International Economics Commons^™

Chapter 1 shows that there is a negative relationship observed between sanctions and civil liberties in the target country, which is driven by how exposed the target country's trade was to the sanctioning countries. Using a fixed panel regression covering 160 countries from 1972-2005, it is found that import exposure to the sanctioning countries drives this negative relationship, with every percentage point of import exposure reducing the inverted FHI freedom score by 0.165 points. This implies that restricting imports to a country that promotes an oppressive response by the targeted government.

Chapter 2 examines whether countries change their trade patterns …