contribute to the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Another important factor, which may account for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing the JEM to agree on a ceasefire and engage in the DDPD, may have been the movement’s lack of cohesion. The JEM experienced its first serious split in 2012 when Mohamed Bashar, a former JEM commander, broke away from the movement and created the splinter group JEM/Bashar. This disunity within the JEM helped to revive the peace talks in Doha and resulted in the signing of the DDPD by the splinter group JEM/Bashar in April 2013 (United Nations 2013a, para. 190; United Nations 2014, paras. 203, 229). Moreover, in the aftermath of the government-led offensive in 2015, the JEM suffered from numerous high-profile defections due to its deteriorating military

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capacity. Following Operation Decisive Summer 2, several JEM field commanders led by Abdul Rahman Arbab, Mohamed Daffalah and Arbab Abdallah Younis defected with their troops in March 2017 (United Nations 2017b: 62). Another wave of defections occurred in April 2018 when JEM elements under the leadership of two experienced commanders, Hussein Abdel-Rahman Arkory “Abu Garja” and Ibrahim Hashim Bashar “Garsil”, deserted the movement and discussed a security arrangement with the Sudanese government (United Nations 2019, para. 104). This growing fragmentation represented a significant weakening of the JEM as it revealed a lack of military strength as well as internal rifts over the group’s future orientation to the other conflict parties, especially to the Sudanese government. Particularly when it comes to UN sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs to abandon their proscribed behavior and comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council, serious fragmentation appears to considerably weaken a targeted group’s bargaining position vis-à-vis the international community as internal dissent deprives VNSAs of the possibility of winning the conflict militarily. As a result, VNSAs suffering from fragmentation are more or less compelled to yield to sanctions pressure by reaching a negotiated settlement to the conflict. A targeted group’s internal cohesion therefore seems to be another important factor determining the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. In addition to targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA and the target’s internal cohesion, it also seems to be of high relevance how neighboring states position themselves during a sanctions case. For a long time, the JEM received significant support from neighboring countries including Uganda and South Sudan. However, this traditional support from bordering states has diminished considerably in recent years. With the rapprochement between Uganda and the Sudan, which began in 2014, the JEM lost one of its most important external supporters. Instead of assisting the JEM, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, agreed to take over a mediating role in the Darfur negotiations. For this purpose, Museveni organized several meetings with the leadership of the JEM and these informal discussions were occasionally joined by representatives of the Sudanese government (United Nations 2017a, paras. 47–48). Furthermore, since the country’s independence in 2011, South Sudan acted as another critical supporter of the JEM, enabling the movement to use safe haven on South Sudanese territory (United Nations 2013a, para. 58). In 2016, however, the international community increased its pressure on the government of South Sudan, demanding to stop the hosting and support of the Sudanese rebel groups, including the JEM. As a result, South Sudanese authorities pressured the JEM to leave South Sudan and the JEM was forced to relocate its troops to Sudan’s province of Southern

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Kordofan (United Nations 2017b, paras. 40–42). After withdrawing its assistance to the armed groups, the government of South Sudan engaged as a very active mediator in the Darfur peace process (United Nations 2020, para. 37). The fact that Uganda and South Sudan stopped supporting the JEM apparently had a considerable impact on the JEM’s decision to concede to sanctions pressure by agreeing on a ceasefire and engaging in the DDPD. As previous research demonstrated, the provision of external support boosts the access to resources available to the warring factions and thus makes conflicts much more difficult to resolve (Hazen 2013; Salehyan et al 2011). This external assistance in turn reduces the likelihood of a target yielding to sanctions pressure as targets can mitigate the costs associated with the imposition of sanctions to tolerable levels (Early 2011: 383). Therefore, my previously conducted quantitative analysis controlled for the effect of sanctionsbusting assistance by noncompliant UN member states on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions, but this variable turned out to be statistically insignificant. This in-depth case analysis, however, suggests that the quality of external support provided to the target may be essential for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. It appears that external assistance directly received from neighboring countries is a much more valuable source as it enables VNSAs to quickly cope with the impact of sanctions by getting immediate support through the cross-border provision of military goods or the granting of safe haven on the neighboring state’s territory.9 Thus, the provision of external support from bordering countries seems to be another relevant factor determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose. Another explanation for the fact that this particular sanctions case proved to be effective and thus contradicts the findings of my statistical analysis may be the multitude of international mediation efforts. After a long time of disinterest in the Darfur Conflict, recent years have witnessed a significant increase in diplomatic initiatives and peace efforts to resolve the conflict. Due to the borders and tribal relations that it shares with Sudan, Chad and its president Idriss Déby Itno became actively involved with the Darfur Conflict as the establishment of peace in Darfur has been a matter of great interest for Chad. After Sudan and Chad experienced some disputes in the past, the relations between both countries have normalized since 2010. Using his tribal networks and personal relations with Darfur’s rebel movements, Chad’s president Déby played a major role in persuading JEM commanders to leave the movement and join peace talks with the Sudanese government (United Nations 9

This finding partly coincides with previous empirical research discovering the importance of territorial sanctuaries provided by neighboring countries in sustaining rebels’ engagement in insurgency (Salehyan 2009).

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2017b, para. 32).10 For instance, Déby was able to convince Mohamed Bashar, founder of the splinter group JEM/Bashar, to break away from the movement and sign the DDPD in 2013 (United Nations 2014, para. 229). In addition to Chad, other African countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda and South Sudan also engaged in diplomatic initiatives, aiming to bring peace to Darfur. Being home to the headquarters of the African Union, Ethiopia hosted the inter-Sudanese peace talks that should lead to the opening of a national dialogue and constitutional process in the Sudan (United Nations 2015, para. 254). Moreover, as already mentioned above, Uganda and South Sudan, after withdrawing their assistance to the JEM, assumed the role of very important mediators in the Darfur peace process. Uganda’s president Museveni held several informal meetings with Darfur’s rebel movements including the JEM and thus made an important contribution to the Darfur peace negotiations (United Nations 2017a, paras. 47–48). Within the framework of the Juba initiative, South Sudan also promoted the peace process by acting as a crucial mediator between the Sudanese government and the armed groups (United Nations 2019, para. 7). Besides these African mediators, other countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway (all three forming the ‘Troika’) as well as Qatar, Germany and France sponsored various peace initiatives organizing several meetings with Darfur’s armed movements (United Nations 2016, para. 205). Furthermore, international organizations such as the African Union, particularly through its High-level Implementation Panel for Sudan and the African Union-United Nations Joint Representative for Darfur, as well as the League of Arab States significantly contributed to the peace process by holding several meetings with delegations of Darfur’s armed movements and other Sudanese political forces (United Nations 2020, paras. 24–25). The variety of these peace initiatives and mediation efforts all demonstrated the international community’s determination to bring peace to Darfur and apparently constituted an important factor accounting for the effective outcome of this particular sanctions case. In principle, coercive sanctions contain a voluntary aspect in the sense that targets abandon their proscribed behavior and rather comply with established international norms, even though they possibly have the capabilities to continue their unwanted behavior (Giumelli 2016: 46 f.). Due to this persuasive element, international mediation can significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council since persuasion can only be achieved through diplomatic exchange and negotiations with the sanctioned actor. 10

Like the leadership of Darfur’s main rebel movements JEM and SLA/MM, Chad’s president Itno also belongs to the Zaghawa tribe (United Nations 2014, para. 229).

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Previous research has long failed to delve into the interaction of these two foreign policy instruments. Only recently, scholars have started to explore the interplay of sanctions and mediation and found that UN sanctions can complement but also complicate mediation efforts in a number of ways (Biersteker et al. 2019). The empirical findings of this in-depth case study suggest that simultaneously applied mediation efforts represent a promising supplement to the imposition of sanctions when sanctions intend to persuade VNSAs to quit their unwanted behavior and rather acquiesce to the demands stated by the international community. To summarize, the conducted case analysis of the UN targeted sanctions applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement points to the relevance of additional factors possibly determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their objectionable behavior. The empirical findings of my in-depth case study suggest that other factors such as targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA, the target’s internal cohesion, the provision of external support from neighboring countries as well as simultaneously applied mediation efforts may also significantly account for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Figure 8.1 visualizes the chronology of the various events that contributed to the effective outcome of this particular UN sanctions case. It becomes apparent that sanctions seeking to coerce a change in a target’s behavior need a fairly long time to work and their effectiveness is dependent upon a complexity of different factors. Though, if these factors are valid and generalizable across a wider population of sanctions cases will be put to the test in the third part of my empirical analysis. Furthermore, this case study investigated why the sanctions turned out to be effective even though the factors identified in my quantitative analysis—the target’s religious ideology and the autonomous US sanctions in place—rather suggest an ineffective sanctions outcome. While the partial lifting of the US sanctions— although it did not directly affect the JEM—was found to change the dynamics at the negotiating table and reinvigorated the Darfur peace process, my case analysis revealed that the religious-ideological dimension of the conflict between the JEM and the Sudanese government is rather negligible as the struggle predominantly centers on political issues. This political character of the conflict may explain why JEM’s religious ideology did not have the expected negative impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions.

2013

2015

Revocation of external assistance With the rapprochement between Uganda and the Sudan, the JEM lost one of its most important external supporters

2014

2016

2017

2018

Mediation Uganda's president Museveni held several meetings with the JEM

Fragmentation Following Operation Decisive Summer 2, several JEM field commanders defected with their troops

Mediation Multiple countries including the US, UK, France and Germany sponsored various peace initiatives organizing several meetings with Darfur's rebel movements

Revocation of external assistance South Sudan pressured the JEM to leave the country and the JEM was forced to relocate its troops to Sudan's province of Southern Kordofan

Military operation Operation Decisive Summer 2 considerably reduced the JEM's military capacity by killing hundreds of JEM fighters and confiscating a significant quantity of vehicles

Fragmentation JEM elements under the leadership of two commanders deserted the group and discussed a security arrangement with the government

Mediation South Sudan acted as a crucial mediator between the JEM and the Sudanese government

8

Figure 8.1 Timeline of the events contributing to the effective outcome of the UN sanctions applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in 2018

Fragmentation The JEM experienced its first serious split when Mohamed Bashar, a former JEM commander, broke away from the movement and created the splinter group JEM/Bashar

2012

Fragmentation & Mediation Chad's president Déby played a major role in persuading JEM/Bashar to sign the DDPD in April 2013

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8.3 Empirical Findings

8.3.2

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Case Study Constraining—UN Sanctions Against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab

This section deals with UN targeted sanctions applied against Somalia’s AlShabaab. Before empirically analyzing the sanctions case at hand, I, once again, deem it necessary to outline the historical background of the underlying conflict and discuss the main characteristics of Al-Shabaab. Historical background Somalia has an interminable history of civil war and constant conflict. Following the ouster of Siad Barre’s authoritarian regime in 1991, the country witnessed a longsome period of fighting between clan-based militias and warlords competing for power and resources which eventually led to the total collapse of the central government. Since then, Somalia has been afflicted by political instability, persistent violence and recurrent famines that have caused tremendous humanitarian suffering among the Somali population. As a result of several peace and reconciliation efforts by international and regional actors, rudimentary state structures were re-established in several steps. In 2000, the Transitional National Government (TNG) was formed as the first Somali government since 1991 that was officially recognized by the international community. The TNG was later replaced by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) which was created as an interim government in 2004 and subsequently transformed into the Somali federal government in 2012 (Menkhaus 2004). Despite this modest progress in the reconstruction of state institutions, peace and stability have remained fragile in Somalia. Further progress toward stability in Somalia was disrupted in 2004 when Islamist forces, known as the United Islamic Courts (UIC), started to challenge the authority of the TFG. Two years later, the UIC managed to take control of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu and other parts of the country and threatened a jihad against Somalia’s immediate neighbor Ethiopia. This prompted Ethiopian forces to invade in Somalia in order to assist the TFG in eliminating the advancing UIC and re-establishing central authority. By early 2007, the UIC was militarily defeated and Ethiopian troops withdrew from Somalia in 2009. Following its defeat, the UIC formally splintered into moderate and extremist factions. The moderates led by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed eventually joined the TFG and Ahmed became the president of the TFG in 2009. Meanwhile, the extremists were divided into two main factions—Al-Shabaab and the Islamic Party (Hizbul

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Islam)—and continued their insurgency against the ruling TFG.11 Since that time, Al-Shabaab has continued its violent struggle against the Somali authorities and their supporters conducting numerous terrorist attacks throughout the country as well as in neighboring countries such as Kenya and Uganda (Hansen 2013; Maruf/Joseph 2018). While clan cleavages were the main source of conflict during the 1990s, the conflict in Somalia has now become a war between the Somali government and radical Islamist groups, most notably Al-Shabaab. Since the beginning of the conflict, the international community has engaged in various peacekeeping efforts to restore peace and security in Somalia. In 1992, with the adoption of resolution 751, the UN Security Council authorized the United Nations Operation in Somalia I (UNOSOM I) seeking to protect humanitarian relief efforts and restore order after the dissolution of the central government (United Nations 1992b). However, as the security situation continued to worsen and relief operations were increasingly put at great risk, the United States offered to lead a multinational force to protect humanitarian operations. In December 1992, the UN Security Council passed resolution 794 accepting the offer and approving the Unified Task Force (UNITAF)—an alliance of UN peacekeepers led by the United States. UNITAF assumed the duties of UNOSOM I and was intended to be an interim force tasked with assuring security and stabilizing the situation until the deployment of additional UN forces was completed. UNITAF was eventually succeeded by UNOSOM II through the adoption of resolution 814 in March 1993 (United Nations 1993). Owing to numerous casualties and the disastrous outcome of the “Black Hawk Down” incident during the battle of Mogadishu, the US withdrew its troops from Somalia in March 1994.12 One year later, the UN also decided to withdraw all peacekeeping forces from Somalia. In 2007, following more than a decade of inaction, the UN Security Council became re-engaged with Somalia and passed resolution 1744 approving the creation of an AU peacekeeping force (AMISOM) to stabilize Somalia after the projected departure of Ethiopian troops (United Nations 2007). AMISOM has been in place 11

After Al-Shabaab launched an offensive against Hizbul Islam in December 2010, the group was militarily defeated and officially merged with Al-Shabaab (Hansen 2013: 108). 12 On October 3, 1993, US special forces tried to capture two top officials of Mohamed Farrah Aidid, who was the leader of the dominant militia in Mogadishu at the time and whose forces attacked US and UN troops deployed to Somalia in the past. During the operation, Somali militia shot down two US Black Hawk helicopters. Due to the complicated US and UN command structure, there were significant delays in rescuing the surviving crew members. As a result, US forces spent the night fighting off Somali gunmen before being retrieved by US and UN forces the next morning. 18 US soldiers were killed in the battle. Facing an intense public outcry, the administration of President Clinton decided to withdraw its troops from Somalia by March 31, 1994 (Jones et al. 2016: 38; Maruf/Joseph 2018: 28 f.).

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since then and is mandated to support transitional government structures, implement a national security plan, train the Somali security forces, and assist in creating a secure environment for the provision of humanitarian relief. Moreover, AMISOM also supports the Somali government in its fight against Al-Shabaab. The UN has renewed the mission’s mandate on a regular basis and authorized an increase in the troop ceiling of up to 22,000 soldiers. In recent years, the number of troops has been diminished and different exit strategies have already been discussed. In addition to peacekeeping forces, the UN resorted to the imposition of sanctions in order to restore peace and security in Somalia. In 1992, the UN Security Council passed resolution 733 applying a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict (United Nations 1992a). The complete arms embargo remained in place without any modifications until 2001 when the Security Council approved embargo exemptions for protective clothing for UN personnel, representatives of media, and humanitarian and development workers as well as for non-lethal military equipment for humanitarian or protective use (United Nations 2001). In 2002, the UN Security Council established a Panel of Experts for the Somalia sanctions regime which has been in place to date (United Nations 2002). Following the signing of the Djibouti Agreement in 2008, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1844 applying targeted sanctions against individuals and entities that undermine the terms of the peace agreement, violate the arms embargo, and obstruct the delivery of humanitarian assistance (United Nations 2008). In 2009, invoking Eritrea’s alleged support for Al-Shabaab, the UN Security Council authorized the application of secondary sanctions against Eritrea, including a complete arms embargo (on both imports and exports) and prohibited Eritrean support for armed groups throughout the region.13 Violators of this resolution face possible targeted measures such as asset freezes and travel bans (United Nations 2009). In April 2010, the Somalia Sanctions Committee made its first designations targeting primarily individuals associated with Al-Shabaab in order to secure the transitional government’s position in the country. In 2012, noting that charcoal exports from Somalia constituted a significant revenue source for Al-Shabaab, the UN Security Council imposed a ban on the export of all charcoal from the country (United Nations 2012a). In 2013, the Security Council approved a partial lifting of the arms embargo allowing the delivery of arms and materiel to security forces of the Somali government (United Nations 2013b). In 2017, the Panel of Experts reported for the fourth consecutive year that there was insufficient evidence to prove a link 13

“Secondary sanctions” are applied in addition to the “primary sanctions” imposed on a specific country and often target another country that was initially not sanctioned by the sender.

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between Eritrea and Al-Shabaab. Owing to these positive reports and Eritrea’s historic peace agreement with Ethiopia, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to lift sanctions against Eritrea in November 2018 (United Nations 2018). Yet, the sanctions on Somalia and Al-Shabaab have continued to remain in place. Harakat Al-Shabaab Harakat Al-Shabaab, commonly known as Al-Shabaab (meaning “The Youth” in Arabic), is the largest militant organization in Somalia fighting to eliminate the Somali government and the foreign military troops supporting it. The group strives to take control over Somalia in order to establish a society based on its rigid interpretation of Sharia law. Al-Shabaab emerged as an independent organization in 2006 following the military defeat of the United Islamic Courts (UIC) for which it had served as the military wing (Stanford University 2019). Al-Shabaab’s ideological basis can be traced back to the 1960s, when Salafi and Wahabi networks from Saudi Arabia and Egypt first appeared in Somalia. As a result of these Islamist influences, Somali jihadists went to Afghanistan in the early 1980s to join the struggle against the Soviet forces. These fighters—many of whom would later become central figures of Al-Shabaab—eventually returned to Somalia and attempted to spread a pan-Islamist ideology in Somalia (Jones et al. 2016: 9). The exact formation of Al-Shabaab is a matter of dispute. One version states that the group had already been founded in the 1990s by former members of the Islamist movement Al Ittihad Al Islamiya (AIAI) under the guidance of Islamist leader Hassan Dahir Aweys. Another version, on the contrary, claims that Al-Shabaab was the armed wing of the UIC under the leadership of Aden Hashi Ayro and mainly evolved as an independent organization in 2006 from the military defeat of the UIC (Uppsala University 2019). At the beginning of 2007, owing to Ethiopia’s invasion that resulted in the military defeat of the UIC, it seemed that Al-Shabaab was defeated as well. The group lost many of its most experienced leaders, its forces had been vanquished and Ethiopian troops regained control over central Somalia (Hansen 2013: 49). In May 2008, Aden Ayro was killed in an US missile strike and Ahmed Abdi Godane became Al-Shabaab’s top leader. However, following Ethiopia’s withdrawal in 2009, AlShabaab managed to recover and expand its territorial control quite swiftly seizing Baidoa, the interim capital of the TFG, and large territory around Mogadishu. Moreover, the group took control of Kismayo, which enabled the group to engage in lucrative trade activities at the city’s port. By 2010, Al-Shabaab occupied most of southern Somalia—an area as big as Denmark, with about 5 million inhabitants, which made up about 50 percent of Somalia’s total population. Despite Al-Shabaab’s

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vast territorial control, its manpower numbered only about 5,000 at that time (Jones et al. 2016: 14–20). In the areas under Al-Shabaab’s control, the group imposed a strict version of Sharia law. This resulted in severe restrictions for the civilian population including harsh and archaic forms of punishment for crimes such as stoning. Additionally, AlShabaab allegedly committed rape and extensive acts of violence against women and engaged in the forced recruitment of fighters, including children (Uppsala University 2019). Since 2011, however, Al-Shabaab’s power has declined as AMISOM forces launched multiple offensives, which pushed the group from many of its previous strongholds. These military setbacks and the associated territorial losses forced AlShabaab to change its tactics, moving from a strategy to seize and hold territory to a more guerilla styled warfare. This shift in tactics has led to an increase in attacks on civilians (Uppsala University 2019). While Al-Shabaab suffered from military setbacks on Somali soil, the group started to align itself more closely with other foreign Islamist networks. First and foremost, Al-Shabaab officially announced its merger with Al-Qaida in February 2012 following years of clandestine cooperation. Since then, Al-Shabaab attracted many Al-Qaida members from abroad and has been able to collect monetary donations from Al-Qaida’s global support network (United Nations 2012b: 8). The group’s affiliation with Al-Qaida also led to a shift in tactics and Al-Shabaab began to target civilians through suicide attacks much more frequently (Stanford University 2019). In addition to its cooperation with Al-Qaida, Al-Shabaab has been actively strengthening its ties with other foreign Islamist groups, including the Muslim Youth Centre in Kenya and the Ansar Muslim Youth Centre in Tanzania. According to reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, both groups raised funds, recruited fighters and conducted training camps on behalf of Al-Shabaab (United Nations 2012b, paras. 34–37). Owing to its global network with other Islamist groups, most notably Al-Qaida, Al-Shabaab has casted the group’s struggle in Somalia as part of a larger global jihad and started to expand its terrorist operations across East Africa. Al-Shabaab’s first major attack outside Somalia occurred in July 2010 when the group conducted suicide bombings at a restaurant in Uganda that killed over 70 people watching the final match of the FIFA World Cup (Hansen 2013: 96). In the following years, AlShabaab also carried out several operations in Kenya aiming to pressure the Kenyan government to withdraw its troops from Somalia. Most prominent was a complex attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013, resulting in a four-day occupation of the mall in which at least 67 people were killed (International Crisis Group 2018).

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Al-Shabaab has claimed that its deadly operations in Somalia’s neighborhood are in retaliation of the countries’ military engagement in Somalia. Al-Shabaab’s ability to conduct transnational attacks and sustain its rebellion for such a long period of time results from its well-organized group structure. AlShabaab has a top-down structure, implying that decisions are made by a small group of leaders. Under its emir Ahmed Godane, who led Al-Shabaab from 2008 to 2014, the group established Shura (consultative) and Tanfid (executive) councils to set policies. The Shura Council is an advisory body consisting of about 40 members that recommends action but does not make actual decisions. The executive power is bestowed on the Tanfid Council, which is composed of about 10 to 15 members including Al-Shabaab’s most influential clan, militia, and religious leaders (Maruf/Joseph 2018: 84). Once a decision is made among the leading figures, its implementation is tasked to a maktab—Al-Shabaab’s equivalent of a government agency. The number of these departments ranges from seven to eleven, depending on shifts in Al-Shabaab’s politics and policies. The organization usually includes the maktabs of Amniyat (security), Da’wa (preaching), Garsoor (judgement and justice), Jabhat (the army), Wilayat (regional administration), and Zakat (taxation). Furthermore, there are at times additional but less powerful departments dealing with general finances, health, and humanitarian affairs. Each maktab is headed by a chief that is accountable to the emir. There is some evidence that the maktbab heads are substituted or moved around frequently to prevent these leaders from gaining too much power (Maruf/Joseph 2018: 84 f.). Al-Shabaab’s most powerful and best-equipped maktab is the Amniyat—the group’s security and intelligence service. The Amniyat members, who are known for their complete commitment to jihad, carry out the “special operations”—the suicide bombings and targeted killings inside Somalia and abroad. The Amniyat is also responsible for collecting information and catching suspected spoilers (Hansen 2013: 83 f.; Maruf/Joseph 2018: 90). The maktab of Da’wa represents another crucial department as it is accountable for spreading Al-Shabaab’s own interpretation of Islam and Sharia. In order to ensure that people maintain a strong belief in Al-Shabaab’s version of Islam, Da’wa officials reprogrammed mosques, libraries, media outlets, and other public institutions to reflect the group’s fundamentalist point of view (Hansen 2013: 84; Maruf/Joseph 2018: 85 f.). Given the fact that not everyone adheres to its preaching and teachings, the group has established the Hisbah department—Al-Shabaab’s own version of a police force. Hisbah members are in charge of keeping public order and enforcing the strict Islamic rule. Like national police forces elsewhere, they patrol the streets wearing

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uniforms and carrying small arms and sticks. Al-Shabaab established a Hisbah force in each town that came under the group’s authority. While the Hisbah is responsible for regular crime-busting such as catching thieves, the punishments and sentences are determined by Garsoor, Al-Shabaab’s justice system. When the group captured a town, it set up a local court to deal with the criminal cases (Maruf/Joseph 2018: 86 f.). In addition to a very complex organizational structure, Al-Shabaab has developed a highly effective media campaign for local Somali-speaking and, increasingly, for English- and Arabic-speaking audiences. The group’s media arm, Al-Kataib, produces video content and audio recordings promoting the group’s strength and spreading its ideological visions. At its peak, Al-Shabaab managed to control eight radio stations in Somalia, even though the number is now reduced to two. Moreover, Al-Shabaab frequently utilizes social media including Twitter and YouTube and hosts several websites (International Crisis Group 2014: 19). While this comprehensive media network enables Al-Shabaab to spread its propaganda, it has also become a crucial tool to attract new recruits (Stanford University 2019). Empirical analysis While the UN sanctions regime against Somalia and Eritrea has multiple purposes, this case study exclusively focusses on UN targeted sanctions’ ability to constrain AlShabaab from being able to challenge the TFG and the Djibouti Peace Agreement. As already outlined in Section 8.1, UN sanctions directed at Al-Shabaab are classified as effective in the year of 2011 since Al-Shabaab experienced military defeats, a significant loss of territory and serious rifts within the group’s leadership. Owing to these developments, no major incidents were reported throughout the year in which Al-Shabaab engaged in violent attacks challenging the TFG. This outcome, however, is in direct contradiction to my statistical results and is thus selected for further indepth case analysis as the determinants identified in my quantitative analysis would rather suggest an ineffective outcome of this particular sanctions case. Therefore, in an effort to better understand why this sanctions case turned out to be effective, the following deviant case study seeks to address two central questions. First, why did the sanctions work although the factors detected in my statistical analysis rather point to an ineffective sanctions outcome? And secondly, what other factors that have so far been neglected may have contributed to the success of this sanctions case? To begin with, this case analysis strives to ascertain why the sanctions turned out to be effective notwithstanding that the factors identified in my quantitative analysis rather suggest an ineffective sanctions outcome. To state it more precisely, why did the sanctions work even though Al-Shabaab had a religious ideology and

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the sanctions did not inflict any economic impact on the group? As demonstrated in Section 7.6.3, my statistical analysis revealed that both factors—a target’s religious ideology and sanctions’ direct economic impact—have a statistically significant impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their condemnable activities. Quite contrary to the previously conducted case study on Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), my in-depth case analysis on Somalia’s Al-Shabaab does not provide any evidence that the determining factors detected in my statistical analysis did not work in the expected direction. Taking a closer look at Al-Shabaab’s ideology, it appears that the group’s jihadist ideology did not contribute to the effective outcome of this sanctions case. While the JEM had a rather moderate Islamist ideology and its struggle against the Sudanese government predominantly centered on political issues, which enhanced the likelihood of reaching a political solution to the Darfur Conflict, Al-Shabaab’s position to the conflict is obviously religious and clearly based on its fundamentalist interpretation of Islam that significantly undermines any potential chances for finding a negotiated settlement (International Crisis Group 2010: 9). Furthermore, as already mentioned above, my quantitative analysis demonstrated that sanctions with a direct economic impact on the targeted VNSA are statistically significant and positively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. In the case at hand, however, it appears that the applied UN targeted sanctions measures did not inflict any direct economic impact on Al-Shabaab and therefore did not contribute to the effective outcome of this sanctions case. The UN sanctions regime started to have a direct economic impact on Al-Shabaab only in 2012 when the UN Security Council passed resolution 2036 and imposed a ban on the export of all charcoal from Somalia, noting that charcoal exports from the country constituted a significant source of revenue for Al-Shabaab (United Nations 2012a).14 Though, no evidence was found that other UN sanctions measures which were already in place before 2012 considerably weakened Al-Shabaab’s revenue streams. Thus, a closer examination of Al-Shabaab’s ideology and UN sanctions’ direct economic impact on the group has revealed that—in contrast to the previously conducted case study on Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement—both factors appear to work exactly in the same direction as my statistical results have indicated. This

14

According to information provided by the UN Panel of Experts, Al-Shabaab generated revenues through the trade of charcoal exports in excess of $25 million a year (United Nations 2012b: 147).

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suggests that other factors that have so far been disregarded in the quantitative analysis may have contributed to the effective outcome of this particular UN sanctions case. As a next step, this in-depth case analysis therefore endeavors to detect additional factors that account for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their proscribed activities. Investigating the empirical material of this sanctions case, it becomes apparent that military operations against Al-Shabaab that caused a major degradation of the group’s military capability had a significant impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining Al-Shabaab from being able to challenge the TFG and the Djibouti Peace Agreement. Throughout the whole year of 2011, Al-Shabaab experienced several serious military setbacks when AMISOM troops as well as Kenyan and Ethiopian forces conducted a series of military offensives which in turn considerably diminished Al-Shabaab’s military capacity.15 In February 2011, AMISOM forces, led by Uganda and Burundi, launched offensive operations, expelling Al-Shabaab from the capital of Mogadishu and regaining control of key positions including the former Ministry of Defense which had been captured by Al-Shabaab (United Nations 2011, para. 24). In October 2011, ostensibly in response to multiple cross-border kidnappings from Somalia, Kenyan troops, accompanied by a loose coalition of Somali clan militias, initiated Operation ‘Linda Nchi’, entering south-western Somalia and securing long stretches of the common border. Through airstrikes and ground operations, Kenyan units managed to relieve several towns in the Middle and Lower Jubba regions from Al-Shabaab’s control (United Nations 2012b: 225–228). Ethiopian forces followed suit in November 2011, recapturing the strategic town of Beledweyne from Al-Shabaab and launching further cross-border offensives in Bay Bakool and Baidoa in spring 2012 (Hansen 2013: 117; United Nations 2012b: 229–231).16 These military offensives launched by AMISOM, Ethiopian and Kenyan forces did not only weaken Al-Shabaab militarily, but the territorial losses resulting from these military setbacks also eroded Al-Shabaab’s revenue base depriving the group of its lucrative taxation centers, including markets and border posts. Most notably, Al-Shabaab’s loss of Mogadishu’s Bakara Market and the Suuq Baad, another key 15

In addition to these ground operations launched by AMISOM, Ethiopian and Kenyan forces, the US conducted targeted drone strikes which killed several Al-Shabaab commanders (United Nations 2012b, paras. 33, 58). 16 The unilateral military offensives launched by Ethiopian and Kenyan forces were criticized for constituting a violation of the arms embargo as these large-scale military operations lacked the prior authorization from the UN Sanctions Committee (United Nations 2012b, paras. 55–56).

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market in the capital, represented a serious economic impairment as the group generated at least 40 percent of its operating budget from the taxation of both markets (Keatinge 2014: 18 f.). This dramatic loss of revenue implicated that AlShabaab was unable to maintain large units intact and was thus forced to revert to its previous strategy as a guerilla force, employing a more asymmetric warfare including suicide attacks and bombings (Hansen 2013: 114; United Nations 2012b: 162). Al-Shabaab was therefore significantly constrained in its ability to continue its large-scale insurgency against the TFG. This finding is consistent with previous empirical studies demonstrating that the loss of territory and income opportunities can force rebel groups to end their fighting or retreat into a smaller-scaled insurgency (Radtke/Jo 2018). This allows for the assumption that VNSAs, which experience serious military setbacks involving territorial defeats and a loss of income opportunities, are more likely to be constrained in their ability to pursue their armed struggle. Military operations thus appear to be a crucial supplement to the application of sanctions that can considerably contribute to the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions’ intending to constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities. Another important factor, which may account for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining Al-Shabaab in its ability to challenge the TFG and the Djibouti Process may have been the group’s lack of cohesion. Al-Shabaab experienced its first serious internal dissent in 2010 after the failure of its ‘Ramadan Offensive’. The offensive’s disappointing outcome revealed some major disagreements over the group’s tactics that led to a power struggle between the group’s emir Ahmed Godane and his deputy Mukhtar Robow. While Al-Shabaab’s previous victories had been achieved through flexible hit and run attacks, Godane decided to engage in more classical warfare during the ‘Ramadan Offensive’. However, this shift in tactics resulted in heavy casualties for Al-Shabaab forces which eventually prompted Robow to withdraw his units from the battles. Robow’s unauthorized decision to pull out his forces clearly contested Godane’s leading position and his skepticism about Godane was shared by other Al-Shabaab veterans, including Hassan Yaqubi and Fuad Khalif ‘Shongola’ (Hansen 2013: 103 f.; Maruf/Joseph 2018: 162 f.). This growing criticism of Godane’s leadership did not only center on disagreements over the group’s military strategy, but also demonstrated deeper ideological differences among Al-Shabaab’s top leaders. Whereas Robow and other influential leaders represented an ‘indigenous’ faction with fundamentally nationalistic aims, Godane had a more ambitious and extremist agenda promoting Somalia as a destination for a global jihad (Keatinge 2014: 6). Another major disagreement

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concerned the Amniyat, the group’s security and intelligence service, and its status within Al-Shabaab’s organizational structure. Under Godane, the Amniyat had become a separate entity independent of the Shura and directly under Godane’s control. Finally, in August 2011, after negotiations between Godane and Robow failed to resolve this internal power struggle, Godane fired Robow as his official deputy and replaced him with his longtime ally and Amniyat chief Mahad Karate (Hansen 2013: 104 f.; Maruf/Joseph 2018: 194). Nevertheless, internal tensions within Al-Shabaab’s leadership continued and were even exacerbated by the military setbacks in 2011 when the group lost its financially and symbolically important stronghold of Mogadishu (Hansen 2013: 106). These internal divisions eventually culminated in the brutal internal purge that took place in 2013. On Godane’s behalf, Amniyat forces arrested and killed multiple Al-Shabaab members that were blamed for challenging Godane’s power. This purge, at least temporarily, re-established Godane as Al-Shabaab’s uncontested leader (Maruf/Joseph 2018: 201–206). This growing fragmentation, however, represented a significant weakening of Al-Shabaab as it revealed internal dissent over the group’s future orientation. More importantly, these dissensions increasingly resulted in intra-group violence and defections of high-ranking Al-Shabaab members which in turn had a negative impact on the group’s overall military capacity (Hansen 2013: 105, 112). It is therefore reasonable to assume that VNSAs, which lack cohesion and experience serious fragmentation, are more susceptible to be constrained in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities. Hence, a target’s internal cohesion seems to be another important factor determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs. In addition to military setbacks and a target’s internal cohesion, it also seems to be of high importance how neighboring states position themselves during a sanctions case. For a long time, Al-Shabaab received significant assistance from Eritrea involving the provision of weapons and funding. The Eritrean government consistently denied any military or financial support for Al-Shabaab and claimed that it only maintained political relationships with Somali armed opposition groups including Al-Shabaab (United Nations 2011, paras. 254, 259). Even though Eritrea’s political regime does not share the group’s ideology and extremist goals, it presumably provided assistance to Al-Shabaab with the aim of causing worry for its archrival Ethiopia and countering Ethiopian influence in Somalia (Maruf/Joseph 2018: 36 f.). In 2009, in response to Eritrea’s alleged support for Al-Shabaab, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1907 and authorized the adoption of secondary sanctions on Eritrea, which included a complete arms embargo (on both imports and exports) and prohibited Eritrean support for armed groups throughout the region (United

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Nations 2009). According to reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Eritrea abandoned the provision of military and financial support for Al-Shabaab following the imposition of sanctions (United Nations 2012, paras. 52–53). The fact that Eritrea stopped supporting Al-Shabaab apparently had a considerable impact on Al-Shabaab’s availability of material and financial resources. As prior research demonstrated, the provision of external support boosts the access to resources available to the warring factions and thus makes conflicts much more difficult to resolve (Hazen 2013; Salehyan et al 2011). This external assistance in turn reduces the likelihood of a target yielding to sanctions pressure as targets can mitigate the costs associated with the application of sanctions to tolerable levels (Early 2011: 383). Therefore, my previously conducted quantitative analysis controlled for the effect of sanctions-busting assistance by noncompliant UN member states on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions, but this variable turned out to be statistically insignificant. This in-depth case analysis, however, suggests that the quality of external support provided to the target may be crucial for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. It appears that external assistance directly received from neighboring countries is a much more valuable source as it enables VNSAs to quickly cope with the impact of sanctions by getting immediate support through the cross-border provision of military goods or the granting of safe haven on the bordering state’s territory. Especially when UN sanctions intend to curtail a target’s access to essential resources needed to engage in its rebellion, cross-border assistance from the immediate neighborhood can considerably undermine the prospects of sanctions success. Thus, the provision of external support from neighboring countries seems to be another crucial factor determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities. To summarize, the conducted in-depth case analysis of the UN targeted sanctions directed at Somalia’s Al-Shabaab points to the relevance of additional factors accounting for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their objectionable activities. The empirical findings of this case study suggest that other factors such as targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA, a targeted group’s internal cohesion as well as the provision of external support from bordering countries may also have a considerable impact on the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. If these factors are valid and generalizable across a wider population of sanctions cases, will be tested in the following quantitative analysis. Figure 8.2 illustrates the chronology of the events that possibly contributed to the effective outcome of this particular UN sanctions case. Compared to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing (see Figure 8.1), it becomes apparent

2010

2011

Military operation AMISOM forces launched offensive operations, expelling AlShabaab from Mogadishu and regaining control of key positions

Fragmentation After negotiations to resolve the internal power struggle failed, Godane fired Robow as his official deputy and replaced him with Mahad Karate

Military operation Ethiopian forces recaptured the strategic town of Beledweyne from Al-Shabaab

Military operation Kenyan troops conducted operation 'Linda Nchi', freeing several towns in the Middle and Lower Juba regions from Al-Shabaab's control

Figure 8.2 Timeline of the events contributing to the effective outcome of the UN sanctions applied against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab in 2011

Revocation of external assistance Following the imposition of secondary UN sanctions in 2009, Eritrea abandoned the provision of military and financial support for Al-Shabaab

2009

Fragmentation The failure of its 'Ramadan Offensive' led to a power struggle between the group's emir Ahmed Godane and its deputy Mukhtar Robow

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that the working mechanisms behind the effectiveness of constraining sanctions are far less complex and sanctions with a constraining purpose can thus achieve their intended goal much quicker. The comparison of both timelines clearly demonstrates that coercive sanctions demand plenty of patience from sanctions issuers as they pursue a much more ambitious purpose by seeking to persuade VNSAs to abandon their proscribed behavior and rather comply with international norms. Constraining sanctions, on the contrary, seem to be able to fulfill policymakers’ expectation in a rather speedy manner by thwarting a target’s ability to continue its condemnable activities. Moreover, whereas international mediation efforts seem to be a crucial supplement to the imposition of coercive sanctions, Figure 8.2 reveals that targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA represent a key factor accounting for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities. Furthermore, in contrast to the in-depth analysis of the UN sanctions applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement, this case study did not provide any evidence that the determining factors identified in my quantitative analysis— the target’s religious ideology and the sanctions’ direct economic impact—did not work in the expected direction. Instead, it appears that additional factors that were uncovered within the framework of this deviant case analysis may determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining Al-Shabaab, even though my statistical results rather suggested an ineffective outcome of this particular UN sanctions case.

8.4

New Hypotheses Generated from Studying the Deviant Cases

The previously conducted deviant case analyses of the UN sanctions directed at Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement and Somalia’s Al-Shabaab uncovered additional factors which may account for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions applied against VNSAs. These newly detected variables are now translated into additional hypotheses on the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. The empirical findings of the in-depth case studies revealed that VNSAs, which lack internal cohesion and experience serious fragmentation, seem to be more prone to yield to sanctions pressure. Both case studies indicated that internal dissensions including defections, infighting or even intra-group violence can significantly weaken VNSAs as these internal rifts deteriorate the group’s military capabilities and display internal dissent over the group’s future strategy and

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orientation to the conflict. These adverse effects may considerably undermine the capacity and willingness of VNSAs to sustain their rebellion which in turn should make these VNSAs more susceptible to the impact of the applied sanctions measures. It is therefore hypothesized that UN targeted sanctions are more likely to be effective when they are imposed on VNSAs which suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. Hypothesis 8:

UN targeted sanctions are more likely to be effective when they target VNSAs that suffer from a lack of internal cohesion.

The empirical analysis of both UN sanctions cases also demonstrated that the provision of external assistance from neighboring countries appears to be another crucial factor possibly determining the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. For a long time, both Al-Shabaab and the JEM received significant support from bordering states involving the supply of funding and weapons as well as the granting of safe haven. However, owing to increased pressure by the international community, most of these neighboring countries stopped supporting the sanctioned rebel groups which in turn seemed to have a positive impact on the effectiveness of the applied UN sanctions measures. In line with previous research, the empirical findings suggest that external assistance reduces the likelihood of a target yielding to sanctions pressure as targets can mitigate the costs associated with the imposition of sanctions to tolerable levels. While the previously conducted quantitative analysis controlled for the effect of sanctions-busting assistance by noncompliant UN member states on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness, the in-depth case studies indicated that external assistance directly received from neighboring countries may represent a much more valuable source as it enables VNSAs to quickly cope with the impact of sanctions by getting immediate support through the cross-border supply of military goods or the granting of safe haven on the bordering state’s territory. Thus, it is assumed that the provision of external support from neighboring countries can considerably undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. Hypothesis 9:

UN targeted sanctions are less likely to be effective when sanctioned VNSAs receive external assistance from neighboring countries.

In addition to a target’s internal cohesion and the supply of external assistance from bordering countries, both deviant case analyses illustrated that VNSAs, which experience military setbacks involving territorial defeats and a loss of

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income and personnel, appear to be more likely to concede to sanctions pressure. Both Al-Shabaab and the JEM suffered from significant military setbacks as a result of extensive military operations conducted against them. These military offensives led to a considerable degradation of the groups’ financial and military capabilities and ultimately deprived them of the possibility of winning the conflict militarily. Targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSAs therefore seem to be a crucial supplement to the imposition of sanctions and are expected to positively contribute to the effective sanctioning of VNSAs since they diminish the financial and military strength of the target which in turn makes the sanctioned VNSAs more vulnerable to the impact of the applied UN sanctions measures. Hypothesis 10:

UN targeted sanctions that are supplemented by extensive military operations against the sanctioned VNSAs are more likely to be effective.

The in-depth case analysis of the UN sanctions imposed on Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement demonstrated that international peace initiatives and mediation efforts may have a positive effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their unwanted behavior. The variety of peace initiatives and mediation efforts that were employed to resolve the Darfur Conflict constituted an important factor accounting for the effective outcome of this particular sanctions case. In principle, coercive sanctions seek to convince a target to abandon its proscribed behavior (Giumelli 2016: 46). Due to this persuasive element, international mediation can serve as a crucial supplement to the application of sanctions since persuasion can only be achieved through diplomatic exchange with the sanctioned actor. Therefore, it is hypothesized that simultaneously applied mediation efforts can significantly increase the prospects of sanctions success when UN targeted sanctions intend to persuade VNSAs to quit their objectionable behavior and rather comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council. Hypothesis 11:

UN targeted sanctions that seek to coerce VNSAs to change their proscribed behavior are more likely to be effective when they are complemented by international mediation efforts.

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In the following chapter, I append the possible key factors that were identified within the framework of the two deviant case studies to the existing SNSA dataset and conduct a final quantitative analysis in order to investigate whether these factors can be considered as general determinants of the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Before presenting the statistical results of what factors determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining VNSAs, I first discuss the operationalization of these additional variables and then outline the descriptive statistics of these newly discovered factors.

9.1

Operationalization of Additional Variables

The empirical findings of the in-depth case studies pointed to the importance of another target-specific factor, indicating that VNSAs which lack internal cohesion and experience serious fragmentation are more susceptible to yield to sanctions pressure (Hypothesis 8). In order to assess whether the targeted VNSA experienced some internal dissensions including defections and intra-group struggles during the year under investigation, information was collected from the annual reports published by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from other scholarly studies dealing with the VNSA under study. I then generated the variable Fragmentation that ranges on a three-point ordinal scale from 0 to 2, where 2 is coded when vital evidence was found that the sanctioned VNSA experienced some major internal rifts involving large-scale or Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_9. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_9

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high-profile defections, serious infighting and/or intra-group killings in a given year. This variable takes the value of 1 when there is compelling evidence that the targeted VNSA suffered from minor internal dissensions including small numbers of defections and/or minor intra-group disputes in the year under investigation. 0 is coded when no evidence was found that the sanctioned VNSA lacked internal cohesion during the year under study.1 Both case studies also demonstrated that the provision of external support from neighboring countries seems to be another sender-specific factor possibly determining the effective sanctioning of VNSAs (Hypothesis 9). While Quantitative Analysis I controlled for the effect of sanctions-busting assistance by noncompliant UN member states and this variable turned out to be statistically insignificant, the deviant case analyses indicated that external support directly received from neighboring countries is a much more valuable source as it enables VNSAs to quickly cope with the impact of sanctions by getting immediate support through the cross-border provision of military goods or the granting of safe haven on the bordering state’s territory. Therefore, this newly constructed variable replaces the variable Sanctions-busting in the following Quantitative Analysis II. In order to gauge whether the sanctioned VNSA, despite the UN sanctions in place, received external assistance through the supply of financial assistance, the provision of military goods or the granting of safe haven from one or several bordering countries during the year under investigation, information was retrieved from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team. In addition, information was reconciled with and, if necessary, supplemented by data from the UCDP External Support Project—Primary Warring Party Dataset (Version 1–2011), employing the variable external exists from this dataset. This dichotomous measure takes the value of 1 if a primary warring party (the targeted VNSA under study) received any form of clearly established external support from one or more external supporter(s) in a given year, and 0 otherwise. In order to identify whether the sanctioned VNSA received external support from a neighboring country, the variable external name is used from this dataset which

1

It is important to note that a target’s fragmentation does not inevitably relate to a group’s organizational structure. Intuitively, one could assume that decentralized and distributed organizations are more prone to experience fragmentation since they consist of loosely independent clusters which operate autonomously within a group. However, this is not necessarily the case. Al-Shabaab serves as a good example. The group suffered from a lack of internal cohesion including defections, infighting and intra-group violence, even though Al-Shabaab is hierarchically organized.

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involves specific information on the external supporter(s) providing assistance to a certain warring party in a given year (Högbladh et al. 2011). Based on the gathered information, the binary variable Neighbor was created which equals to 1 if evidence was found that the targeted VNSA received external support from one or several neighboring countries in a given year. This variable takes the value of 0 if no evidence was found that the sanctioned VNSA obtained any form of external assistance from bordering countries during the year under investigation. In addition to these newly detected target-specific and sender-specific factors, the deviant case analyses also uncovered some additional contextual factors that may account for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Both case studies revealed that targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA can have a positive impact on the effectiveness of sanctions since they diminish the financial and military strength of the target and thus make the targeted VNSAs more vulnerable to the impact of the applied sanctions measures (Hypothesis 10). In order to gauge whether the sanctioned VNSA experienced some military setbacks in a given year that resulted from military operations against the group, information was drawn from the annual reports issued by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team as well as from other scholarly studies dealing with the VNSA under investigation. Based on the collected information, the variable Military was created, which ranges on a three-point ordinal scale from 0 to 2, where 2 is coded when overwhelming evidence was found that the targeted VNSA suffered from major military setbacks involving heavy losses of combatants, territory and/or revenue during the year under investigation. This variable takes the value of 1 when there is vital evidence that the sanctioned VNSA experienced minor military setbacks resulting in slight losses of combatants, territory and/or revenue in a given year. 0 is coded when no evidence was found that successful military operations were conducted against the VNSA during the year under investigation and thus no military setbacks for the target were reported. Besides targeted military operations, my in-depth case analysis of the UN sanctions imposed on Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) revealed that international peace initiatives and mediation efforts may significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their unwanted behavior (Hypothesis 11). In order to capture whether international actors engaged in diplomatic exchange with the sanctioned VNSA during the year under study, information was collected from the annual reports published by the UN Panel of Experts, Expert Group or Monitoring Team. Furthermore, the collected information was reconciled with and, if necessary, supplemented

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by data from the UCDP Peace Agreement Dataset (Version 19.1). This dataset includes information on peace agreements for armed conflicts that were active between 1975 and 2018 (Högbladh 2019). Based on the gathered information, the variable Mediation was generated which ranges on a three-point ordinal scale from 0 to 2, where 2 is coded when compelling evidence was found that peace negotiations between the targeted VNSA and other conflict parties led to a negotiated settlement to the conflict during the year under investigation. This variable takes the value of 1 when there is powerful evidence that a peace process was initiated and one or more mediator(s) and/or other conflict parties engaged in diplomatic dialogue with the sanctioned VNSA in a given year, aiming to find a political solution to the conflict. 0 is coded when no evidence was found that international actors engaged in diplomatic exchange with the targeted VNSA during the year under investigation.

9.2

Descriptive Analysis of Additional Variables

Before presenting the statistical results of what factors account for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining VNSAs, the descriptive analysis of the new factors that were identified within the framework of the two deviant case studies also reveals some interesting insights about key characteristics of the UN sanctions regimes imposed on VNSAs. The descriptive results demonstrate that sanctioned VNSAs—despite the UN sanctions regimes in place—received external support from one or more neighboring countries in over 15 percent of the sanctions years. More interestingly, the descriptive analysis discloses that 15 of the 37 rebel and terrorist movements involved in the SNSA dataset enjoyed the provision of external assistance from bordering states while being subject to UN sanctions. These findings clearly illustrate that sanctions-busting support from neighboring countries seems to be a rather widespread phenomena and that the UN Security Council should be more committed to counteracting this sanctions-busting behavior by noncompliant UN member states. Furthermore, the descriptive statistics indicate that VNSAs experienced some major internal rifts involving large-scale or high-profile defections, serious infighting and/or intra-group killings in almost 12 percent of the sanctions years, whereas instances of minor internal dissensions including small numbers of defections and/or minor intra-group disputes were reported in almost 8 percent of the sanctions years. Taking a closer look at how many of the sanctioned rebel and terrorist groups included in the SNSA dataset suffered from a lack of internal

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cohesion, it becomes apparent that over 40 percent of the VNSAs experienced internal rifts, while being targeted by UN sanctions. The descriptive analysis of the newly added contextual factors also shows that UN sanctions are part of a broader policy package and are often utilized in combination with other foreign policy instruments. Military operations that resulted in minor or even major military setbacks for the sanctioned VNSA were conducted in over 13 percent of the sanctions years. In addition to the use of military tools, international peace initiatives and mediation efforts appear to be even more frequently employed alongside UN sanctions. The descriptive results reveal that peace negotiations between the targeted VNSA and other conflict parties led to a negotiated settlement to the conflict in almost 11 percent of the sanctions years. Moreover, in 8 percent of the sanctions years, a peace process was initiated by one or more mediator(s) and/or other conflict parties engaging in diplomatic dialogue with the sanctioned VNSA.

9.3

Final Analysis of the Factors Determining UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Coercing

The following section presents the findings of my ordinal logistic regression analysis testing the various factors hypothesized to determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their proscribed behavior. The statistical results are displayed in Table 9.1. In contrast to Quantitative Analysis I, Model 1 includes not only the explanatory variables developed in the study’s theoretical framework in chapter 5, but also the factors that were identified within the scope of the deviant case study (see section 8.3.1).2 Model 2 represents the main model and introduces random effects by controlling for actor-specific as well as sanctions-regime-specific effects.

2

The variable Sanctions-busting is replaced by the variable Neighbor since Sanctionsbusting turned out to be statistically insignificant in Quantitative Analysis I and the in-depth case analysis of the UN sanctions imposed on Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement rather pointed to the importance of external assistance from neighboring countries in determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing.

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Table 9.1 Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing Model 1 Group_Structure

Model 2

1.226** (0.621)

1.183* (0.621)

Religious_Ideology

−1.329** (0.667)

−1.305* (0.667)

Regional_Sanctions

0.955 (0.730)

1.050 (0.744)

US_Sanctions

−2.272*** (0.778)

−2.303*** (0.780)

Peacekeeping

0.190 (1.090)

0.165 (1.105)

Duration

0.003 (0.005)

0.003 (0.005)

Fragmentation

0.889*** (0.324)

0.910*** (0.326)

Neighbor

−0.674 (0.666)

−0.771 (0.677)

Military

−0.511 (0.514)

−0.532 (0.521)

Mediation Observations

2.087*** (0.381)

2.144*** (0.387)

165

165

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 Model 2 comprises random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regimespecific effects. The variable Economic Impact was excluded from the analysis due to lacking variance.

Table 9.1 reveals that a target’s organizational structure is positively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. This positive relationship is statistically significant at the 5% level in Model 1 and retains its statistical significance at the 0.1 level in Model 2. This result lends some empirical support to Hypothesis 1, indicating that UN targeted sanctions, which intend to coerce VNSAs to abandon their objectionable behavior and comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council, are more likely to be effective when sanctions are applied against hierarchically organized rebel and terrorist groups.

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This finding suggests that sanctions can work better when they are directed at VNSAs with one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top of the organization. This result fits neatly with previous research attesting that hierarchically structured organizations are more susceptible to leadership targeting, while it is harder to weaken decentralized organizations (Carley et al. 2002). Especially when it comes to coercing a change in a target’s behavior, it seems to be important that sanctions issuers can easily identify the central actors, which are essential for the functioning of the targeted group, in order to implement the sanctions measures in a way that the imposition of sanctions causes major problems for the target and thus leads to concessions of the sanctioned VNSA. Yet, when graphing the predicted probabilities, it becomes apparent that the variable’s overall effect on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose is relatively small (see Figure A2 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). Reconfirming the statistical results of Quantitative Analysis I (see section 7.6.2), a group’s ideology seems to be of high importance when UN targeted sanctions seek to coerce VNSAs to alter their behavior. The religious ideology of the targeted entity has a statistically significant and negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. This negative relationship retains its statistical significance throughout both models. This finding strongly supports Hypothesis 2, indicating that coercive sanctions imposed on VNSAs with a secular ideology are more likely to be effective, while VNSAs with a religious ideology are less likely to yield to sanctions pressure. To demonstrate the significance of the relationship between a sanctioned group’s ideology and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose, predicted probabilities are generated and illustrated in Figure 9.1. It becomes apparent that the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 20 percent when coercive sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with secular demands (variable Religious Ideology is 0). Yet, when this variable is changed to 1, showing that the targeted group pursues religious demands, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome drops to 6 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are 14 percent more likely to be effective when they are applied against VNSAs with non-religious demands. Interestingly, compared to the predicted probabilities obtained in Quantitative Analysis I (see Figure 7.3), the variable’s overall effect on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose is now considerably smaller. This suggests that the inclusion of the additional variables, which were uncovered within the framework of the in-depth case study, reduced the relative importance of a target’s religious ideology in accounting for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing.

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Figure 9.1 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the sanctioned group’s ideology. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.1) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Religious Ideology varies on its range from 0 to 1)

Still, this statistical result clearly demonstrates that targeted sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council are rather inappropriate to resolve religious conflicts. Instead, UN targeted sanctions tend to be more effective when they are imposed in the context of (intra-state) conflicts in which armed groups pursue explicit nonreligious goals such as the overthrow of the incumbent regime or the protection of marginalized groups. A theoretical explanation for this finding may be that the depth of religious faith reduces a group’s willingness to compromise and agree

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on a negotiated settlement which in turn makes them less likely to acquiesce to the sender’s demands (see Hassner 2003). My finding also confirms the results of prior research showing that religious-ideological conflicts are generally much harder to solve than non-religious disputes (Svensson/Harding 2011; Svensson 2007). Table 9.1 displays that autonomous sanctions by regional organizations are positively related to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. The positive coefficient on this variable, however, does not approach statistical significance in both models. Given the lack of statistical significance, my statistical analysis does not provide empirical evidence to Hypothesis 5 and therefore confirms the result of Quantitative Analysis I. Instead, it appears that autonomous regional sanctions that go beyond existing UN sanctions and focus on vulnerabilities not addressed by UN sanctions play a rather minor role in determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their unwanted behavior. The statistical analysis of the updated SNSA dataset corroborates one of the most noteworthy findings of Quantitative Analysis I (see section 7.6.2). As Table 9.1 reveals, autonomous US sanctions have a statistically significant and negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. It is striking that the negative coefficient on this variable remains highly significant at the 0.01 level in both models. This result stands in stark contrast to Hypothesis 6 as it was assumed that additional US sanctions make UN targeted sanctions more likely to be effective by placing considerably more pressure on the targeted VNSA. My quantitative analyses, however, suggest that exactly the opposite seems to be the case. It appears that UN sanctions applied against VNSAs are less likely to be effective when they are accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. Figure 9.2 visualizes the significance of this negative relationship by presenting the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. When UN targeted sanctions are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions (variable US Sanctions is 0), the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 51 percent. However, when this variable takes the value of 1, showing that UN targeted sanctions are supplemented by autonomous US sanctions, the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome drops to 10 percent. Thus, UN sanctions with a coercive purpose have a 41 percentage points higher chance of being effective when they are not complemented by autonomous US sanctions. This finding allows for the assumption that UN sanctions regimes and simultaneously applied US sanctions rather conflict than complement each other. It is striking that the variable’s overall effect on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose even slightly increased in comparison to the

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Figure 9.2 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the simultaneous imposition of autonomous US sanctions. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.1) are held at their mean) (Only the variable US Sanctions varies on its range from 0 to 1)

predicted probabilities generated in Quantitative Analysis I (see Figure 7.4). This indicates that the inclusion of the additional variables led to an increment of the relative importance of autonomous US sanctions in negatively contributing to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. To date, existing research has speculated about the complementarity between UN sanctions and additional sanctions measures imposed by regional organizations and individual states but failed to produce empirical evidence (see Brzoska

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2015; Charron/Portela 2016). The results of my quantitative analyses highlight the importance of additional autonomous sanctions—either imposed multilaterally by regional organizations or unilaterally by individual states—as a determinant of the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Future research should therefore pay more attention to the interaction between UN sanctions regimes and concurrent sanctions measures adopted by other international actors. Another explanation for the robust and negative association between autonomous US sanctions and the success of UN targeted sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs to change their condemnable behavior may be that the United States impose additional sanctions measures that go beyond existing UN sanctions only in those cases which are extremely hard to solve. Thus, autonomous US sanctions per se may not undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions and it may rather be the complexity of the particular conflict which may explain this negative relationship. In line with the statistical results of Quantitative Analysis I, peacekeeping missions are positively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing, but this effect does not reach statistical significance in both models. Given that this finding lacks statistical significance, I need to reject Hypothesis 7 as I cannot find compelling evidence for the notion that UN targeted sanctions are more likely to be effective if they are accompanied by international peacekeeping missions. It rather appears that peacekeeping efforts do not play a decisive role in determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs to alter their proscribed behavior. Confirming the findings of Quantitative Analysis I, the statistical analysis of the updated SNSA dataset does not show any statistically significant correlation between the duration of sanctions and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their objectionable behavior. The coefficient on this variable is positive but very small. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the duration of a given UN sanctions case is of minor importance for the effective sanctioning of rebel and terrorist movements. While the presentation of the quantitative results has so far referred to factors that have already been included in Quantitative Analysis I, the following statistical findings deal with the newly added variables that were identified within the framework of previously conducted case analysis of Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement. Table 9.1 reveals that a target’s fragmentation has a statistically significant and positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. This positive effect seems to be robust as the variable retains its statistical significance at the 1% level in both models. This result offers powerful evidence for Hypothesis 8,

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indicating that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective when they target VNSAs which suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. To demonstrate the significance of the relationship between a sanctioned group’s fragmentation and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose, predicted probabilities are generated and graphed in Figure 9.3. It becomes apparent that the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 20 percent when coercive sanctions are imposed on VNSAs that experienced minor internal dissensions including small numbers of defections and/or minor intra-group disputes (variable Fragmentation is 1). More strikingly, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome even rises to 38 percent when the targeted VNSA suffered from major internal rifts involving large-scale or high-profile defections, serious infighting and/or intra-group killings (variable Fragmentation is 2). Yet, when this variable takes the value of 0, showing that the sanctioned group does not lack internal cohesion, the predicted probability of recording an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is just 9 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are up to 29 percent more likely to be effective when they are applied against VNSAs that experience some internal dissensions. This result substantiates Hypothesis 8 and the findings of the in-depth case analysis of the UN sanctions directed at Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (see section 8.3.1), suggesting that internal rifts including defections, infighting or even intra-group violence can significantly deteriorate a sanctioned group’s capacity and willingness to sustain their rebellion which in turn makes these fragmented VNSAs more susceptible to the impact of the applied sanctions measures. Particularly when it comes to UN sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs to abandon their proscribed behavior and meet the demands stated by the UN Security Council, serious fragmentation can considerably weaken a targeted group’s bargaining position vis-à-vis the international community as internal dissent deprives VNSAs of the possibility of winning the conflict militarily. Therefore, VNSAs suffering from a lack of internal cohesion are more or less compelled to yield to sanctions pressure by reaching a negotiated settlement to the conflict.3 3

Potentially, the causal relationship between a target’s fragmentation and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions may also represent an “endogeneity problem” since a target’s internal rifts may be caused by the applied UN sanctions measures. Yet, the deviant case analyses suggest that a target’s fragmentation is not provoked by the impact of sanctions, indicating that a target’s deteriorating military capacity, its ideological dissensions and internal disunity over the group’s military strategy and future orientation to other conflict parties primarily led to the fragmentation of the sanctioned VNSAs.

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Figure 9.3 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by a target’s fragmentation. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.1) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Fragmentation varies on its range from 0 to 2)

As anticipated, the provision of external support from neighboring countries is negatively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. However, the negative coefficient on this variable does not approach statistical significance in both models. Given that this effect lacks statistical significance, I should have less confidence in this result and therefore need to reject Hypothesis 9. It rather appears that there are other factors which are more important in explaining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose.

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Table 9.1 shows that extensive military operations, which are conducted against the sanctioned VNSA, have a negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. The negative coefficient on this variable, however, does not reach statistical significance in both models. Nevertheless, this negative effect is contradictory to Hypothesis 10 as it was assumed that military offensives lead to a considerable degradation of the targeted groups’ financial and military capabilities and thus make these VNSAs more vulnerable to the impact of the applied UN sanctions measures. Instead, the quantitative results suggest that military operations decrease the likelihood of a target conceding to sanctions pressure by abandoning its unwanted behavior. This negative relationship may be explained by the fact that military offensives against the sanctioned VNSA are only conducted in those cases which are extremely hard to solve. Yet, due to the lack of statistical significance, this finding should be interpreted with caution. As Table 9.1 demonstrates, international mediation efforts have a statistically significant and positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their proscribed behavior. This positive effect is highly statistically significant at the 0.01 level in both models. This result provides strong empirical support to Hypothesis 11, indicating that UN targeted sanctions that seek to persuade VNSAs to abandon their objectionable behavior and rather comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council are more likely to be effective when they are complemented by international peace initiatives and mediation efforts. Figure 9.4 visualizes the significance of this positive relationship by presenting the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. It becomes apparent that the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 38 percent when mediators and/or other conflict parties engaged in diplomatic dialogue with the sanctioned VNSA (variable Mediation is 1). More interestingly, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome even rises to 84 percent when peace negotiations between the targeted VNSA and other conflict parties led to a negotiated settlement to the conflict (variable Mediation is 2). However, when this variable is changed to 0, indicating that UN targeted sanctions are not supplemented by international mediation efforts, the predicted probability of recording an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome drops to 7 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose have a up to 77 percentage points higher chance of being effective when they are complemented by international peace initiatives and mediation efforts.

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Figure 9.4 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by simultaneously applied mediation efforts. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.1) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Mediation varies on its range from 0 to 2)

The quantitative analysis thus corroborates the finding of the in-depth case analysis of the UN sanctions directed at Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement and substantiates the assumption that diplomatic initiatives are a crucial and indispensable supplement to the imposition of sanctions. This holds true especially for coercive sanctions since they contain a voluntary aspect in the sense that targets abandon their proscribed behavior and rather comply with established international norms, even though they possibly have the capabilities to

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continue their unwanted behavior (Giumelli 2016: 46 f.). Due to this persuasive element, international mediation can significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council since persuasion can only be achieved through diplomatic exchange and negotiations with the sanctioned actor. Furthermore, this finding points to the importance of recent scholarly efforts that have started to explore the interplay of UN sanctions and mediation (Biersteker et al. 2019). In addition to the individual effect of simultaneously applied mediation efforts, it is presumed that other variables included in the model also influence the positive relationship between international peace initiatives and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their proscribed behavior. One of the factors that may boost mediation’s positive impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose is a target’s fragmentation. It is assumed that VNSAs, which lack internal cohesion and experience internal dissensions including defections, infighting or even intra-group violence, are more likely to be persuaded to acquiesce to diplomatic pressure and reach a negotiated settlement to the conflict as these internal rifts considerably weaken a targeted group’s bargaining position vis-à-vis the international community by depriving them of the possibility of winning the conflict militarily. To analyze the conditional effect of international mediation efforts and a sanctioned group’s fragmentation on the effectiveness of coercive sanctions, an interaction term between both variables is included in the random effects model (see Table A2 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). To demonstrate the significance of this interaction effect, predicted probabilities are simulated and illustrated in Figure 9.5. The graph shows that the effect of this interaction term is significantly greater than mediation’s individual impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing (see Figure 9.4). When peace negotiations between the sanctioned VNSA and other conflict parties led to a negotiated settlement to the conflict (variable Mediation is 2) and the targeted VNSA suffered from minor or even major internal dissensions (variable Fragmentation is 1 or 2), the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 88 percent and 92 percent, respectively, and thus increased by almost 10 percent compared to Figure 9.4. It is striking that the conditional effect of both variables becomes even more significant when the variable Mediation takes the value of 1, indicating that mediators and/or other conflict parties engaged in diplomatic dialogue with the sanctioned VNSA. Then the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 73 percent when the targeted group experienced major internal rifts involving large-scale or high-profile defections, serious

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Figure 9.5 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the interaction effect of international mediation efforts and a target’s fragmentation. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.1) are held at their mean) (The variables Mediation and Fragmentation interact with each other and vary on its range from 0 to 2)

infighting and/or intra-group killings (variable Fragmentation is 2). In comparison with the predicted probabilities illustrated in Figure 9.4, UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose have a 35 percentage points higher chance of being effective.

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The results clearly demonstrate that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose tend to be much more effective when they are complemented by international mediation efforts and, in addition, target VNSAs that suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. Comparing the predicted probabilities displayed in Figure 9.4 with the ones visualized in Figure 9.5, it becomes apparent that UN targeted sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs that abandon their condemnable behavior have a up to 35 percentage points higher chance of being effective when mediators engage in diplomatic dialogue with fragmented VNSAs. This finding suggests that international mediation represents a promising supplement to the application of sanctions, particularly when UN targeted sanctions are directed at VNSAs which experience serious fragmentation. While the interaction between international peace initiatives and a sanctioned group’s fragmentation is found to considerably enhance mediation’s positive impact on the success of coercive sanctions, a target’s organizational structure may also positively affect the relationship between international mediation and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. It is assumed that mediation efforts targeting hierarchically organized VNSAs, which have one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top of the organization, tend to be more successful since mediators can easily identify a group’s leading figures with which they can negotiate over a settlement to the conflict. Moreover, once an agreement with a hierarchically structured VNSA is reached, it is more likely to be fully implemented as the group’s central figures have the authority of enforcing the negotiations’ outcome and preventing group members from violating the agreement. In order to assess the conditional effect of internal mediation efforts and a target’s organizational structure on the effectiveness of coercive sanctions, an interaction term between both variables is included in the random effects model (see Table A2 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). Figure 9.6 reveals the significance of this interaction effect by showing the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. It becomes apparent that the effect of this interaction term is significantly greater than mediation’s individual impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose (see Figure 9.4). When peace negotiations between the sanctioned VNSA and other conflict parties led to a negotiated settlement to the conflict (variable Mediation is 2) and the targeted VNSA is hierarchically organized (variable Group Structure is 1), the predicted probability of recording an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 94 percent and thus increased by 10 percent compared to Figure 9.4. When the variable Mediation is changed to 1, indicating that mediators and/or other conflict parties engaged in diplomatic dialogue with the sanctioned VNSA,

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Figure 9.6 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing by the interaction effect of international mediation efforts and a target’s organizational structure. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.1) are held at their mean) (The variables Mediation and Group Structure interact with each other. The variable Mediation varies on its range from 0 to 2. The variable Group Structure varies on its range from 0 to 1)

the interaction effect of both variables becomes even slightly more significant. Boosting mediation’s positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in

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coercing by 16 percent compared to Figure 9.4, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 54 percent when sanctions are imposed on hierarchically structured VNSAs. The results displayed in Figure 9.6 demonstrate that UN targeted sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs to change their unwanted behavior have a significantly higher chance of being effective when mediators engage in diplomatic dialogue with VNSAs with a hierarchical structure. This finding suggests that international mediation constitutes a promising supplement to the imposition of sanctions, especially when UN targeted sanctions are applied against hierarchically organized VNSAs which have one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top of the organization. In sum, the ordinal logistic regression analysis of the updated SNSA dataset produced two major empirical insights. First, the statistical analysis validated the most significant results reported in Quantitative Analysis I, demonstrating that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. Interestingly, whereas a target’s organizational structure did not reach statistical significance in Quantitative Analysis I (see section 7.6.2 and Table 7.1), the positive coefficient on this variable now turned out to be statistically significant in both models suggesting that UN targeted sanctions with coercive purpose are more likely to be effective when they are applied against hierarchically organized VNSAs. Secondly, the quantitative results corroborated the importance of some additional factors that were identified within the framework of the previously conducted in-depth case study on Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement. The statistical analysis revealed that a target’s fragmentation as well as simultaneously applied mediation efforts are highly statistically significant and thus can be considered as general determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their objectionable behavior. Particularly when UN targeted sanctions are directed at VNSAs that are hierarchically structured and suffer from a lack of internal cohesion, international mediation efforts can considerably contribute to the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose. However, other factors that were hypothesized to account for the effectiveness of coercive sanctions received ambiguous and less robust statistical support.

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Final Analysis of the Factors Determining UN Targeted Sanctions’ Effectiveness in Constraining

This section presents the findings of my ordinal logistic regression analysis testing the various factors hypothesized to determine UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities. The statistical results are illustrated in Table 9.2. Model 1 includes the explanatory variables developed in the study’s theoretical framework (see chapter 5) as well as the additional factors that were identified within the scope of the previously conducted in-depth case analysis of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab (see section 8.3.2). Model 2 represents the main model and comprises random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects. As Table 9.2 reveals, a target’s organizational structure has a positive impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose, suggesting that UN sanctions, which attempt to thwart a target’s ability to continue its objectionable activities, are more likely to be effective when they are applied against hierarchically organized VNSAs. However, this positive effect does not approach statistical significance in both models and I thus need to reject Hypothesis 1. Moreover, this finding contradicts the statistical results of Quantitative Analysis I, showing that a target’s organizational structure is negatively related to the effectiveness of constraining sanctions. Though, given that this variable lacks statistical significance in all regression models, it appears that a target’s organizational structure does not play an important role in accounting for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Reconfirming the empirical results of Quantitative Analysis I (see section 7.6.3), a targeted group’s ideology seems to be of high importance when UN sanctions intend to constrain VNSAs in their ability to engage in their proscribed activities. Table 9.2 demonstrates that the religious ideology of the sanctioned entity is statistically significant and negatively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. The negative coefficient on this variable retains its statistical significance at the 5% level when controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects (see Model 2). This finding lends strong statistical support to Hypothesis 2, indicating that UN sanctions a directed at VNSAs with secular demands tend to be more effective, while VNSAs with religious ideology are less likely to be constrained by the applied sanctions measures.

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Table 9.2 Ordinal Logistic Regression Analysis of the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining Model 1

Model 2

0.233 (0.394)

0.238 (0.603)

Religious_Ideology

−0.979** (0.466)

−1.782** (0.820)

Economic_Impact

1.079 (0.766)

0.948 (0.881)

Regional_Sanctions

0.052 (0.425)

−0.284 (0.611)

Group_Structure

US_Sanctions Peacekeeping Duration Fragmentation Neighbor Military Observations

−1.387*** (0.530)

−1.120 (0.744)

0.050 (0.592)

−0.155 (0.999)

−0.002 (0.004)

0.001 (0.005)

0.214 (0.267)

0.288 (0.302)

−0.825 (0.579)

−1.094 (0.694)

0.821** (0.326)

0.906** (0.374)

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216

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 Model 2 introduces random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regimespecific effects.

Figure 9.7 visualizes this assumption by showing the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. When constraining sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with a secular ideology (variable Religious Ideology is 0), the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 33 percent. However, when this variable is changed to 1, indicating that the targeted VNSA pursues religious demands, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome drops to 8 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are 25 percent

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more likely to be effective when they are directed at VNSAs with non-religious demands. This finding conforms to the statistical results of Quantitative Analysis I. Interestingly, compared to the predicted probabilities obtained in the previously conducted quantitative analysis (see Figure 7.5), the variable’s overall effect on the probability of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining only changed slightly. This suggests that the relative importance of a target’s religious ideology in determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose remained constant despite the inclusion of the additional variables which were uncovered within the framework of the deviant case study. Furthermore, this finding coincides with the quantitative results for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose. This allows for the assumption that UN sanctions—irrespective of their specific purpose—represent a rather inappropriate foreign policy tool to resolve religious conflicts. Instead, UN targeted sanctions tend to be more effective when they are imposed within the scope of (intra-state) conflicts in which armed groups pursue explicit nonreligious goals such as the overthrow of the incumbent regime or the protection of marginalized groups. A theoretical explanation for this finding may be that the depth of religious faith—regardless of the difficulties caused by the imposition of sanctions—enhances a target’s willingness to sustain rebellion which in turn reduces the likelihood that UN sanctions are able to effectively constrain VNSAs with an explicit religious agenda. My empirical results are also in line with prior research, attesting that religious-ideological conflicts are generally much harder to solve than non-religious disputes (Svensson/Harding 2011; Svensson 2007). In accordance with the expectation, sanctions’ direct economic impact is positively related to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. The positive effect, however, does not reach statistical significance in both models. Since the positive coefficient on this variable lacks statistical significance, I should have less confidence in this result and therefore need to reject Hypothesis 3. Whereas Quantitative Analysis I revealed that this variable has a strong and statistically significant effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining (see Figure 7.6), the positive association between UN sanctions’ direct economic impact and their effectiveness in constraining now receives less robust statistical support. Given the lack of statistical significance, it rather appears that the inclusion of the additional variables, which were detected within the framework of the in-depth case study, reduced the variable’s relative importance in accounting for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their objectionable activities.

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Figure 9.7 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the sanctioned group’s ideology. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.2) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Religious Ideology varies on its range from 0 to 1)

Table 9.2 displays that autonomous sanctions by regional organizations are statistically insignificant when it comes to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Moreover, this relationship is apparently not clear-cut. While Model 1 indicates that the imposition of additional regional sanctions is positively associated with the success of constraining sanctions, the coefficient on this variable turns negative when comprising random effects (see Model 2). Due to this inconsistent and statistically insignificant finding, my statistical analysis

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does not provide empirical support to Hypothesis 5 and thus concurs well with the results of Quantitative Analysis I, disclosing an ambiguous and insignificant association between autonomous sanctions by regional organizations and the effectiveness of constraining sanctions. The quantitative findings rather suggest that the effectiveness of UN sanctions intending to constrain VNSAs is not necessarily dependent upon additional regional sanctions and that there are other factors which are more important in contributing to the success of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. Whereas autonomous sanctions imposed by regional organizations are found to have a statistically insignificant impact on the effectiveness of constraining sanctions, autonomous US sanctions turn out to be statistically significant at the 1% level and negatively associated with UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their condemnable activities (see Model 1). However, as Model 2 demonstrates, the statistical significance of this negative effect disappears when controlling for actor-specific and sanctionsregime-specific effects.4 Even though the negative coefficient on this variable loses its statistical significance in the main model, the results are in direct contradiction to Hypothesis 6, indicating that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are less likely to be effective when they are accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. This finding conforms to the statistical results generated in Quantitative Analysis I (see Table 7.2 and Figure A1) as well as for UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose that also revealed a negative association between autonomous US sanctions and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. Yet, it remains unclear whether these results suggest that concurrent US sanctions rather conflict than complement existing UN sanctions or whether it may be the complexity of the particular conflict which may explain this negative relationship. As Table 9.2 illustrates, international peacekeeping missions have a statistically insignificant effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Furthermore, the relationship seems to be ambiguous. While Model 1 shows that international peacekeeping missions are positively associated with the effectiveness of constraining sanctions, the coefficient on this variable turns negative when 4

It is important to note that the variable US Sanctions almost reaches statistical significance in Model 2 with a p-value of 0.13. Thus, the variable’s negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining should not be underestimated. Figure A3 in the Electronic Supplementary Material illustrates this negative relationship by displaying the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. It becomes apparent that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose have a 22 percentage points higher chance of being effective when they are not complemented by autonomous US sanctions.

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controlling for random effects (see Model 2). Due to this inconsistent and statistically insignificant finding, the quantitative analysis does not offer compelling evidence to Hypothesis 7. Since Quantitative Analysis I also revealed that this variable is insignificantly related to the effectiveness of constraining sanctions, it rather appears that international peacekeeping missions are not of high importance when UN targeted sanctions seek to constrain VNSAs in their ability to pursue their proscribed activities. Confirming the finding of Quantitative Analysis I, the statistical analysis of the updated SNSA dataset does not show any statistically significant correlation between the duration of sanctions and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Moreover, the coefficient on this variable is negative in Model 1 and turns positive in the main model. Given that the variable’s effect is inconsistent and statistically insignificant, it is reasonable to assume that the duration of a given UN sanctions case is of minor importance for the effective sanctioning of rebel and terrorist movements. The presentation of the quantitative results has so far referred to factors that have already been included in Quantitative Analysis I. The subsequent findings now deal with the newly added variables that were identified within the framework of previously conducted deviant case analysis of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab. Table 9.2 demonstrates that a target’s fragmentation has a positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. This positive relationship conforms to the expectation, substantiating the assumption that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are more likely to be effective when they are directed at VNSAs which suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. However, the positive coefficient on this variable does not approach statistical significance in both models. Given the lack of statistical significance, this result should be treated with caution and I therefore need to reject Hypothesis 8. Despite the positive coefficient on this variable, the quantitative analysis does not lend statistical support to the findings of the in-depth case analysis of the UN sanctions applied against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab (see section 8.3.2), indicating that internal rifts including defections, infighting or even intra-group violence can significantly deteriorate a sanctioned group’s military capacity which in turn makes these fragmented VNSAs more susceptible to be constrained in their ability to continue their condemnable activities. Moreover, this finding considerably differs from the quantitative results for UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose, which found that a target’s fragmentation has a statistically significant and positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’

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effectiveness in coercing (see Figure 9.3). When it comes to constraining sanctions, however, the statistical results rather suggest that a target’s fragmentation does not play an important role in determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their condemnable activities. In line with the expectation, the provision of external support from neighboring countries is negatively associated with the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. This result substantiates the empirical finding of the in-depth case study, showing that external assistance from bordering countries enables VNSAs to quickly cope with the impact of sanctions and thus reduces the likelihood of a target yielding to sanctions pressure. However, the negative coefficient on this variable barely falls short of reaching statistical significance in both models.5 Given that the negative effect of this variable lacks statistical significance, I should have less confidence in this result and therefore need to reject Hypothesis 9. Instead, it appears that there are other factors that are more important in contributing to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Table 9.2 reveals that extensive military operations that are conducted against the sanctioned VNSA have a statistically significant and positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. This positive effect turns out to be statistically significant at the 5% level in both models. This result offers compelling evidence for Hypothesis 10 as it was assumed that military offensives lead to a considerable degradation of the targeted groups’ financial and military capabilities and thus make the sanctioned VNSAs more vulnerable to the impact of the applied UN sanctions measures. To demonstrate the significance of this positive relationship between military operations conducted against the target and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose, predicted probabilities are generated and visualized in Figure 9.8. It becomes apparent that the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 32 percent when the sanctioned VNSA experienced minor military setbacks resulting in slight

5

The variable Neighbor almost approaches statistical significance in Model 2 with a p-value of 0.11. Thus, the variable’s negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining should not be underestimated. Figure A4 in the Electronic Supplementary Material visualizes this negative relationship by showing the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. It becomes apparent that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are 13 percent more likely to be effective when the sanctioned VNSA does not receive external support from neighboring countries.

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losses of combatants, territory and/or revenue (variable Military is 1). More interestingly, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome even rises to 53 percent when the targeted VNSA suffered from major military setbacks involving heavy losses of combatants, territory and/or revenue (variable Military is 2). However, when this variable is changed to 0, indicating that no successful military offensives were conducted against the target, the predicted probability of recording an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is just 16 percent. Thus, UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose have a up to 37 percentage points higher chance of being effective when they are complemented by military operations against the sanctioned VNSA. The quantitative analysis therefore corroborates the finding of the deviant case analysis of the UN sanctions directed at Somalia’s Al-Shabaab and substantiates the assumption that military operations are a crucial supplement to the imposition of sanctions. This holds true especially for constraining sanctions since they intend to prevent the target from continuing its condemnable behavior by restricting its access to essential resources needed to engage in its proscribed activity (Giumelli 2011: 34). For this purpose, military offensives against the target can considerably contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by causing serious difficulties to the sanctioned VNSA including the loss of personnel, territory, and revenue. This finding concurs well with the results by previous empirical studies, demonstrating that the loss of territory and income opportunities can force rebel groups to end their fighting or retreat into a smaller-scaled insurgency (Radtke/Jo 2018). In addition to the individual effect of simultaneously applied military operations, it is presumed that other variables included in the model also influence the relationship between military offensives and UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. One of the factors that may boost military operations’ positive impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose is sanctions’ direct economic impact on the target. It is assumed that when the economic costs caused by the application of sanctions are substantial and thus create significant financial and material difficulties to the sanctioned VNSAs, military operations conducted against these VNSAs are more likely to result in serious military setbacks as sanctions’ direct economic impact should have already diminished the target’s military strength. Military offensives can therefore lead to a considerable degradation of the sanctioned groups’ military capabilities especially when the targets are already debilitated by the applied UN sanctions measures and this combined impairment is expected to significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities.

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Figure 9.8 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by military operations conducted against the sanctioned group. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.2) are held at their mean) (Only the variable Military varies on its range from 0 to 2)

To evaluate the conditional effect of military operations and sanctions’ direct economic impact on the effectiveness of constraining sanctions, an interaction term between both variables is included in the random effects model (see Table A3 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). To demonstrate the significance of this interaction effect, predicted probabilities are generated and illustrated in Figure 9.9. The graph reveals that the effect of this interaction term is significantly greater than military operations’ individual impact on UN targeted sanctions’

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effectiveness in constraining (see Figure 9.8). When the targeted VNSA suffered from major military setbacks that resulted from military offensives against the group (variable Military is 2) and the applied UN sanctions measures caused significant economic problems for the target (variable Economic Impact is 1), the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 88 percent and thus increased by about 35 percent compared to Figure 9.8. When the variable Military is changed to 1, indicating that the sanctioned VNSA experienced minor military setbacks as a result of military operations against the group, and the variable Economic Impact continues to take the value of 1, the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 44 percent and thus raised by 12 percent compared to Figure 9.8. The quantitative results emerged from this interaction term clearly demonstrate that UN targeted sanctions seeking to constrain VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities have a significantly higher chance of being effective when military offensives are conducted against sanctioned VNSAs that already suffer from the economic impact provoked by the imposed UN sanctions measures. This finding suggests that targeted military operations represent a promising supplement to the imposition of sanctions, especially when UN targeted sanctions manage to cause financial and material difficulties to the targeted VNSA. While the interaction between military offensives and sanctions’ direct economic impact is found to considerably augment military operations’ positive impact on the success of constraining sanctions, a target’s organizational structure may also affect the positive relationship between military offensives and the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. Building upon previous empirical research on leadership targeting (Johnston 2012; Price 2012; Tiernay 2015), it is assumed that VNSAs with a hierarchical structure are more vulnerable to military operations as the functioning of these hierarchically organized groups is very much dependent upon their central figures. Thus, when military offensives succeed in arresting or killing these groups’ leaders, the likelihood of military operations causing major difficulties or even organizational collapse and thus contributing to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining these VNSAs in their ability to pursue their objectionable activities significantly increases. To analyze the conditional effect of military operations and a target’s organizational structure on the effectiveness of constraining sanctions, the random effects model introduces an interaction term between both variables (see Table

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Figure 9.9 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the interaction effect of targeted military operations and sanctions’ direct economic impact on the target. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.2) are held at their mean) (The variables Military and Economic Impact interact with each other. The variable Military varies on its range from 0 to 2. The variable Economic Impact varies on its range from 0 to 1)

A3 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). Figure 9.10 reveals the significance of this interaction effect by showing the predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. It becomes apparent that the effect of this interaction term is significantly greater than military operations’ individual impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining (see

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Figure 9.8). When military offensives resulted in major military setbacks for the sanctioned group (variable Military is 2) and the targeted VNSA is hierarchically organized (variable Group Structure is 1), the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 68 percent. In comparison with Figure 9.8, UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose thus have a 15 percentage points higher chance of being effective. It is striking that when the targeted VNSA is a decentralized organization consisting of loosely independent clusters, which operate autonomously within a group (variable Group Structure is 0), and military operations caused major military setbacks for the sanctioned entity (variable Military is 2), the predicted probability of discovering an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is just 26 percent. This finding clearly demonstrates that VNSAs with a distributed organizational structure are less vulnerable to targeted military operations as the functioning of these armed movements is not dependent upon certain individuals or units within the group. These results indicate that UN targeted sanctions seeking to constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities have a significantly higher chance of being effective when military offensives are conducted against sanctioned VNSAs that are hierarchically structured and have one or several easily identifiable leader(s) sitting at the top of the organization. This suggests that simultaneously applied military operations represent a promising supplement to the imposition of sanctions, particularly when UN targeted sanctions are directed at VNSAs with a hierarchical structure. In addition to sanctions’ direct economic impact and a target’s organizational structure, it may be reasonable to assume that a target’s fragmentation also boosts military operations’ positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. When VNSAs experience some internal dissensions including defections, infighting or even intra-group violence, it is expected that these internal rifts considerably deteriorate the targets’ military capabilities which in turn increases the likelihood that military offensives succeed in weakening these fragmented groups and thus significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining these VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities. To assess the conditional effect of military operations and a sanctioned group’s fragmentation on the effectiveness of constraining sanctions, an interaction term between both variables is included in the random effects model (see Table A3 in the Electronic Supplementary Material). To demonstrate the significance of this interaction effect, predicted probabilities are simulated and illustrated in

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Figure 9.10 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the interaction effect of targeted military operations and a target’s organizational structure. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.2) are held at their mean) (The variables Military and Group Structure interact with each other. The variable Military varies on its range from 0 to 2. The variable Group Structure varies on its range from 0 to 1)

Figure 9.11. The graph reveals that the effect of this interaction term is significantly greater than military operations’ individual impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining (see Figure 9.8). When military offensives caused major military setbacks for the sanctioned VNSA (variable Military

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is 2) and the targeted VNSA experienced minor or even major internal dissensions (variable Fragmentation is 1 or 2), the predicted probability of observing an effective or partly effective sanctions outcome is 59 percent and 72 percent, respectively, and thus increased by 6 to 19 percent compared to Figure 9.8. The results clearly demonstrate that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose have a considerably higher chance of being effective when they are supplemented by military operations and, in addition, applied against VNSAs that suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. Comparing the predicted probabilities displayed in Figure 9.8 with the ones visualized in Figure 9.11, it becomes apparent that UN targeted sanctions seeking to constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities have a up to 19 percentage points higher chance of being effective when military offensives are conducted against VNSAs that experience serious fragmentation. This suggests that military operations represent a promising supplement to the application of sanctions, especially when UN targeted sanctions are imposed on VNSAs which suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. In sum, the ordinal logistic regression analysis of the updated SNSA dataset reconfirmed the most significant results of Quantitative Analysis I and additionally pointed to the importance of some other factors that were identified within the framework of the previously conducted deviant case study. The statistical analysis revealed that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied sanctions measures are complemented by extensive military operations conducted against the sanctioned VNSA. Particularly when UN targeted sanctions inflict substantial economic costs on the target and are directed at VNSAs that are hierarchically structured and suffer from a lack of internal cohesion, military offensives can considerably contribute to the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. Moreover, the individual effect of autonomous US sanctions and the provision of external assistance from neighboring countries on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining should not be underestimated, even though these variables do not approach statistical significance in the main model when controlling for random effects. Other factors that were hypothesized to determine the effectiveness of constraining sanctions receive inconsistent and less robust statistical support. Overall, whereas Quantitative Analysis I indicated that the variables determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing do not differ considerably from those factors that make UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose work, this final statistical analysis of the updated SNSA dataset revealed that

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Figure 9.11 Predicted probabilities on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by the interaction effect of targeted military operations and a target’s fragmentation. (Note: Predicted probabilities are calculated while all variables in Model 2 (Table 9.2) are held at their mean) (The variables Military and Fragmentation interact with each other and vary on its range from 0 to 2)

the determinants can vary significantly depending on whether UN targeted sanctions seek to coerce or constrain VNSAs. Irrespective of the specific purpose they serve, the final quantitative results presented in this chapter clearly showed that the ideology of a sanctioned group is generally of high importance for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs, suggesting that UN targeted sanctions tend to be much more effective when they are applied against VNSAs with non-religious

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demands, while UN sanctions appear to be a rather ineffective tool to target VNSAs with an explicit religious agenda. Nevertheless, this final quantitative analysis also highlighted important differences across the two diverging purposes of sanctions. The statistical analysis demonstrated that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs that are hierarchically organized and suffer from a lack of internal cohesion, if the applied UN sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions and if the UN sanctions measures are supplemented by international mediation efforts. On the contrary, when UN targeted sanctions intend to constrain VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities, sanctions were found to be more effective when they are supplemented by targeted military operations conducted against the sanctioned VNSA.

9.5

Testing the Robustness of the Quantitative Results

To assess the robustness of my quantitative results, I re-estimate my statistical models with two alternative techniques. First, a “groupwise jackknife test” is employed which estimates six new regression models deleting observations from one UN sanctions regime at a time until all observations included in the SNSA dataset have been excluded once. In addition to this jackknife robustness method, an explanatory variable test is conducted by appending additional control variables to the regression models. The jackknife robustness test checks whether the results obtained in the baseline model remain robust to plausible changes in model specification and thus reduces the uncertainty about the baseline model’s estimated effect sizes if the robustness test models find similar point estimates with similar p-values for the explanatory variables of interest. This study employs a “groupwise jackknife test” which examines whether the regression results from the baseline model are robust to excluding one set of observations grouped together by a certain criterion—in the case at hand, observations belonging to a certain UN sanctions regime. In doing so, this method produces “jackknifed” estimates for each predictor variable included in the model (Neumayer/Plümper 2017: 58 f., 96, 163). The SNSA dataset comprises observations from 11 different UN sanctions regimes. To check the robustness of my statistical results, six new regression models for each of the two dependent variables are estimated. Model 1 excludes all

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observations from the Al-Qaida/ISIL and the Taliban regime.6 Model 2 drops all observations belonging to the Democratic Republic of the Congo regime, while Model 3 eliminates all observations from the UN sanctions regime against Sudan. Whereas Model 4 removes all observations from the Central African Republic regime, Model 5 deletes all observations from the UN sanctions against Somalia. Model 6 then drops all observations that have not been eliminated so far. These include observations belonging to the UN sanctions regimes against the Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Angola, Sierra Leone, and Yemen. Each of these UN sanctions regimes comprises less than eight observations and is therefore “jackknifed” in one single model. Table 9.3 reports the statistical results of the jackknife robustness test for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their proscribed behavior. It becomes apparent that the determining factors identified in Quantitative Analysis II (see Table 9.1)—a target’s organizational structure and fragmentation, the religious ideology of the sanctioned VNSA, autonomous US sanctions as well as simultaneously applied mediation efforts—retain their statistical significance and are nearly identical in substantive magnitude compared to the baseline model.7 In other words, my quantitative findings for UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose seem to be robust to the influence (presence or absence) of individual UN sanctions regimes. Table 9.4 displays the six different regression models emerged from the jackknife robustness test for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities. The results indicate that the core factors for which Quantitative Analysis II (see Table 9.2) found consistent statistical support—a target’s religious ideology and military operations conducted against the sanctioned VNSA—remain statistically significant throughout all six models.8 Therefore, my statistical results for UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose also proved to be robust to model specifications

6

These VNSAs had long been targeted by a single UN sanctions regime. In 2011, however, the UN Security Council formally divided this sanctions regime into two separate sanctions regimes. Since then UN sanctions regime 1989 targets Al-Qaida and ISIL, while UN sanctions regime 1988 is directed at the Taliban. Due to this historic interrelationship, observations belonging to these two different sanctions regimes can be grouped together and are thus “jackknifed” in one single model. 7 Only the variables Group Structure and Fragmentation in Model 3 differ from the estimated effects in Table 9.1. 8 Only the variables Religious Ideology in Model 6 and Military in Model 2 do not reach statistical significance.

−2.482*** (0.822) 0.229 (1.186)

−2.747*** (0.884) −1.668 (1.529)

0.957 (1.270) 0.011 (0.008) 0.868* (0.469) −0.760 (0.950) −0.667 (0.735)

−2.153*** (0.782)

23.927 (68.49)

−0.001 (0.005)

0.833** (0.345)

−0.766 (0.695)

−0.669 (0.634)

US_Sanctions

Peacekeeping

Duration

Fragmentation

Neighbor

Military

−3.258** (1.496)

1.451 (1.120)

0.964 (0.758)

−0.233 (0.609)

−0.569 (0.941)

0.225 (0.455)

0.010 (0.005)

−0.589 (0.552)

−1.137 (0.783)

1.233*** (0.362)

−0.001 (0.005)

1.003 (0.811)

−1.401* (0.823)

Regional_Sanctions

−2.447** (0.951)

−2.316** (1.082)

−1.286* (0.669)

1.195* (0.711)

−0.750 (0.769)

Religious_Ideology

Model 4

Model 3

3.150*** (1.051)

Model 2

1.207* (0.627)

Group_Structure

Model 1

−0.482 (0.512)

−0.598 (0.663)

0.852*** (0.323)

0.003 (0.005)

0.323 (1.102)

−2.597*** (0.861)

0.893 (0.732)

−1.167* (0.668)

1.246** (0.617)

Model 5

Table 9.3 Jackknife Robustness Test of the factors determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing

9 (continued)

−0.582 (0.532)

−1.115 (0.714)

0.859** (0.343)

0.001 (0.005)

−0.890 (1.233)

−1.784** (0.860)

1.216 (0.786)

−1.160* (0.671)

1.240* (0.636)

Model 6

146 Quantitative Analysis II

156

2.179*** (0.416)

Model 1

82

2.607*** (0.561)

Model 2

119

1.632*** (0.502)

Model 3

151

2.431*** (0.442)

Model 4

160

2.061*** (0.388)

Model 5

157

2.345*** (0.437)

Model 6

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 All models introduce random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects. The variable Economic Impact was excluded from the analysis due to lacking variance. Model 2 does not show a value for the variable Regional Sanctions since this variable was excluded from the model due to lacking variance.

Observations

Mediation

Table 9.3 (continued)

9.5 Testing the Robustness of the Quantitative Results 147

−0.516 (1.088)

−0.999 (0.705)

0.938** (0.430)

Neighbor

Military 131

0.457 (0.512)

170

1.992*** (0.492)

202

0.926** (0.371)

−1.178* (0.685)

201

0.669* (0.404)

−1.219 (0.802)

0.178 (0.332)

0.004 (0.005)

−0.425 (1.261)

−1.381* (0.821)

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 All models introduce random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regime-specific effects.

177

−0.315 (0.426)

0.246 (0.430)

0.427 (0.309)

Fragmentation

Observations

0.311 (0.304)

−0.007 (0.005)

0.001 (0.006)

Duration

−0.891 (0.787)

−0.246 (0.657)

0.886 (1.101)

−1.841* (0.999)

0.238 (0.665)

Model 5

199

0.758** (0.382)

−1.322* (0.791)

0.550* (0.319)

−0.001 (0.005)

−0.059 (1.049)

−0.210 (1.097)

0.230 (0.627)

0.446 (0.939)

−1.049 (0.794)

0.190 (0.629)

Model 6

9

−0.772 (0.793)

−0.001 (0.005)

0.193 (1.174)

−1.668 (1.917)

0.088 (1.662)

Peacekeeping 0.022** (0.010)

0.173 (0.989)

−0.824 (0.743)

−2.075 (1.503)

−1.368* (0.739)

US_Sanctions

−0.507 (0.617

−1.008 (1.110)

−2.336 (1.539)

Regional_Sanctions

0.900 (0.861)

−1.569* (0.822)

0.144 (0.684)

2.022 (1.356)

Economic_Impact

−1.999*** (0.724)

−0.055 (0.608)

−1.021* (0.545)

0.511 (0.903)

−4.538** (2.034)

−1.645** (0.769)

Religious_Ideology

Model 4

Model 3

2.181* (1.117)

2.849* (1.539)

0.333 (0.635)

Model 2

Group_Structure

Model 1

Table 9.4 Jackknife Robustness Test of the factors determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining

148 Quantitative Analysis II

9.5 Testing the Robustness of the Quantitative Results

149

verifying that my quantitative results are not driven by the impact of single UN sanctions regimes. In addition to the jackknife robustness test introduced above, an explanatory variable test is conducted by adding additional control variables to the baseline model. This robustness check enables me to explore the stability of my statistical results obtained in Quantitative Analysis II toward plausible changes to the set of predictor variables included in the previous analysis. An explanatory variable test therefore should append those control variables to the baseline model which are suspected to have a causal effect on the dependent variable (Neumayer/Plümper 2017: 130–133). So far I have been uncertain whether other contextual factors that refer to certain features of the targeted country and underlying conflict, in which the sanctioned VNSA operates, have a significant impact on the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. Given this uncertainty, classical drivers of conflict discussed in the literature have been left out of the prior quantitative analysis. In theory, however, it may be reasonable to assume that some conflict-related factors may influence the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. One of these contextual factors that possibly impacts the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs is the level of corruption in the targeted country. When the level of corruption in the country, in which the sanctioned VNSA operates, is high, it is expected that the targeted group can easily find ways to evade and cope with the impact of the applied sanctions measures which in turn should significantly undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. Besides the level of corruption, it is presumed that a country’s economic growth may represent another crucial factor affecting the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Previous research found that poverty plays a major role in conflict and societies suffering from poverty are more susceptible to experience civil wars (Collier/Hoeffler 2002; Fearon/Laitin 2003). With regard to the effectiveness of sanctions, it is assumed that ongoing poverty enhances the willingness of VNSAs to sustain rebellion and continue their objectionable activities which in turn should diminish the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. In addition to a country’s level of corruption and economic growth, the strength of a country’s armed forces is also expected to account for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. It is hypothesized that countries with a strong military force are better able to counter the proscribed behavior of the sanctioned VNSA and thus can considerably enhance the prospects of UN sanctions success. Data on these three additional control variables was retrieved from the World Bank and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project. Detailed information

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on the coding of these variables can be found in the codebook attached in the Electronic Supplementary Material. Table 9.5 showcases the results of my ordinal logistic regression analysis when the three control variables are included in the random effects model. Model 1 presents the statistical findings for UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing, while Model 2 displays the regression results for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. Model 1 reveals that the determinants of the effectiveness of coercive sanctions that were identified in Quantitative Analysis II (see Table 9.1)—a target’s organizational structure and fragmentation, the religious ideology of the sanctioned VNSA, autonomous US sanctions as well as simultaneously applied mediation efforts—generally retain their statistical significance and are nearly identical in substantive magnitude compared to the baseline model. Only the variable Religious Ideology barely falls short of reaching statistical significance with a p-value of 0.12.9 Interestingly, a country’s military strength (variable Army) and its level of corruption (variable Corruption) turn out to be statistically significant. These variables work in the expected direction, suggesting that countries with a strong military force are better able to counter the condemnable behavior of the sanctioned VNSA and thus can significantly contribute to the effective sanctioning of VNSAs, while a country’s high level of corruption can considerably undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. The statistical results presented in Model 2 show that the factors determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions which intend to constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities—a target’s religious ideology and military operations conducted against the sanctioned VNSA—remain statistically significant and thus prove to be robust to the inclusion of additional control variables. Furthermore, the variables US Sanctions and Neighbor now turn statistically significant at the 0.1 level when adding the additional control variables to the model.10 In contrast to the quantitative results for coercive sanctions, the control variables do not approach statistical significance. 9

Moreover, in contrast to the random effects model in Quantitative Analysis II, the variable Regional Sanctions becomes statistically significant at the 0.1 level when appending the additional control variables to the model. However, it is important to note that this variable only barely missed statistical significance in the final quantitative analysis (see Table 9.1) with a p-value of 0.15. 10 The variables US Sanctions and Neighbor barely fell short of reaching statistical significance in the main model in Quantitative Analysis II (see Table 9.2) with a p-value of 0.13 and 0.11, respectively. Nevertheless, as already mentioned in the previous section, their impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining should not be underestimated.

9.5 Testing the Robustness of the Quantitative Results

151

Table 9.5 Explanatory variable (robustness) test of the factors determining UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing and constraining Model 1 Coercing Group_Structure Religious_Ideology

1.330** (0.672) −1.089 (0.704)

Economic_Impact Regional_Sanctions US_Sanctions

Model 2 Constraining 0.401 (0.593) −1.466* (0.818) 1.164 (0.952)

3.238* (1.661)

0.214 (0.770)

−2.968*** (0.981)

−1.308* (0.753)

Peacekeeping

2.025 (2.554)

0.253 (1.152)

Duration

0.003 (0.005)

−0.002 (0.006)

Fragmentation

0.797** (0.340)

0.313 (0.301)

Neighbor

−1.121 (0.721)

1.157* (0.691)

Military

−0.346 (0.534)

0.891** (0.388)

Mediation GDP Army Corruption Observations

2.376*** (0.449) −0.144 (0.090) 1.674** (0.739) −11.073* (5.984) 165

−0.019 (0.025) −0.494 (0.349) −2.854 (4.287) 216

Comments: Robust standard errors in parentheses. * = p < 0.1; ** = p < 0.05; *** = p < 0.01 Both models introduce random effects by controlling for actor-specific and sanctions-regimespecific effects. Model 1 does not include the variable Economic Impact due to lacking variance.

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Overall, the results of the two different robustness tests demonstrated that the factors determining the effective sanctioning of VNSAs that were identified in Quantitative Analysis II generally remain highly robust to alternative estimation techniques. In the “jackknifed” models reported in Table 9.3 and Table 9.4, my quantitative findings proved to be robust to the exclusion of observations from any single UN sanctions regime. Furthermore, the explanatory variable test showed that my statistical results did not change significantly when the covariance structure of my ordinal logistic regression model was changed by adding additional control variables to the baseline model.

Conclusion

10

The concluding chapter of this book is subdivided into two different parts. The first part summarizes the empirical findings of this study and reflects on some potential gaps for subsequent research. In the second part, I discuss the implications of my empirical results and develop some policy recommendations with respect to the design and implementation of future UN sanctions regimes applied against VNSAs.

10.1

Empirical Findings and Gaps for Future Research

In the last decades, violent non-state actors (VNSAs) such as rebel and terrorist organizations have proved their capacity to break international law. The international community, particularly the United Nations, has reacted to this development by redirecting its conflict resolution efforts to these non-state entities. This has turned targeted sanctions into one of the most vital and indispensable tools available to the UN Security Council in combating terrorism and contributing to the peaceful resolution of violent (intra-state) conflicts. Despite the UN Security Council’s growing tendency to sanction VNSAs, there has been little research analyzing the effects of UN sanctions directed at these non-government actors. Most scholars investigating the functioning and effectiveness of international sanctions have confined their studies to state actors as targets of sanctions. Thus, previous sanctions research has generated a statecentric theory of international sanctions that is largely insufficient to understand Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_10. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2022 C. Huber, Imposing Sanctions on Violent Non-State Actors to Restore International Peace and Security, Innovative Konfliktforschung – Innovation in Conflict Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-37744-1_10

153

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how sanctions imposed on non-state entities such as rebel and terrorist groups work. This dissertation project has sought to fill this gap and shifted the focus on non-state actors by ascertaining the general mechanisms through and conditions under which UN targeted sanctions against VNSAs tend to be effective. Notwithstanding that some scholars have rightly argued that each sanctions case is so unique and with incomparably complex dynamics that it is almost impossible to derive generalizations and predictions about the determinants of sanctions success (Biersteker et al. 2012: 8), my systematic empirical analysis has demonstrated that there are identifiable empirical regularities in the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions.1 Before conducting quantitative analyses of the factors determining the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions, the descriptive analysis of the newly constructed Sanctioning Non-State Actors (SNSA) dataset produced specific success rates of UN sanctions applied against rebel and terrorist groups. The descriptive statistics showed that UN targeted sanctions were effective or at least partially effective in coercing VNSAs to abandon their objectionable behavior and comply with the UN Security Council’s demands in over 25 percent of the cases (see Figure 7.1). On the other hand, UN targeted sanctions were found to be effective or at least partially effective in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities in 52 of the 216 cases, resulting in an overall success rate of about 24 percent (see Figure 7.2). This disaggregated assessment of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness demonstrated that the specific success rates are virtually identical and do not differ considerably among the diverging purposes of sanctions. This finding, however, is contrary to previous empirical results generated from the Targeted Sanctions Consortium (TSC) database which found that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are slightly more effective than sanctions seeking to coerce a change in a target’s behavior (Biersteker et al. 2016: 233–236). Despite some incompatibilities with the TSC data, the detected success rates of about 25 percent largely coincide with the success rates of international sanctions that were attested by most of the existing sanctions research (see Section 2.1 and Table 2.1). Yet, comparing my results to the success rates of prior studies that exclusively analyzed sanctions imposed on states (see Cortright/Lopez 2002; 1

I am aware of the fact that statistical results are not clear-cut, and idiosyncratic influences are often at play. Therefore, my summary assessments and policy recommendations must be read as general indicators and not as infallible instructions. There is certainly no generally valid receipt for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. The recommendations, however, are intended to maximize the chances of success when UN sanctions are directed at VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist movements.

10.1 Empirical Findings and Gaps for Future Research

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Hufbauer et al. 1990, 2007), UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs were found to be slightly less effective. The fact that UN sanctions targeted at VNSAs turned out to be effective in only 2 of 10 sanctions cases also pointed to the importance of studying the factors accounting for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. To uncover the patterns and factors that render UN targeted sanctions more likely to be effective, an ordinal logistic regression analysis of the SNSA dataset was conducted testing the various factors hypothesized to determine the effectiveness of UN sanctions applied against VNSAs. The first quantitative analysis of the SNSA dataset revealed that UN targeted sanctions seeking to coerce VNSAs to change their condemnable behavior are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with nonreligious demands and if the applied UN sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. Other variables hypothesized to account for the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose including a target’s organizational structure, sanctions-busting assistance by UN member states, autonomous sanctions by regional organizations and simultaneously deployed peacekeeping missions receive inconsistent and less robust statistical support (see Section 7.6.2). To complement the empirical findings of Quantitative Analysis I and identify additional determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing, the following qualitative analysis employed a deviant case study approach and selected the UN sanctions applied against Sudan’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) for further in-depth case analysis. The empirical findings of this deviant case analysis pointed to the relevance of other factors so far neglected by sanctions research, indicating that military operations against the sanctioned VNSA, the targeted group’s internal cohesion, the provision of external support from neighboring countries as well as simultaneously applied mediation efforts may also significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to alter their unwanted behavior (see Section 8.3.1). After operationalizing and adding the factors identified within the framework of the deviant case study to the existing dataset, a final quantitative analysis was conducted in order to investigate whether these variables can be considered as general determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. As outlined in Section 9.3, the statistical analysis of the updated SNSA dataset reconfirmed the most significant results of Quantitative Analysis I, demonstrating that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied UN sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US

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sanctions. Interestingly, whereas a target’s organizational structure did not reach statistical significance in Quantitative Analysis I, the positive coefficient on this variable turned out to be statistically significant in the final quantitative analysis suggesting that UN targeted sanctions with coercive purpose are more likely to be effective when they are applied against hierarchically organized VNSAs. Moreover, the statistical results corroborated the importance of some additional factors that were detected within the scope of the deviant case study. The quantitative analysis revealed that a target’s fragmentation as well as simultaneously applied mediation efforts are highly statistically significant and thus can be considered as general determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to change their objectionable behavior. Particularly when UN targeted sanctions are imposed on VNSAs that are hierarchically structured and suffered from a lack of internal cohesion, international mediation efforts can considerably contribute to the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose. However, other factors hypothesized to account for the effectiveness of coercive sanctions receive ambiguous and less robust statistical support. When it comes to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their condemnable activities, the first quantitative analysis of the SNSA dataset indicated that these constraining sanctions are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with non-religious demands and if the applied UN sanctions measures inflict a substantial economic impact on the targeted VNSA. Furthermore, autonomous US sanctions were found to have a negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining, but this negative effect loses its statistical significance when controlling for random effects.2 Other hypotheses referring to a target’s organizational structure, sanctions-busting assistance by UN member states, autonomous sanctions by regional organizations and simultaneously deployed peacekeeping missions receive inconsistent and less robust statistical support (see Section 7.6.3). To complement the empirical findings of Quantitative Analysis I and discover additional determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to pursue their proscribed activities, the subsequent qualitative analysis employed a deviant case study approach and selected the UN sanctions applied against Somalia’s Al-Shabaab for further in-depth case analysis. The empirical findings of this deviant case study pointed to the importance 2 Even though the variable US Sanctions barely falls short of reaching statistical significance in the main model, Figure A1 in the Electronic Supplementary Material demonstrates that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are 10 percent more likely to be effective when they are not complemented by autonomous US sanctions.

10.1 Empirical Findings and Gaps for Future Research

157

of other, but as yet disregarded, factors, showing that targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA, a targeted group’s internal cohesion as well as the provision of external support from neighboring countries can considerably enhance the probability that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose turn out to be effective (see Section 8.3.2). After operationalizing and appending the factors identified within the framework of the deviant case analysis to the existing dataset, a final quantitative analysis was conducted in order to scrutinize whether these variables can be considered as general determinants of the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. The ordinal logistic regression analysis of the updated SNSA dataset reconfirmed the most significant results of Quantitative Analysis I and additionally pointed to the relevance of some other factors that were detected within the scope of the in-depth case study. The statistical analysis demonstrated that UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs with nonreligious demands and if the applied UN sanctions measures are supplemented by extensive military operations conducted against the sanctioned VNSA. Particularly when UN targeted sanctions inflict substantial economic costs on the target and are directed at VNSAs that are hierarchically structured and suffer from a lack of internal cohesion, military offensives can considerably contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities (see Section 9.4). Moreover, the individual effect of autonomous US sanctions and sanctions’ direct economic impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining should not be underestimated, even though these variables lose their statistical significance in the main model when controlling for random effects. Other factors that were hypothesized to determine the effectiveness of constraining sanctions receive inconsistent and less robust statistical support. Table 10.1 summarizes the most robust and significant findings of the tripartite empirical analysis and contrasts the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing with the factors accounting for the effectiveness of constraining sanctions. Notwithstanding that some of the determining factors overlap across the diverging purposes of sanctions, the final quantitative analysis revealed that the determinants can differ considerably depending on whether UN targeted sanctions seek to coerce or constrain VNSAs. Irrespective of the specific purpose they serve, the statistical results clearly suggest that the ideology of a sanctioned group is of high importance for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs, indicating that UN targeted sanctions tend to be much more effective when they are applied against VNSAs with non-religious demands, while UN sanctions appear to be a rather ineffective tool to target VNSAs with an explicit religious agenda.

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Nevertheless, the final quantitative analysis also highlighted important differences across the two diverging purposes of sanctions. The statistical analysis of the updated SNSA dataset demonstrated that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective if sanctions are imposed on VNSAs that are hierarchically organized and suffer from a lack of internal cohesion, if the applied UN sanctions measures are not accompanied by autonomous US sanctions and if the UN sanctions measures are supplemented by international mediation efforts. On the contrary, when UN targeted sanctions intend to constrain VNSAs in their ability to pursue their condemnable activities, sanctions were found to be more effective when they inflict a substantial economic impact on the sanctioned VNSA and the imposed UN sanctions measures are supplemented by targeted military operations conducted against the sanctioned VNSA.3 Table 10.1 Summary of the empirical results regarding the determinants of the diverging purposes of UN targeted sanctions Determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ Determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness effectiveness in coercing in constraining Quantitative Target’s religious ideology (↓) Analysis I Autonomous US sanctions (↓)

Target’s religious ideology (↓)

Qualitative Case Analysis

Target’s fragmentation (↑)

Target’s fragmentation (↑)

External support from neighboring countries (↓)

External support from neighboring countries (↓)

Military operations against the target (↑)

Military operations against the target (↑)

Sanctions’ direct economic impact (↑)

Mediation with the target (↑) Quantitative Target’s hierarchical Analysis II structure (↑) Target’s religious ideology (↓)

Target’s religious ideology (↓) Military operations against the target (↑)

Autonomous US sanctions (↓) Target’s fragmentation (↑) Mediation with the target (↑) Note: The direction of the relationship is displayed in the parentheses; ↑ indicates a positive effect of the predictor variable on sanctions effectiveness; ↓ describes a negative effect of the predictor variable on sanctions effectiveness.

3

The positive effect of UN sanctions direct economic impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining only turned out to be statistically significant in Quantitative Analysis I.

10.1 Empirical Findings and Gaps for Future Research

159

The above presented empirical findings allow for the assumption that targetspecific factors such as a target’s ideology and fragmentation as well as contextual factors including autonomous US sanctions, international mediation efforts and targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA represent the most significant factors accounting for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Sanctionsspecific and sender-specific variables, however, appear to play a minor role in contributing to the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs. Comparing the determinants identified within the framework of this comprehensive empirical analysis to previous results of classical sanctions research that took the state as a reference point for the study on the factors accounting for the success of international sanctions (see Section 2.2), it becomes apparent that the state-centric understanding of how sanctions work is not simply applicable to the effective sanctioning of violent non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups. For instance, target-specific factors such as a target’s ideology and internal cohesion, which do not solely constitute typical characteristics of non-state actors, have so far been neglected by prior sanctions studies. Furthermore, contextual factors including simultaneously employed mediation efforts and military operations that should also be of high relevance for sanctions imposed on states have mostly been disregarded by existing sanctions research. Classical variables such as sanctions’ direct economic impact on the target and the provision of external support, which previous sanctions research found to be crucial for the effective sanctioning of states, appear to play a minor role when sanctions are applied against VNSAs. During this dissertation project, several remaining gaps and ideas for subsequent research have emerged. First, future scholarly studies should strive to scrutinize the interaction between UN sanctions regimes and additional sanctions imposed by other international actors. The statistical analysis demonstrated that UN targeted sanctions applied against VNSAs are less likely to be effective when they are accompanied by autonomous US sanctions. To date, existing research has only speculated about the complementarity between UN sanctions and additional sanctions measures imposed by regional organizations and individual states but failed to produce empirical evidence (see Brzoska 2015; Charron/Portela 2016). No matter whether sanctions are imposed on non-state entities or states, it is reasonable to assume that additional autonomous sanctions—either imposed unilaterally by individual states or multilaterally by regional organizations—may have a considerable impact on the effectiveness of the respective UN sanctions regime. Such complementarity issues may certainly be not only specific to UN

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sanctions and their effectiveness but rather apply to every unilateral or multilateral sanctions regime that is complemented by concurrent sanctions of other international actors. Second, future sanctions research should pay more attention to the relationship between UN sanctions and international mediation. My empirical analysis showed that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose have a significantly higher chance of being effective when they are supplemented by international peace initiatives and mediation efforts. For a long time, scholars did not incorporate simultaneously applied diplomatic initiatives when investigating the functioning and effectiveness of international sanctions. Only recently, researchers have started to explore the interplay of UN sanctions and mediation (Biersteker et al. 2019), but empirical evidence about the complementarity of these foreign policy tools remains limited. Third, in addition to the interaction between sanctions and international mediation, my empirical results suggested that military operations may also represent a crucial supplement to the imposition of sanctions. The final quantitative analysis corroborated the findings of the in-depth case analysis on Somalia’s Al-Shabaab, revealing that targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA have a statistically significant and positive impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining VNSAs in their ability to continue their objectionable activities. Therefore, systematic empirical studies analyzing the complementary relationship between international sanctions and military operations are urgently needed. Even though UN sanctions are frequently utilized in conjunction with other foreign policy instruments and my empirical results pointed to the importance of military operations and diplomatic initiatives in enhancing the probability of sanctions success, most of the previous work obstinately focused on the independent effect of international sanctions and strived to isolate sanctions’ contribution to a certain outcome. However, given the fact that sanctions are usually embedded into a broader policy package to achieve the goals associated with their imposition, future research should adjust its methodological approaches to this new reality and rather concentrate on exploring how sanctions and other foreign policy tools can successfully interact with each other and thus lead to the desired solution of the specific problem. In methodological terms, many options could be fruitful in future studies. The comprehensive empirical analysis clearly demonstrated that a nested research design, which combines quantitative and qualitative research methods, is particularly suitable to the study of sanctions effectiveness. Whereas qualitative in-depth case analyses enable researchers to trace the determining factors and

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thus explore the working mechanisms behind the effectiveness of sanctions, quantitative research tools allow scholars to investigate whether the factors identified within the framework of the qualitative case studies may be generalizable to a wider population of sanctions cases and thus can be considered as general determinants of sanctions effectiveness. To date, prior sanctions research has often failed to employ mixed methods in a complementary and systematic manner. Furthermore, this study’s coding principle to assess the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions on an annual basis and per each sanctioned actor proved to be very useful. Taking sanctions episodes or sanctions regimes as a basis for the evaluation of sanctions effectiveness, existing quantitative datasets relied on a very static approach and thus were unable to capture the sometimes significant variation that can take place within a single sanctions episode or regime. Especially since today’s sanctions cases are often imposed under fast-changing circumstances in intra-state conflicts and target multiple actors for a long period of time, it is of high importance to gather actor-specific and annual information on the effectiveness of the applied sanctions and on key features that possibly affect the outcome of these sanctions measures. Subsequent research should therefore strive to collect more dynamic and fine-grained data on international sanctions. Finally, as always the case with empirical studies, this dissertation produced some open questions and caveats. The present study is merely a first step toward exploring the determinants of the effective sanctioning of violent non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups. The results must be replicated for a wider population of sanctions cases directed at VNSAs, including unilateral and multilateral sanctions from various senders, in order to test whether the determining factors identified within the framework of this comprehensive analysis are not only specific to UN sanctions but are generally applicable to other international sanctions regimes that are imposed on rebel and terrorist movements. Notwithstanding that my systematic empirical analysis revealed significant statistical correlations and several robustness tests confirmed these findings, I cannot claim to have achieved full causal identification. Thus, future research needs to scrutinize these possibly determining factors by uncovering the causal pathways that link these predictor variables to the effective outcome of sanctions. Methodologically, researchers should conduct more carefully selected and implemented in-depth case studies to ascertain the working mechanisms and better understand the processes behind the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. In addition to qualitative case analyses, future research urgently needs novel data on international sanctions in general and on sanctions applied against VNSAs in particular that allow for much more fine-grained quantitative analyses on the effectiveness and functioning of sanctions. Due to the complexity of sanctions,

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scholars should endeavor to employ statistical methods that can test interactions of higher order and thus allow to examine more complex interactive relationships between several independent variables that possibly account for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. Furthermore, survival models can be useful to examine the relationship between different predictor variables and the effectiveness of sanctions over time. These actions will require substantial effort but will be rewarding from both an academic and practical perspective. Advancing our knowledge on the mechanisms through and conditions under which international sanctions imposed on VNSAs tend to be effective is essential in order to make sanctions a promising foreign policy tool to address challenges to international peace and security that are increasingly provoked by violent non-state actors such as rebel and terrorist groups.

10.2

Recommendations for Future UN Sanctions Policy

The empirical findings of this study have direct implications for the design and implementation of future UN sanctions regimes applied against VNSAs. Again, these policy recommendations must be read as general indicators and not as infallible instructions. There is certainly no magic formula or receipt for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs. However, this dissertation project has revealed that there are identifiable empirical regularities in the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions. Taking these determining factors into consideration may enable UN policymakers to impose targeted sanctions in a more strategic and systematic manner which in turn should maximize the likelihood that UN sanctions directed at VNSAs such as rebel and terrorist organizations are effective. Notwithstanding that there are undoubtedly multiple and differing purposes behind the imposition of UN sanctions regimes, my empirical analysis has demonstrated that the determinants of UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness vary considerably depending on the particular purpose they serve. UN decisionmakers should thus prioritize and decide on whether the sanctions should primarily coerce or constrain the targeted VNSA.4 This in turn would enable UN sanctioners to design and implement sanctions measures much more effectively. Based on

4

Giumelli also drew the conclusion that sanctioners should focus on whether a target should be coerced, constrained, or signaled (Giumelli 2011: 149).

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the findings of my tripartite empirical analysis, I now devise some policy recommendations with respect to the coercive and constraining purpose of UN targeted sanctions. When UN policymakers primarily seek to coerce VNSAs to change their objectionable behavior and rather comply with the demands stated by the UN Security Council, UN targeted sanctions should be complemented by diplomatic initiatives and mediation efforts. My empirical results suggest that diplomatic dialogue with the sanctioned VNSA represents a very important and indispensable supplement to the application of sanctions. This holds true especially for coercive sanctions since they contain a voluntary aspect in the sense that targets abandon their proscribed behavior, even though they possibly have the capabilities to continue their unwanted behavior (Giumelli 2016: 46 f.). Due to this persuasive element, international mediation can significantly contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing VNSAs to adhere to established international norms since persuasion can only be achieved through diplomatic exchange and negotiations with the sanctioned actor. Thus, UN officials should—in addition to the imposition of sanctions—resort to the use of diplomatic tools and develop an integrated and systematic approach to effectively combine both foreign policy instruments in order to convince VNSAs to refrain from threatening international peace and security. My empirical analysis clearly indicates that it is unrealistic to expect that UN sanctions can deliver positive sanctions outcomes in isolation from other foreign policy measures, especially when sanctions intend to coerce VNSAs to change their objectionable behavior. The results of my comprehensive empirical analysis also show that UN targeted sanctions with a coercive purpose are more likely to be effective when they are imposed on VNSA which experience internal dissensions including defections, infighting or even intra-group violence. This finding has two major implications for future UN sanctions policy. On the one hand, UN sanctioners should carefully analyze the conflict in general and the situation of the conflict parties in particular and adjust their policies to significant developments on the ground. Once credible information indicates that the targeted VNSA suffers from internal rifts, UN decisionmakers should endeavor to strengthen the sanctions pressure on the target by imposing additional sanctions measures. Moreover, when a sanctioned VNSA lacks internal cohesion, it might be particularly fruitful to engage in diplomatic dialogue with the target in order to convince the fragmented VNSA to quit its proscribed behavior. My statistical analysis demonstrated that international mediation constitutes a promising supplement to the application of sanctions, especially when UN targeted sanctions

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are applied against VNSAs that experience serious fragmentation as these internal disputes and infighting appear to make them more susceptible to reach a negotiated settlement to the conflict. On the other hand, UN policymakers should deliberate on how to cause internal dissensions to the sanctioned VNSA. Existing research on armed groups and conflict suggests that internal rifts often result from economic difficulties when groups are unable to generate sufficient revenue to pay their fighters (see e.g. Hazen 2013). Therefore, it is important to design and implement sanctions in a way that they inflict a substantial economic impact on the target. Commodity sanctions on natural resources and the freezing of group-related assets may enable UN sanctioners to effectively erode a group’s income which in turn increases the likelihood of internal dissent. Besides sanctions’ direct economic impact, targeted military operations are also an important tool to hurt the sanctioned VNSA economically and thus to impair a target’s internal cohesion. The in-depth case study on Somalia’s AlShabaab revealed that targeted military operations against the VNSA that are conducted by UN peacekeeping missions or other military troops led to a dramatic loss of territory and income opportunities as these military offensives deprived the group of its lucrative taxation centers and other important sources of revenue. UN officials should therefore strive to utilize UN peacekeeping forces to support the impact of existing sanctions by conducting targeted military offensives against the sanctioned VNSA and thus recapturing strategically important territories. In addition to international mediation efforts and a target’s fragmentation, my quantitative analyses revealed that autonomous US sanctions that go beyond existing UN sanctions have a negative impact on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in coercing. While this negative relationship may be explained by the fact that additional US sanctions are primarily imposed in those cases which are extremely hard to solve, it may also be that UN sanctions regimes and additional sanctions imposed by the US administration rather conflict than complement each other. The adoption of sanctions by regional organizations and individual UN member states may strengthen the impact of UN sanctions, but it may also create significant problems when these coexisting sanctions regimes lack clear coordination. UN policymakers should therefore pay more attention to the complementarity between UN sanctions regimes and additional sanctions imposed by other international actors, especially the United States, and seek to coordinate these simultaneous sanctions efforts in a more strategic and systematic manner. This may be of particular importance for the effective sanctioning of VNSAs since sanctions regimes directed at rebel and terrorist organizations are often

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imposed in very complex conflict situations which make coordination among the different sanctioners even more crucial. When UN sanctioners primarily intend to constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities, UN targeted sanctions should be supplemented by targeted military operations against the sanctioned VNSA. This holds true especially for constraining sanctions since they seek to prevent the target from continuing its condemnable behavior by restricting its access to essential resources needed to engage in its objectionable activities (Giumelli 2011: 34). For this purpose, military offensives against the target can considerably contribute to UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining by causing serious difficulties to the sanctioned VNSA including the loss of personnel, territory, and revenue. Thus, UN officials should—in addition to the imposition of sanctions—consider resorting to the use of military force and devise an integrated and systematic approach to effectively combine both foreign policy instruments in order to compel VNSA to stop threatening international peace and security. The empirical results clearly indicate that sanctions as a stand-alone measure are usually unable to thwart a target’s ability to pursue its proscribed activities and military operations are required to cause significant financial and material difficulties to the target. Further quantitative analyses demonstrated that military operations constitute a promising supplement to the application of sanctions, particularly when UN targeted sanctions have a substantial economic impact on the target and are directed at VNSAs that are hierarchically structured and suffer from a lack of internal cohesion. As already mentioned above, UN decisionmakers should therefore endeavor to maximize sanctions’ economic costs on the target by imposing asset freezes and commodity sanctions on natural resources in order to effectively undermine a group’s income and thus increase the likelihood of internal dissent. My empirical results also indicate that autonomous US sanctions that go beyond existing UN sanctions can considerably undermine the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions with a constraining purpose. Even though the variable US Sanctions loses its statistical significance in the main model, Figure A3 in the Electronic Supplementary Material demonstrates that the variable’s negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining should not be underestimated. Again, this finding highlights the importance of improving the coordination and cooperation between international sanctioners and their different sanctions regimes. UN officials should seek to avoid that concurrent and uncoordinated sanctions efforts among the various international actors conflict with

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each other and thus significantly diminish the probability that UN targeted sanctions can effectively constrain VNSAs in their ability to continue their proscribed activities. In addition to autonomous US sanctions, the provision of external support from neighboring countries is also found to have a negative effect on UN targeted sanctions’ effectiveness in constraining. Although the statistical significance of this variable disappears in the main model, Figure A4 in the Electronic Supplementary Material shows that the variable’s negative impact should not be underestimated. This finding suggests that external assistance from neighboring countries enables VNSAs to quickly cope with the impact of sanctions by getting immediate support through the cross-border supply of military goods or the granting of safe haven on the bordering state’s territory and thus significantly reduces the likelihood that a target is no longer able to pursue its objectionable activities due to financial and material difficulties. Particularly when UN policymakers impose constraining sanctions and seek to restrict a target’s access to essential resources needed to engage in its condemnable activities, they should strongly increase their efforts to impede the supply of external support from neighboring countries. One way to compel bordering states to abandon their external assistance for VNSAs is the imposition of secondary sanctions on countries most involved in facilitating evasion. The secondary sanctions regime on Eritrea in response to its alleged support for Al-Shabaab clearly demonstrated that additional sanctions measures on noncompliant bordering countries can stop the provision of financial and military support for the sanctioned VNSA and thus considerably decrease the target’s material and financial resources. Notwithstanding that each sanctions case is certainly unique and with incomparably complex dynamics, the comprehensive empirical analysis of this dissertation project has revealed that there are identifiable factors that seem to enhance the effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions directed at VNSAs. Taking these empirical regularities into account may assist UN decisionmakers to develop a more systematic and evidence-based sanctions design for each sanctions case. Consequently, UN targeted sanctions will become a much more promising foreign policy instrument that can successfully deal with the increasing number of security threats emanating from armed rebel factions and international terrorist movements.

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