Economic Sanctions and Statecraft

4 Credits.

Economic sanctions, tariffs, and the broader economic toolkit have become the leading instruments for great powers to pressure their adversaries and respond to geopolitical crises. This course will provide a grounding in the strategy, law, and practice of economic sanctions and statecraft – namely, how governments and the United Nations Security Council wield financial and economic tools to shape geopolitics and influence the behavior of other state actors. Most of our lessons will be framed around case studies. We will study how economic statecraft campaigns are shaped and how their success or failure can be measured, particularly while the campaign is ongoing and its ultimate objectives are unmet. We will examine the emergence of “smart” or targeted sanctions, as well as the oft-misunderstood “secondary sanctions.” Beyond sanctions, we will assess how tariffs, investment restrictions, and assistance measures are being used by governments around the world to advance geopolitical (as opposed to economic) goals. We will touch on how sub-national actors (like individual U.S. states) and organizations (BDS) wield these tools and their constraints. Finally, we will look at the unintended effects of the heavy use of economic statecraft – political, economic, and ethical.