Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions and more effective terrorism

Abstract

The literature on unintended consequences of economic sanctions is well developed, but few studies have addressed terrorism in target states, and none have assessed whether that terrorism becomes more effective when sanctions are in place. In this study, we test whether economic sanctions lead to an increase in the lethality of terrorism. Using data from multiple sources, we find that while sanctions are unrelated to the rate of success of terrorist attacks, they are positively associated with the number of fatalities resulting from terrorist attacks. These findings further the need for policymakers to consider the consequences sanctions have on the target country populace.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
International Politics (2022) 59:383–397
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00318-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective
terrorism
ThomasAltmann1· JasonGiersch2
Published online: 12 June 2021
© The Author(s) 2021
Abstract
The literature on unintended consequences of economic sanctions is well developed,
but few studies have addressed terrorism in target states, and none have assessed
whether that terrorism becomes more effective when sanctions are in place. In this
study, we test whether economic sanctions lead to an increase in the lethality of ter-
rorism. Using data from multiple sources, we find that while sanctions are unre-
lated to the rate of success of terrorist attacks, they are positively associated with the
number of fatalities resulting from terrorist attacks. These findings further the need
for policymakers to consider the consequences sanctions have on the target country
populace.
Keywords Economic sanctions· Terrorism· International relations
Introduction
Beginning in 2018, the Trump administration engaged in a ‘maximum pressure’
campaign against Iran with the intent of weakening Supreme Leader Khamenei and
demanded sweeping policy changes. Trump’s own words demonstrate this attitude
with the desire to implement the highest sanctions ever imposed on a country. In
terms of its economy, sanctions on Iran have been catastrophic. After the mid-2018
imposition of sanctions, the entire Iranian economy has contracted 14%, oil exports
have been down by 88%, and inflation has risen to 40% (Congressional Research
Service 2020). These sanctions will likely cause turmoil for all social classes for
several years to come.
* Thomas Altmann
ctho@email.unc.edu
1 Department ofPolitical Science, University ofNorth Carolina atChapel Hill, 362 Hamilton
Hall, CB 3265, ChapelHill, NC27599, USA
2 Department ofPolitical Science andPublic Administration, University ofNorth Carolina
atCharlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA
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T.Altmann, J.Giersch
However, despite these economic consequences, Tehran has not acquiesced.
Instead, the administration has only intensified its efforts toward nuclear weapon
development (Congressional Research Service 2020). The ongoing stalemate
between Iranian and Western leaders will continue to deteriorate the lives of the
people living in Iran, possibly inspiring some to take action in the hope of political
and economic relief or justice. Evidence from Iran already indicates that food secu-
rity and healthcare access have decreased (Congressional Research Service 2020).
Will tensions between government and opposition groups intensify as a result?
For nearly the past four decades, the USA has used economic sanctions as a pre-
ferred tool for its foreign policy. In accordance with the significant impacts of these
policies, scholars have conducted a vast amount of research on sanctions using both
qualitative and quantitative approaches. A considerable amount of this research on
economic sanctions has focused on the efficacy of sanctions for producing desired
policy changes by the target country, which are generally considered successful in
achieving these changes (Bapat etal. 2013; Krustev 2010; Drezner 2003; Lacey
etal. 2004).
However, over the past two decades, a growing body of research has been done
on the unintended consequences of sanctions, which proves relevant for both the
imposer and the imposed, especially when looking at violent terrorism. From this
area of research, many unintended consequences from sanctions have emerged such
as an increased infant mortality rate (Parker et al. 2016; Peksen 2011), reduced
governmental respect for physical integrity rights (Peksen 2011), the breakdown
of democracy (Peksen and Drury 2010), and increased criminalization of the state
(Andreas 2005). While these are all critical consequences, sub-state violence stands
as particularly meaningful, impactful, and salient for a nation on both a macro and
micro level. Specifically, terrorism wreaks havoc on a state in virtually all aspects of
society (Das 2019), a particularly total type of sub-state violence. Most importantly,
terrorism rips apart individual lives, stresses the psyche of victims (North and Pfef-
ferbaum 2004),10 and results inthe loss of life. Primarily, research is needed that can
be useful in the creation of policy guidelines that consider all possible consequences
of economic sanctions. The present study examines one of the many possible conse-
quences of economic sanctions: the increased effectiveness of terrorism.
Previous research
Effectiveness ofsanctions
Almost half a century ago, scholars generally concluded that economic sanctions
were ineffective in obtaining policy goals (Galtung 1967; Doxey 1971; Knorr 1975;
Losman 1979). This consensus was changed when Hufbauer, Schott, and Elli-
ott (1985) first published their study of a large sample of sanction episodes, which
posited that the success rate was 34%. Pape (1997) responded with evidence from
the same data that the success rate of economic sanctions was actually closer to
5%. Subsequently, Elliott (1998) responded, holding to her initial assertions with
Pape (1998) once again issuing a rebuttal. Other studies find problems in the initial
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Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective…
Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott study by positing that when using logit estimation, the
relationship between variables is insignificant, thus once again casting doubt on the
efficacy of sanctions (Drury 1998). More recently, Shin etal. (2016) showed sanc-
tions to have practically no impact on macroeconomic conditions in targeted coun-
tries, at least in terms of trade, foreign investment, and portfolio investments.
Research using more recent data gives greater attention to the roles that interna-
tional institutions and severe costs on target states play in determining the success
of an episode of sanctions (Bapat etal. 2013), a departure from the determinants
used by previous studies. Over the development of the literature around terrorism’s
effectiveness, a shift has occurred in what determines success for a sanction episode.
The research also now finds that the threat of sanctions instead of their imposition is
an essential stage in obtaining success during a sanction episode (Bapat etal. 2013;
Lacey and Nion 2004) with novel approaches such as game theory models, con-
firming that the threatening of sanctions can yield significant concessions (Drezner
2003).
However, much of the literature concluding that economic sanctions achieve
policy goals overlooks the unintended consequences of sanctions. This omittance is
problematic as even if concessions are made, the domestic and global costs might be
too high to consider a particular sanction episode as successful. For example, if the
USA can use sanctions to coerce Iran to comply with the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action (JCPOA), but doing so increases transnational and domestic terrorism,
it is hard to empirically or objectively conclude the sanctions yielded a ‘success.’
Thus, the unintended consequences of sanctions have received increased attention in
research.
Unintended consequences
Recent research has examined various possible consequences of sanctions in the tar-
get country. For example, child mortality rates have been found to increase under
sanctions, especially when the sanctions are costly or when the USA is the imposer
(Peksen 2011). Parker etal. (2016) quantifies that infant deaths rose by at least 143%
in the Democratic Republic of the Congowhen sanctions were imposed.
Human rights decline as well when sanctions are imposed, typically in conjunc-
tion with the deterioration of democratic institutions within a target country (Peksen
and Drury 2010). Primarily, sanctions seem to deteriorate the physical integrity
rights of citizens, which include freedom from disappearances, extra-judicial kill-
ings, torture, and political imprisonment (Peksen 2009), with Wood (2008) confirm-
ing the findings. Gender seems to play a role in the process as well, with Drury
and Peksen (2012) finding that economic sanctions reduce the level of respect for
women’s rights in the imposed country.
The literature also finds consequences extending beyond a sanction episode, par-
ticularly in the criminalization of the state. Sanctions can foster a symbiosis among
political leaders, organized crime, and transnational smuggling networks, leading to
transient corruption and crime (Andreas 2005). Naturally, the totality of these condi-
tions during a sanction episode such as decreased public health and human rights
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386
T.Altmann, J.Giersch
and increased state criminalization creates a breeding ground for both transnational
and domestic terrorism.
Terrorism fromsanctions
According to strain theory, economic sanctions disrupt political and economic struc-
tures within a country, stressing the institutions of society in ways that make ter-
rorist actions more likely (Agnew 2010; Nivette etal. 2017) and providing reasons
for opposition groups to use terror to shake the authority of state leaders (Good-
win 2019; Tilly 2005). Several studies in the past decade provide evidence support-
ing the theory that the strain from sanctions leads to terrorism through aid shocks,
heightened grievances, increased oppression, and a more active black market.
Ultimately, the greatest burdens resulting from sanctions tend to fall on regular
citizens, and the poor in particular, intensifying deprivation and its social effects and
inspiring discontents to take action (Choi and Luo 2013; Heffington 2017). Nielsen
etal. (2011) provide a framework for armed conflict from a sanction episode type
called aid shocks. These aid shocks, or severe decreases in international aid revenue,
shift the balance of powers and induce violence by granting bargaining strength to
potential rebels. Allen (2008), Nielsen etal. (2011), and Peksen (2009) all suggest
that grievances resulting from sanctions induce civilians to turn to political violence.
Moreover, multiple other studies connect sanctions to increased repression which
in turn increases the amount and duration of terrorism (Daxecker and Hess 2013;
Escriba-Folch 2011; Peksen 2009; Peksen and Drury 2010; Piazza 2008; Walsh and
Piazza 2010).
Linking sanctions more directly to terror, Heffington (2017) finds that when
costly sanctions are imposed on a country, frustration allows for easier recruiting
and carrying out of attacks by domestic terrorist organizations due to costly eco-
nomic hardship on regular citizens. Building on the work of Andreas (2005), Heff-
ington (2017) argues that sanctions enhance terrorist operations by increasing access
to black-market weapons. Both Choi and Luo (2013) and Choi (2014) argue that
economic hardship in target states resulting from sanctions increases grievances
among the poor, increasing the probability that some of them will support or engage
in terrorism. In sum, there is ample empirical evidence suggesting that while eco-
nomic sanctions may be intended to punish a country’s leadership, a substantial por-
tion of their impact will be felt by regular citizens, some of whom will become more
likely to increase terrorist efforts. We suspect that those increased efforts will yield
more fatalities.
Measurements ofeffective terrorism
There is a consensus in the literature that terrorists are rational actors (Abrahms
2008). Crenshaw (2014) argues that the decision to engage in terrorism is a calcula-
tion meant to obtain a specific goal through the use of collective action against civil-
ian targets. Gambill (1998) finds terrorists use an expected utility analysis whereby
they engage in terrorism because they perceive its chances of success as greater than
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387
Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective…
alternative means of collective action. Krause (2013) posits that terrorist groups
do not exclusively seek to affect government decisions and instead hope to achieve
long-term ideological goals such as independence, revolution, societal transforma-
tion, and regime change. Therefore, the decision calculus made by terrorists, as pre-
dicted by the strategic model, would emphasize increasingly lethal civilian attacks
because it would further their own goals through the predicted results of higher
lethality (i.e., a more operationally powerful entity). Under both models of viewing
terrorism, if a terrorist organization can produce more fatalities and more successful
attacks, they would be furthering fear or long-term goals, and thus be a more suc-
cessful organization.
This article applies novel operationalizations of the concept of effective terrorism
in the context of economic sanctions. Young (2019) conducted a meta-analysis of
195 studies and observed that a majority used the number of attacks by terrorists in
a given country year as the most common operationalization of terrorism. He noted
that using thenumber of attacksas a measurement could be problematic because it
depends on determining whether an instance counts as an attack. Counting the num-
ber of fatalities, he points out, addresses that problem. We use that measure as well
as a measure of success rate.
Hypothesis
The extant literature around the conditions for countries subjected to economic
sanctions, especially when costly, suggest that social strain will intensify (Agnew
2010) as the economic hardship (Choi and Luo 2013), political repression (Walsh
and Piazza 2010), and access to black-market goods all increase (Andreas 2005).
Thus, we hypothesize that when comparing country years, targeted nations having
higher levels of economic sanctions will be more likely to experience more effective
terrorism than those having lower or no levels of economic sanctions. More spe-
cifically, we expect the number of fatalities from terrorism to increase as insurgent
groups become larger and more determined. However, increased activity will also
produce more failed attempts, so while we expect fatalities in each country year to
increase, we do not expect the rate of success to likewise increase. This hypothesis
goes beyond previous literature by addressing not only if sanctions lead to more ter-
rorism, but whether that terrorist activity is more deadly.
Methods
Data
This study uses country-year panel data from 1970 through 2009, including a total
of 46 countries that had sanctions imposed on them in at least one of those years.
The dependent variables measuring effectiveness of terrorist activity come from the
Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which contains panel data on incidents of terror-
ism, defined by the GTD codebook as threatened or actual use of illegal force and
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T.Altmann, J.Giersch
violence by a non-state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal
through fear, coercion, or intimidation. The incidents of terrorism were condensed
into the total number of fatalities for one variable and the average success rate of
attacks per year for the other. The study considers data on both transnational and
domestic terrorism, but only through 2009.
The dataset used for the main independent variable is the Threat and Imposi-
tion of Economic Sanctions (TIES) dataset which also contains panel data on
costly sanctions, defined by the TIES codebook as an increase of over 5% inflation
or unemployment and drastic reductions in trade relationships; data for non-costly
sanctions were purged. Data for covariates used in the empirical model come from
multiple sources. Civil war data come from Correlates of War’s (CoW) intrastate
war database (Sarkees and Wayman 2010); democracy, GDP, population, political
repression, and human rights data come from the Quality of Government (QoG)
time-series dataset (Dahlberg et al. 2020). All of the datasets were combined by
country year to run statistical operations and test the hypothesis.
Variables
Our first operationalization of terrorism effectiveness is the total number of fatali-
ties in a given country during each year. Heffington (2017) contends this method of
measuring terrorism is inappropriate; however, this article is testing the effective-
ness of terrorist attacks, and thus total fatalities from terrorism are the appropriate
operationalizations. As Young (2019) finds, counting fatalities could be the superior
operationalization due to being less susceptible to underreporting bias. Moreover,
fatalities are directly linked to the physical operational means of the terrorist organi-
zation, meaning if they are producing more fatalities they can engage in more deadly
and salient attacks (Krause 2013), thus producing more fear or achieving long-term
goals.
The second operationalization was measured as the average success rate of inci-
dents for a country in a given year. The GTD includes records of successful attempts
at assassination, armed assault, bombing/explosion, hijacking, hostage taking, facil-
ity/infrastructure attacks, and unarmed assault. Each terrorist event is coded either
0 for failed attempts or 1 for successful ones, not in terms of the political goals but
rather the immediate physical objective. Our measure is an average of these scores
by country year. Higher values indicate that acts of terrorism were more successful
in a given country in a given year. While Heffington (2017) uses the count of attacks
to measure terrorist effectiveness, we choose to use success rate in order to account
for attempts made. We chose these two operationalizations (fatalities and average
success rate of attacks) to approach the abstract concept of terrorism effectiveness
from two different, yet important methods to account for the fact that an organiza-
tion may be effective in one way but not another.
The main independent variable being measured is costly economic sanctions
as defined by the TIES codebook and is an interval-level variable. Only costly or
severe economic sanctions are considered as we interpret the theoretical arguments
of relational processes and indirect war to mean that there is little reason for people
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Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective…
to change behavior under merely symbolic sanctions, but costly sanctions can be
very disruptive. Economic conditions that produce terrorism would be most likely to
occur in response to the costliest sanctions. Furthermore, sanctions are particularly
costly at the onset of the first year of imposition and decrease for each year during
the sanction episode (Heffington 2017); thus, the first year of the sanction episode is
coded one and each consecutive year is multiplied by 0.9 until the episode has con-
cluded or new sanctions are imposed, which is then coded zero, and yields a decay
rate variable.
There are several covariates included in the empirical model. Civil war as a
binary variable is included for its association with an increase in terrorism (Find-
ley and Young 2012) and is coded as one if there is a civil war present in that year
and zero if there is not a civil war. The theoretical argument also emphasizes politi-
cal repression as inducing terrorism; therefore, we include political repression as a
covariate according to the Political Terror Scale from Amnesty International in the
QoG dataset. Moreover, political repression might influence the dependent variables
as it could be a result of sanctions (Walsh and Piazza 2010; Wood 2008). Another
covariate included in the model is democracy measured by the Freedom House Pol-
ity score on a range of 1–10 in the QoG dataset, which is imputed for values for
countries where Polity data is missing. Democracy is included due to democracies
suffering from higher levels of terrorism (Abadie 2006). General country economic
development is accounted for with a natural logged measure of real GDP per capita
from the Maddison Historical Studies (MHS) in the QoG dataset, which might influ-
ence how well a state can fight terrorism and affect the dependent variable (see Choi
2015). Finally, population (natural logged), measured by the World Bank’s World
Development Indicators (WDI) from the QoG dataset, is included as larger countries
are more likely to experience higher levels of terrorism (Eyerman 1998) (Table1).
Analytic strategy
In his meta-analysis, Young (2019) identified various regression techniques within
the literature on terrorism. He found that a negative binomial regression was the
most common modeling technique used in quantitative data analysis of counts of
terrorism such as fatalities or number of attacks. Moreover, the results of Drakos
Table 1 Descriptive statistics Variable n Mean Standard
Deviation
Min Max
Terrorism (fatalities) 1241 67.5 344 0 6665
Terrorism (success rate) 1241 0.53 0.46 0 1
Sanctions (decay) 1241 0.14 0.28 0 1
Political Terror Scale 1241 2.99 1.11 1 5
Population (logged) 1241 16.7 1.53 13.18 21.01
GDP per capita (logged) 1241 8.37 1.14 6.54 10.84
Level of Democracy 1241 4.60 3.28 0.25 10
Civil War 1241 0.13 0.34 0 1
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390
T.Altmann, J.Giersch
and Gofas (2006) and Findley and Young (2012) found that a zero-inflated negative
binomial regression can be used to deal with underreporting bias within databases
of terrorism. However, Young (2019) found that Bayesian statistical models are not
common in the quantitative study of terrorism, but highlights their multiple advan-
tages such as when there is missing data (Honaker et al. 2011), a lower reliance
on p values when communicating a range of likely values (Kruschke 2010) more
easily modeled multilevel data structures (Gelman and Hill 2006), and ability to be
updated and replicated easily when new data are provided (Kruschke 2011).
The hypothesis was tested for the first operationalization of the dependent vari-
able (fatalities) with a conditional random-effects negative binomial regression
(NBR) and multilevel mixed-effects negative binomial regression (MMNBR). The
second operationalization (success rate) was tested with a Tobit regression model to
account for its censored range (0 to 1).
Results
The results provide evidence that sanctions lead to more effective terrorism within
a target count when measuring total fatalities, but not average success rate. Table2
displays these results. Model 1 presents results for the first operationalization meas-
ured by total fatalities using a random-effects NBR. Model 2 also presents results
for the first operationalization but using a MMNBR. Model 3 presents results for the
second operationalization using a RE linear regression, controlling for all covariates.
All models were significant overall at the 0.001 level. Table2 also shows the log
likelihood for Model 1 and Model 2 and R-squared value for Model 3.
Model 1 shows a positive coefficient for the main independent variable that
indicates that a one-unit increase in sanctions is associated with an increase in the
log of the fatalities from terrorism count of 0.409, controlling for all the covari-
ates. Model 1 fits the data around clusters of country, thereby accounting for vast
Table 2 Regression results
† < .1 * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001; one-tailed tests
DV: Fatalities from terrorism DV: Success rate
Model 1: cNBR Model 2: MMNBR Model 3: Tobit
Coefficient S.E Coefficient S.E Coefficient S.E
Sanctions (decay) .379** (.133) .781† (.436) .142 (.133)
Political Terror Scale .413*** (.053) 1.13*** (.102) .169** (.049)
Population (logged) .147*** (.033) .404*** (.107) .119* (.055)
GDP per capita (logged) .046 (.048) – .309* (.143) – .042 (.070)
Level of Democracy .140*** (.018) .081* (.047) .066** (.020)
Civil War .510*** (.108) 1.66*** (.273) .355** (.111)
Constant – 14.26*** (.681) – 14.85*** (2.03) – 2.138 (1.04)
Log Likelihood – 3409 – 3409 – 788
n 1228 1241 1241
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Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective…
differences between each specific condition within a target county with a random-
effects model. These results in Model 1 support the hypothesis that sanctions
increase the effectiveness of terrorism. Model 2 uses a MMNBR which accounts
for both fixed effects and random effects within the model, while also using the
group variable of country for the hierarchy structure. Both Model 1 and Model 2
use year as the exposure variable explaining the amount of exposure over which
the dependent variable of fatalities was observed for each observation of coun-
try over 39years. The results in Model 2 provide additional evidence support-
ing the hypothesized relationship, although at a more forgiving level of statistical
significance (0.10). To test the endurance of the association, we used a one-year
lagged dependent variable in an additional model, the results of which appear in
the appendix(Table3). Even under this additionalscrutiny, the results still sup-
port the hypothesis.In Model 3, the main independent variable has a coefficient
that is positive but not statistically significant.
Across the three models, the other independent variables showed, overall, sta-
tistically significant associations in the directions we would expect. Political terror,
population size, level of democracy, and civil war all had positive coefficients with
the two dependent variables. The coefficient for GPD per capita was only statisti-
cally significant in the second model, but in all three it was negative, as we expected
it to be.
Discussion
The hypothesis held up under Model 1 and Model 2, but not Model 3. Therefore,
for the total fatalities dependent variable, we reject the null hypothesis and find that
when sanctions are imposed on a country, the number of fatalities from terrorism
tends to increase. However, under Model 3, which controls for all the same covari-
ates, we find no statistically significant relationship between sanctions and the aver-
age success rate of attacks.
The fact that fatalities are associated with sanctions, but success rate is not,
deserves some attention. It is our contention that costly sanctions inspire terrorists
to become more aggressive. This aggression leads to more fatalities, but it might
also lead to attempts at terrorism with smaller odds of success. In other words, the
improved effectiveness of terrorism resulting from sanctions is nuanced because
emboldened actors will cause more deaths but also the occasional failed attempt.
The imposition of sanctions, therefore, can lead to more terrorist efforts, some of
which increase the number of fatalities and some that do not.
Recent research has uncovered new explanations for terrorism success. One fac-
tor seems to be the use of suicide bombers. Terrorist groups find this strategy use-
ful against targets both hard (Piazza 2020) and soft, especially when perpetrated by
women (Alakoc 2020). It is possible that sanctions place a burden on the poor (Choi
2014, Choi and Luo 2013) relative to elites and those who can more easily pivot to
other economic opportunities (Shin 2016), which leads to the most desperate and
lethal, if not always successful, methods available to terrorists.
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T.Altmann, J.Giersch
Implications
These results from the models have implications for policymakers when imposing
sanctions upon a country. Previous literature has already established that sanctions
lead to an increase in terrorism, but the results from this study further emphasize the
implications of Andreas (2005) that the operational capacity of terrorist organizations
may increase as a result of increased access to black-market goods. If sanctions are
imposed, terrorist organizations might gain more clout in the target country, therefore
increasing state deterioration by their increased recruiting and trade for weapons. An
increase in the effectiveness of terrorism creates a host of problems for the govern-
ment and citizenry such as increased state repression, loss of civilian life, and eco-
nomic and social destabilization. Therefore, the policy challenges for countries such
as the USA are to implement sanctions in a way that prevent increased black-market
access and to engage in multilateral intervention to prevent singular targeting by ter-
rorist organizations that increases foreign resentment by the home population. Such
approaches could prevent terrorism from becoming more effective when sanctions
are imposed by cutting the increased operational capacity of terrorists.
Furthermore, a more radical implication is that nations should shift away from
sanctions, especially costly sanctions, as the cornerstone of their foreign policy.
Returning to the example of Iran, the severe economic consequences the country
is currently experiencing and causing it to slide into depression would mean ter-
rorist activity could spike and be more effective. Future research should examine
the circumstances under which the governments of the countries targeted by sanc-
tions experience especially high degrees of terrorism effectiveness in order to help
policymakers shape their decisions regarding sanctions in ways that minimize these
unintended consequences.
In the literature on sanctions, this study also furthers the need for policymakers
and researchers to consider such unintended consequences of sanctions as a determi-
nant of success for a sanction episode. It is difficult for a policymaker or researcher
to label the sanctions on Iran a success even if Iran made the concession to return to
the JCPOA if terrorist organizations can operate more effectively as a consequence.
The results also further emphasize the value of the line of research that links sanc-
tions to terrorism.
Conclusion
This study sought to place terrorism in the target country more firmly in the group
of unintended consequences of economic sanctions in the literature on international
relations. More specifically, this study sought to conduct the first empirical research
on whether economic sanctions lead to terrorist activity becoming more deadly by
increasing the operational capacity of the organization. The study used strain theory
to address this question and panel data on 46 countries for over three decades. The
models developed by this study using the data combine a number of techniques to
deliver results that provide additional evidence of the unintended consequences of
sanctions. Two models yielded results that support the hypothesis when measuring
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Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective…
the total fatalities from terrorist attacks. However, the models that measured ter-
rorism as the average success rate of terrorist attacks were not conclusive. Andreas
(2005) showed that sanctions can increase the criminalization of the state which
leads to increased black-market access and thus higher operational capacity for ter-
rorist organizations. Therefore, within the literature, the results of this study show
not only that economic sanctions can increase terrorism in a target country, but that
the terrorist activity is more salient and deadly, thus being even more relevant as an
unintended consequence. This study is also relevant for the Biden administration’s
reliance on economic sanctions for foreign policy. To be clear, this article does not
seek to indict the Biden administration, but rather to critique the strategy of eco-
nomic sanctions overall as a tool future presidents will likely use frequently when
dealing with countries that threaten American interests.
Limitations
The literature identifies a major methodological limitation in the applied study of
terrorism which is underreporting bias. Drakos and Gofas (2006) find that many
databases used for terrorist attacks do not represent the true number of terrorism
incidents. They further find that there can be excessive zeros (a zero-inflated nega-
tive binomial regression can account for this) within the data and a correlation
between increased level of polity and increased terrorist activity, which are charac-
teristics caused by underreporting bias. The authors identify mitigation tactics by
addressing level of polity, which this study does across all models by controlling for
the covariate of level of democracy, but we must remain cautious due to a potential
discrepancy in actual and observed terrorist incidents.
The models could also be confounded by the difference between domestic and
international terrorism. The first dependent variable measuring terrorism as fatali-
ties counts the total number of deaths from terrorist attacks per country by a particu-
lar year and does not account for whether the attacks are international or domestic.
Therefore, it is hard to know in the models if the incidents are occurring due to
sanctions on the country where the incidents occurred, or an international terrorist
organization is conducting attacks against the target nation in no relation to sanc-
tions. These limitations are explored by Young (2019), who finds that caution must
be used when including both domestic and transnational terrorist incidents within
the data. Moreover, the models do not account for terrorist organizations that are
‘state-less’ and do not rely on a home country. Furthermore, the first and second
dependent variables do not account for asymmetric warfare leading to success or a
different type of attack entirely that does not use conventional warfare means. For
example, the models would not take into account cyberterrorism which can have
severe effects on a target or international country. In other words, fatalities and suc-
cess rate of attacks are not the only ways terrorists can disrupt a nation.
The results for Model 3 also have the implication that on average, the success rate of
terrorist attacks does not increase due to sanctions. This is problematic for the hypoth-
esis because we would expect for attacks to become more successful if the opera-
tional capacity of terrorists increases. Therefore, the results of the first two models are
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394
T.Altmann, J.Giersch
limited to an extent by the operational capacity only increasing in the way of fatali-
ties from attacks. Moreover, due to fatalities from attacks increasing while the success
rate does not could indicate that the two are not strongly correlated with each other.
We suspect that this discrepancy is due to terrorist groups becoming more aggressive,
leading to more deaths as well as more attempts at terror with mixed success rates.
Future research
Future research should focus on more ways to analyze whether terrorist organiza-
tions can become more effective in response to economic sanctions. The research
could examine whether economic sanctions lead to terrorist organizations lasting
longer as an entity within the target country. Future research should also look at
different types of terrorism that can be present such as cyberterrorism, which has
yet to be addressed entirely in the context of being a consequence of economic sanc-
tions. Returning to the example of Iran presented at the beginning of this article, no
research has yet been done on a case study of economic sanctions and terrorism. Iran
would be a prime candidate for a case study since it is extremely relevant to current
global affairs and also because the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration
are some of the costliest ever implemented (Congressional Research Service 2020).
Therefore, if a causal relationship were to exist between economic sanctions and
terrorism, it should be found there first. Beyond terrorism as a result of sanctions,
future research on economic sanctions based on the results of this study should fur-
ther realize analysis on sanction episodes in context of ordinary citizens as opposed
to decisions made by the elite regarding policy.
Appendix
See Table3.
Table 3 Lagged dependent
variable negative binomial
regression results
*p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001; one-tailed tests.
DV: Terrorism fatalities
lagged 1 year
Coefficient S.E
Sanctions (decay) .373* (.171)
Political Terror Scale .289*** (.057)
Population (logged) .088** (.033)
GDP per capita (logged) .000 (.055)
Level of Democracy .053** (.020)
Civil War .147 (.143)
Constant – 1.79 (9.70)
Log Likelihood – 788
n 1241
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395
Sanctioned terror: economic sanctions andmore effective…
Acknowledgements The authors thank the Department of Political Science at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill for their financial support to make this article open access.
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