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Journal of Conflict Resolution
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Caught in the Crossfire

"Innocent Bystanders" as Optimal Targets of Economic Sanctions

Solomon Major

Department of Political Science, Stanford University

Anthony J. McGann

Department of Political Science, University of California, Irvine

Current sanctions orthodoxy argues that groups' ability to set policy depends on their total budget. According to such a perspective, successful sanctions must target the unfriendly within the target countries while shielding "innocent bystanders" from harm. The authors argue that the focus on groups' aggregate budget constraint and the war-of-attrition view of policy formation misconceives of how policies are determined. The most effective groups to sanction will be those whose spending has the greatest marginal effect on policy. The authors show that this will often be the very innocent bystanders that prevailing theories have argued must be protected. Although this conclusion is conditional on their level of institutional empowerment and their having sufficient resources to make an impact on policy if properly motivated, when these initial conditions are met, a sanctions design can be specified with a high degree of prospective utility for sender states.

Key Words: economic sanctions • public choice • interest group politics • interest group lobbying

Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 3, 337-359 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0022002705276568
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