IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/egc/wpaper/796.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sanctions on South Africa: What Did They Do

Author

Listed:
  • Philip I. Levy

Abstract

This paper considers the economic sanctions that were applied in the mid-1980s to pressure the South African government to end apartheid. It asks what role those sanctions played in the eventual demise of the apartheid regime and concludes that the role was probably very small. An alternative explanation for the regime change is offered: the communist bloc combined to bring about the change. If one is to argue for the efficacy of sanctions, two key obstacles are their limited economic impact and the substantial lag between the imposition of sanctions and the political change. Since sanctions preceded the change of government, it is impossible to rule them out as a determinant. However, their principal effect was probably psychological. The implication is that the South African case should not serve as the lone major instance of effective sanctions.

Suggested Citation

  • Philip I. Levy, 1999. "Sanctions on South Africa: What Did They Do," Working Papers 796, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    • Handle: RePEc:egc:wpaper:796
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp796.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaemfer, William H & Lowenberg, Anton D, 1988. "The Theory of International Economic Sanctions: A Public Choice Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 786-793, September.
    2. Anton D. Lowenberg, 1997. "Why South Africa'S Apartheid Economy Failed," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 15(3), pages 62-72, July.
    3. Gary Clyde Hufbauer & Jeffrey J. Schott & Kimberly Ann Elliott, 2009. "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd Edition (paper)," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 4129, April.
    4. M. Lipton, 1989. "The Challenge of Sanctions1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 57(4), pages 227-240, December.
    5. Gary Clyde Hufbauer & Jeffrey J. Schott & Kimberly Ann Elliott, 1990. "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: 2nd Edition," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 82, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. William Seitz & Alberto Zazzaro, 2020. "Sanctions and public opinion: The case of the Russia-Ukraine gas disputes," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 817-843, October.
    2. Caruso Raul, 2003. "The Impact of International Economic Sanctions on Trade: An Empirical Analysis," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 1-36, April.
    3. Denise Guthrie & Erick Duchesne, 2003. "(Mis)Selection Effects and Sovereignty Costs: An Alternative Measure of the Costs of Sanctions," University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20032, University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute.
    4. Neuenkirch, Matthias & Neumeier, Florian, 2015. "The impact of UN and US economic sanctions on GDP growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 110-125.
    5. Naghavi, Alireza & Pignataro, Giuseppe, 2015. "Theocracy and resilience against economic sanctions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 1-12.
    6. Dizaji, S.F. & van Bergeijk, P.A.G., 2012. "Early phase success and long run failure of economic sanctions. With an application to Iran," ISS Working Papers - General Series 544, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    7. Daniel Verdier, 2009. "Sanctions as revelation regimes," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 13(3), pages 251-278, September.
    8. Coyne,Christopher J., 2020. "Defense, Peace, and War Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108724036, October.
    9. Nahrstedt, Jan, 2021. "US economic sanctions on Cuba: An analysis of the reasons for their maintenance," IPE Working Papers 162/2021, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    10. Kaz Miyagiwa & Yuka Ohno, 2015. "Nuclear bombs and economic sanctions," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 635-646, October.
    11. Michael Horowitz & Dan Reiter, 2001. "When Does Aerial Bombing Work?," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 45(2), pages 147-173, April.
    12. Kimberly Ann Elliott, 2003. "Economic Leverage and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis," Policy Briefs PB03-03, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    13. Daniel Berger & William Easterly & Nathan Nunn & Shanker Satyanath, 2013. "Commercial Imperialism? Political Influence and Trade during the Cold War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 863-896, April.
    14. Ralph, Lauren, 2019. "In Consideration of Economic Sanctions," Studies in Applied Economics 131, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.
    15. O'Rourke, Kevin, 2005. "The Worldwide Economic Impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars," CEPR Discussion Papers 5079, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Jin Mun Jeong & Dursun Peksen, 2019. "Domestic Institutional Constraints, Veto Players, and Sanction Effectiveness," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 63(1), pages 194-217, January.
    17. Carlo de Bassa Scheresberg, Francesco Passarelli, 2011. "Strategic Sovereign Defaults under International Sanctions," ISLA Working Papers 42, ISLA, Centre for research on Latin American Studies and Transition Economies, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    18. Inman, Robert P. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 2012. "Understanding the Democratic Transition in South Africa," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt4mp5t4ff, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    19. Cooper, Richard, 2004. "Is "Economic Power" a Useful and Operational Concept?," Scholarly Articles 3677050, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    20. Jerg Gutmann & Matthias Neuenkirch & Florian Neumeier, 2024. "Political Economy of International Sanctions," Research Papers in Economics 2024-07, University of Trier, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Keywords: Sanctions; South Africa; Political Economy; Trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:egc:wpaper:796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benjamin King (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/egyalus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.