Imposing Sanctions on Individuals

Abstract

There is consensus in the literature that individual and targeted sanctions have little power to coerce targets to make significant policy changes, and that they are less successful in achieving their overall goals than conventional broad-based sanctions. There is some evidence suggesting that the more narrowly targeted sanctions are, the less impact they have. However, individual and targeted sanctions can help constrain their targets’ access to resources and ability to carry out policies, particularly when sanctions are used in combination with other measures. There is some evidence that sanctions against non-state actors may be less effective than sanctions against state-connected actors, but it is difficult to measure these impacts because these groups operate clandestinely.