Hazards or Hassles: The Effect of Sanctions on Leader Survival

Recent empirical work scrutinizes the ability of economic sanctions destabilize targeted leaders. Limitations in data and modeling choices, however, may have inflated estimates of sanctions’ efficacy. I propose a unified theoretical model, incorporating the possibility that leaders targeted with threats and imposed sanctions differ in baseline risks from those who are not. I combine this hazards approach with an empirical strategy to account for differences in ex ante risks and improved data on leader failure. This approach uncovers a considerably more modest effect. Sanctions rarely destabilize their targets.