Coercion and Democracy: Symbolic Role of Economic Sanctions in the US

Given the low effectiveness of economic sanctions, scholars suggest that sanctions are imposed to address the expectations of the domestic audience and the motivation is symbolic. In this article, I test the symbolic argument and look for the presence of an audience benefit for an imposition of sanctions and an audience cost for issuing of an empty threat. I find no evidence for an increase in popularity following an imposition of economic sanctions, nor a decline in popularity after an empty threat – counter to current scholarship. However, I do observe that US president are more likely to follow up on a threat of economic coercion if they have experienced a spell of decrease in approval ratings before the conflict. Thus, US presidents do play at the home crowd with economic coercion, but the crowd is indifferent.