Publications
Book Chapters
Timothy Turnbull, "US Non-Proliferation Sanctions Against India and Pakistan: 1974-Present," in The Strategy of Sanctions, S.C.M. Paine and Anand Toprani, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), forthcoming.
Jordan Branch and Timothy Turnbull, "Territory," in the Oxford Handbook of International Political Economy, Jon C. W. Pevehouse and Leonard Seabrooke, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
Commentary
"Sanctions Are a Tool, Not a Foreign Policy," The National Interest, July 24, 2016.
"The Iran Sanctions Hangover Is Not a Liability," The National Interest, May 1, 2016.
Working Papers
Legislating Coercion: When Congress Imposes Sanctions
In the United States, economic sanctions are typically imposed by the executive branch; however, the US Congress does occasionally impose sanctions of its own. These legislated sanctions exhibit some important differences from those imposed by the executive branch: they are far more rigid than sanctions imposed by the executive branch; they often limit the bargaining ability of the President; and they can be exceedingly difficult to terminate, as they are codified into law and thus their resolution is dependent on domestic partisan politics. However, to date, there is no clear explanation for why Congress chooses to impose its own sanctions only in certain cases. To address this, I utilize an original dataset of all attempts by Congress at imposing sanctions from 1973-2018 to examine which features of the international environment, the sanctions threatened in a given sanctions bill, and domestic partisan politics influence decisions by Congress to impose legislated sanctions and their ultimate success or failure.
US Non-Proliferation Sanctions Against India and Pakistan: 1974-Present,” invited chapter in The Strategy of Sanctions, Sarah Paine and Anand Toprani, eds.
Since India first tested a nuclear device in 1974, the United States imposed and rescinded a number of sanctions regimes against both India and its neighboring rival, Pakistan. These sanctions, intended to both limit access to material critical for nuclear weapons as well as economically punish both states for their nuclear programs, were significant in that their imposition, severity, and duration were heavily influenced by US congressional politics. While sanctioning authority is generally attributed to the executive branch, the various sanctions regimes against India and Pakistan were imposed through acts of Congress, falling under the auspices of the Pressler Amendment, the Glenn Amendment, the Symington Amendment, and the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act. The legislative basis of the sanctions was significant for a number of reasons. First, being codified into law, the sanctions mandated that the executive act if India or Pakistan were in violation of their stipulations, and were therefore intended to deter, rather than punish, the proliferation activities of both states. This was an important development in the use of economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. However, in 1998, India and Pakistan both violated these laws by detonating nuclear devices. The sanctions, then, had failed in their role as a deterrent, and the US was obliged to impose the mandated penalties. Consequently, the threat of sanctions could no longer be used as a bargaining chip, and the US was left with little to entice India and Pakistan back to the negotiating table. Moreover, the inflexible nature of the sanctions had significant effects domestically in the US. A number of US industries were unduly harmed because of the legislation, and lobbying efforts by these groups ultimately led Congress to revisit and significantly weaken the sanctions.
Democracy and Sanction Type: Import Sanctions and the 'Economic Peace Between Democracies'
I examine whether there exists an ‘economic peace’ between democracies, as has been hypothesized by a number of sanctions scholars. I begin by noting that, in modeling sanctions as a binary choice – imposed or not imposed – previous studies have failed to examine whether differences between the various types of sanctions states can impose have some effect on the likelihood of their imposition. I argue that, as states have at their disposal numerous types of sanctions to impose on other states, and these different types of sanctions are intended to address different concerns and impose different forms of punishment on target states, democracies may in fact be more inclined to impose import sanctions against other democracies. To test my argument, I use both logistic and multinomial logistic analysis on a dataset of total embargoes, partial embargoes, import sanctions, export sanctions, and financial sanctions imposed from 1945-2005. I find evidence that democracies impose import sanctions against fellow democracies at a significantly higher rate than against non-democracies. These findings lend evidence to the idea that scholars have overlooked an important caveat to the ‘economic peace between democracies.’
Multilateralism, Selection Effects, and Sanctions Success
Are multilateral sanctions better or worse than unilateral sanctions? While policymakers almost universally favor multilateral sanctions, the empirical support for this position appears weak, as issues of cooperation and enforcement are thought to limit the effectiveness of multilateral sanctions. However, the extant work on multilateral sanctions suffers from a number of shortcomings. First, the belief that multilateral sanctions are less effective than unilateral sanctions is based on theoretical work, while there has been a lack of rigorous testing of this theory. Second, the majority of the statistical work on which this theoretical work is substantiated comes from the Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott (HSE) data set, which generally focused on security related issues, and therefore excludes many instances of sanctions involving other issues, such as trade disputes. Finally, assessments of the effectiveness of economic sanctions, both unilateral and multilateral, are thought to be made difficult by the existence of selection effects. In this article, I employ a variety of statistical methods to lend evidence to the idea that multilateral sanctions may in fact be more effective than previously thought. Further, I provide some evidence that the study of multilateral sanctions may indeed be hampered by the presence of selection effects. Specifically, I show that 1) by using a different measure of multilateralism, provided by the TIES data set, US-led multilateral sanctions are in fact more effective than unilateral sanctions. This result is robust even after accounting for those factors that make the imposition of sanctions more likely though a selection-corrected model of sanctions success; and 2) multilateral are more likely to be imposed quickly than unilateral sanctions, and are associated with higher costs to the target than unilateral sanctions, thus giving credence to the idea that selection effects is present in the study of multilateral sanctions.
Economic Statecraft Under Unipolarity: Soft Balancing and the BRICS Bank
Theories of soft balancing claim that it is a yet viable strategy by which second-ranked powers can constrain a hegemonic power. Critics of soft balancing theory hold that it is conceptually weak, and often indistinguishable from typical diplomatic bargaining. Indeed, two major faults in the theory are 1) a definition of power that is too narrow, and 2) the heavy emphasis on balancing behavior related to the United States' military adventurism. Yet if we expand the definition of power to encompass more than military capabilities, and bring in insights from international political economy, we can better specify soft balancing, as well as satisfy the demands of critics of the theory. This study aims to develop a theory of soft balancing that places economic power at the center of analysis, demonstrating, through an analysis of the creation of the BRICS Bank, that the formation of multilateral institutions that exclude the hegemonic state can be usefully understood as attempts at soft balancing. In all, this study argues that soft balancing theory should not be abandoned in the face of criticism, and need only be respecified.
Legislating Coercion: When Congress Imposes Sanctions
In the United States, economic sanctions are typically imposed by the executive branch; however, the US Congress does occasionally impose sanctions of its own. These legislated sanctions exhibit some important differences from those imposed by the executive branch: they are far more rigid than sanctions imposed by the executive branch; they often limit the bargaining ability of the President; and they can be exceedingly difficult to terminate, as they are codified into law and thus their resolution is dependent on domestic partisan politics. However, to date, there is no clear explanation for why Congress chooses to impose its own sanctions only in certain cases. To address this, I utilize an original dataset of all attempts by Congress at imposing sanctions from 1973-2018 to examine which features of the international environment, the sanctions threatened in a given sanctions bill, and domestic partisan politics influence decisions by Congress to impose legislated sanctions and their ultimate success or failure.
US Non-Proliferation Sanctions Against India and Pakistan: 1974-Present,” invited chapter in The Strategy of Sanctions, Sarah Paine and Anand Toprani, eds.
Since India first tested a nuclear device in 1974, the United States imposed and rescinded a number of sanctions regimes against both India and its neighboring rival, Pakistan. These sanctions, intended to both limit access to material critical for nuclear weapons as well as economically punish both states for their nuclear programs, were significant in that their imposition, severity, and duration were heavily influenced by US congressional politics. While sanctioning authority is generally attributed to the executive branch, the various sanctions regimes against India and Pakistan were imposed through acts of Congress, falling under the auspices of the Pressler Amendment, the Glenn Amendment, the Symington Amendment, and the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act. The legislative basis of the sanctions was significant for a number of reasons. First, being codified into law, the sanctions mandated that the executive act if India or Pakistan were in violation of their stipulations, and were therefore intended to deter, rather than punish, the proliferation activities of both states. This was an important development in the use of economic sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. However, in 1998, India and Pakistan both violated these laws by detonating nuclear devices. The sanctions, then, had failed in their role as a deterrent, and the US was obliged to impose the mandated penalties. Consequently, the threat of sanctions could no longer be used as a bargaining chip, and the US was left with little to entice India and Pakistan back to the negotiating table. Moreover, the inflexible nature of the sanctions had significant effects domestically in the US. A number of US industries were unduly harmed because of the legislation, and lobbying efforts by these groups ultimately led Congress to revisit and significantly weaken the sanctions.
Democracy and Sanction Type: Import Sanctions and the 'Economic Peace Between Democracies'
I examine whether there exists an ‘economic peace’ between democracies, as has been hypothesized by a number of sanctions scholars. I begin by noting that, in modeling sanctions as a binary choice – imposed or not imposed – previous studies have failed to examine whether differences between the various types of sanctions states can impose have some effect on the likelihood of their imposition. I argue that, as states have at their disposal numerous types of sanctions to impose on other states, and these different types of sanctions are intended to address different concerns and impose different forms of punishment on target states, democracies may in fact be more inclined to impose import sanctions against other democracies. To test my argument, I use both logistic and multinomial logistic analysis on a dataset of total embargoes, partial embargoes, import sanctions, export sanctions, and financial sanctions imposed from 1945-2005. I find evidence that democracies impose import sanctions against fellow democracies at a significantly higher rate than against non-democracies. These findings lend evidence to the idea that scholars have overlooked an important caveat to the ‘economic peace between democracies.’
Multilateralism, Selection Effects, and Sanctions Success
Are multilateral sanctions better or worse than unilateral sanctions? While policymakers almost universally favor multilateral sanctions, the empirical support for this position appears weak, as issues of cooperation and enforcement are thought to limit the effectiveness of multilateral sanctions. However, the extant work on multilateral sanctions suffers from a number of shortcomings. First, the belief that multilateral sanctions are less effective than unilateral sanctions is based on theoretical work, while there has been a lack of rigorous testing of this theory. Second, the majority of the statistical work on which this theoretical work is substantiated comes from the Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott (HSE) data set, which generally focused on security related issues, and therefore excludes many instances of sanctions involving other issues, such as trade disputes. Finally, assessments of the effectiveness of economic sanctions, both unilateral and multilateral, are thought to be made difficult by the existence of selection effects. In this article, I employ a variety of statistical methods to lend evidence to the idea that multilateral sanctions may in fact be more effective than previously thought. Further, I provide some evidence that the study of multilateral sanctions may indeed be hampered by the presence of selection effects. Specifically, I show that 1) by using a different measure of multilateralism, provided by the TIES data set, US-led multilateral sanctions are in fact more effective than unilateral sanctions. This result is robust even after accounting for those factors that make the imposition of sanctions more likely though a selection-corrected model of sanctions success; and 2) multilateral are more likely to be imposed quickly than unilateral sanctions, and are associated with higher costs to the target than unilateral sanctions, thus giving credence to the idea that selection effects is present in the study of multilateral sanctions.
Economic Statecraft Under Unipolarity: Soft Balancing and the BRICS Bank
Theories of soft balancing claim that it is a yet viable strategy by which second-ranked powers can constrain a hegemonic power. Critics of soft balancing theory hold that it is conceptually weak, and often indistinguishable from typical diplomatic bargaining. Indeed, two major faults in the theory are 1) a definition of power that is too narrow, and 2) the heavy emphasis on balancing behavior related to the United States' military adventurism. Yet if we expand the definition of power to encompass more than military capabilities, and bring in insights from international political economy, we can better specify soft balancing, as well as satisfy the demands of critics of the theory. This study aims to develop a theory of soft balancing that places economic power at the center of analysis, demonstrating, through an analysis of the creation of the BRICS Bank, that the formation of multilateral institutions that exclude the hegemonic state can be usefully understood as attempts at soft balancing. In all, this study argues that soft balancing theory should not be abandoned in the face of criticism, and need only be respecified.