Economic sanctions are a widely used policy tool for coercing, deterring, punishing, and stigmatizing entities that threaten global peace and stability or violate international norms. National governments, regional and intergovernmental organizations, and ad hoc coalitions often impose sanctions for a wide range of foreign policy goals, including antiterrorism and counternarcotics efforts, nonproliferation, democracy and human rights promotion, and conflict resolution. The vast majority of multilateral sanctions imposed since 1970 have scored as a success, and they are likely to remain an important instrument for international influence in the future.
Whether sanctions work or not, however, depends on the specific goals for which they are imposed. For example, sanctions aimed at a specific individual are more likely to succeed than those aimed at regime change. The latter type of sanctions can have perverse consequences that bolster authoritarian, statist regimes by giving them an external enemy to rally domestic support and a monopoly on a particular resource that their citizens must rely on them for. In addition, the broad socioeconomic effects of such sanctions can harm the broader population by weakening health outcomes and retarding the emergence of a middle class and civil society.
The effectiveness of sanctions also depends on the way in which they are designed and executed. A key issue is how much political pressure there is to act, as voting members may have a variety of reasons for wanting to impose them. For example, they may need to assuage domestic constituencies, demonstrate resolve, and make moral or historical statements.