Carrots or Sticks? Positive Inducements and Sanctions in International Relations

Abstract

What is the utility and relative efficacy of positive inducements and sanctions in international politics? Are inducements and sanctions actually different or just the two sides of the same coin? How have inducements and sanctions been used and how effective have they been? My dissertation examines the effect of carrot and stick-like foreign policies in international relations. Dominant works on risk-taking and decision-making—like loss aversion – have shown that people are more sensitive to potential losses than gains, which would suggest that sanctions should be utilized more in order to achieve preferred outcomes. I find, however, that inducement policies that require concessions from the target state can be framed to gain the target state’s public support and allow target state leaders to “save face.” In contrast, I find that sanctions provoke nationalism, creating a rally around the flag effect, resulting in negative consequences for the sender state. Using a presence-absence framework of positive and negative outcomes, utilizing experimental methods to study the micro-foundations of inducement and sanction perceptions, as well as a case study of the Six-Party Talks based on field work consisting of archival work and interviews, my dissertation aims to bridge the policy-academy gap by translating a perennial policy-level problem of “carrots vs. sticks” to an academic question assessing the utility and relative efficacy of positive inducements versus sanctions.