You’re the one I want: Substitutability, policy preference divergence, and the cost of multilateral sanctions

Under what conditions do sanction-sending states choose to form coalitions? Do the same determinants that affect military sanction coalition formation affect how coercive economic coalitions are formed? This paper, utilizing an instrumental rational choice approach, focuses on the challenges states face in forming coercive economic coalitions. Primary sanction-sending states must balance the cost of establishing and maintaining coalitions, which stems from the difference in foreign policy preferences between the primary sender and its potential partners and the benefit of the improved coerciveness of their sanctioning policies. Consequently, primary senders often decide that multilateral sanctioning regimes are not worthwhile. An empirical analysis using optimal matching to create consistent counterfactuals provides evidence that primary senders account for the cost of including an additional partner and the benefit of the potential partner when deciding whether to form sanctioning coalitions.