Government-imposed Restrictions on International Economic Relations

It is crucial to understand how decision makers decide whether and what kinds of restrictions to impose, as well as the manner in which economic restrictions affect compliance with a government's goals. In the worst case, sanctions can backfire, undermining the advantageous position the nation-state currently occupies, while potentially empowering rising challengers for international influence. This project involves the collection of original data on all government-mandated sanctions and export controls by nations and international organizations. Principal investigators will use these data to understand when different kinds and combinations of economic restrictions are used, when these restrictions are effective, and when they are most likely to be counterproductive. The project will help decision makers and scholars better understand the effectiveness of economic restrictions aimed at coercion and containment of adversaries and other goals. The project will also provide insights into how targets try to redirect lost commerce to new third parties, and how economic and political relationships subsequently evolve. Using each restriction (the specific prohibited interaction) as the unit of analysis, the Government-imposed Restrictions on International Economic Relations project (GRIER) will code all government-mandated restrictions on the international flow of goods, services, technology, money, finance, and investment, as well as restrictions on travel, media, and diplomacy for the years spanning 1992 to 2022. Principal investigators will also construct time-varying, comparable indicators of the comprehensiveness and severity of each economic restriction for the target. Using the GRIER dataset, principal investigators will systematically test two broad research questions. First, what affects the composition and severity of government-imposed economic restrictions—whether specifically against governments, individuals, or other entities? Second, how does the composition of economic restrictions affect not only the likelihood of target concession, but the broader reshaping of economic and political networks? This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.