Effects of economic sanctions on political beliefs of the targeted countries’ leaders

Abstract

International organizations, individual states, and groups of states increasingly often use economic sanctions an alternative tool of foreign policy. While there are multiple studies analyzing effectiveness and economic, political, or humanitarian consequences of sanctions, much less attention is given to their psychological impacts. Presenting one of the rare systematic studies of psychological consequences of sanctions, this dissertation aims to analyze the effects of the economic sanctions on the political beliefs of the leaders of targeted states. Using operational code analysis, this research investigates whether economic sanctions lead to a change in operational codes of the leaders of Iran, Russia, and Syria representing the major cases of sanctions in the last two decades. The research demonstrates that while economic sanctions do not correspond to an immediate cognitive change, they are likely to trigger leaders’ more gradual learning. The results show that the leaders’ rhetoric after sanctions reflected multiple belief changes, some of which were similar across cases. For example, in five out of six analyzed instances, the targeted leaders started to perceive ‘other’ international actors less friendly than before. Presenting the first systematic analysis of a specific external shock on operational codes of leaders in different geographical, temporal, and political settings, this dissertation contributes to the political belief change literature. At the same time this study fills the gap in the research on psychological consequences of sanctions.