> The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership.
That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
That something that never works (not even in cases where it has been going on for multiple generations, as in the case of Cuba or Iran) keeps being tried makes it impossible to believe that the intention is making it "work" in the sense you mean. The sanctions are just to sink those countries for political interest. Which in some cases makes sense (e.g. Russia, as it's invading Ukraine and sinking its economy can be a deterrent in that respect), but in others is definitely evil.
That's interesting, but (at least from a quick look and a few text searches) they don't seem to explain what their "sanction contribution score" is. How are they sure that the cases where they "worked" are not regression to the mean (some authoritarian regimes just fall from time to time)? And how are they sure that there is not an equal number of cases where they do the opposite of what they intend? (maybe the Castrist regime would have fallen already if the country had been allowed to develop without sanctions).
> they don't seem to explain what their "sanction contribution score" is
“The success score is an index on a scale of 1 to 16, found by multiplying the policy result index by the sanctions contribution index” (page 77).
Simpler: Table 4A.1 shows their scoring for individual cases. They break at 9 for success versus failure, so maybe eyeball those to see if they gel with your intuition. If not, adjust and re-run the numbers.
My eyeballing suggests it would be quite difficult to zero out the list.
I am citing here from the conclusions of that book (better, have a look yourself):
Overall, we found sanctions to be at least partially successful in 34 percent
of the cases that we documented.
By our standards, successful cases are those with an overall success score of 9 or higher. We emphasize that a score of 9 does not mean that economic sanctions achieved a foreign policy triumph. It means only that sanctions made a modest contribution to a goal that was partly realized, often at some political cost to
the sender country.
Yet in many cases, it is fair to say that sanctions were a necessary
component of the overall campaign that focused primarily on the projection of military force.
Second, we classify some sanctions as failing to produce a real change in
the target’s behavior when their primary if unstated purpose—namely,
demonstrating resolve at home, signaling disapproval abroad, or simple
punishment—may have been fully realized.
It kinda worked in Syria. The combination of sanctions, plus squatting on sovereign Syrian territory and preventing the government from generating income eventually left Assad's military so hollowed out that that the Turkish-backed rebel faction led by former Al Qaeda members was able to essentially drive to Damascus with minimal resistance.
>> The point is to get people in those contries to overthrow their leadership.
>That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
The point is not to (directly) instigate regime change, but to influence the actions of the existing regime, as well as other state actors not under sanctions, by demonstrating to them how bad it can get. Make an example and so on.
The suffering of the civilians is not the goal of sanctions but a consequence of the choices their - legitimate or not - leaders make, and which ultimately impacts their ability to engage in foreign trade. No country has an obligation to trade with any other, so if civilians suffer after foreign trade is limited, the agency and moral responsibility is with the regime that failed to secure friendly trade relations. Often, humanitarian exceptions are carved out to limit this.
It definitely "works", in the sense that it's often the only tool available, along with positive reinforcements such as aid and support and the threat of stopping them, which is just another flavor of the same. It's hard to have a benchmark for something that "works" better, since countries are sovereign and by definition have disputes and don't blindly follow any established rules or rulers.
If anything I'd say it has the opposite of the intended effect sometimes.
Like, during WW2 the UK was being bombed and ration books and supply shortages were the order of the day. They look back on their endurance of the conditions inflicted upon them as a source of national pride, have to imagine that is the case for many in the sanctioned countries too.
The bombing of Nazi Germany in return had the same effect. Due you think people will flock to an enemy, that bombs them every night? No, they will put all their strength into trying to prevent the bombs from falling down in the first place.
I mean the US was seen as a favorable enemy, but that was more to the USSR being way worse and due to the post-war behaviour. I still see the effects of e.g. WW2 allied bombing, when walking through my city. And the railway system in (East) Germany has never recovered and this is still causing problems.
That's the theory, but has it ever worked?
That something that never works (not even in cases where it has been going on for multiple generations, as in the case of Cuba or Iran) keeps being tried makes it impossible to believe that the intention is making it "work" in the sense you mean. The sanctions are just to sink those countries for political interest. Which in some cases makes sense (e.g. Russia, as it's invading Ukraine and sinking its economy can be a deterrent in that respect), but in others is definitely evil.