Purchasing power: Economic statecraft and international structure

Instruments of economic statecraft, including economic sanctions and economic incentives, are commonly derided as weak and ineffectual foreign policy tools. The central argument of this work posits that this conventional wisdom is anachronistic. Recent shifts in the international political system have produced a sea-change in the effectiveness of economic statecraft, which has evolved from a marginally effective practice to a potent force in international politics. The efficacy of economic statecraft is not static; rather, it possesses a fluid, dynamic character. Fluctuations in the potency of economic instruments of statecraft occur in response to changes in the structural attributes of the international political system. Ceteris paribus, a bipolar distribution of power is likely to diminish the effectiveness of economic influence attempts, and accordingly, a unipolar system tends to enhance the effectiveness of such measures. Therefore the emergence of a unipolar international system after the demise of the Soviet Union is likely to have led to an increase in the efficacy of U.S. economic statecraft. American unipolarity also contributed to other shifts in the international system---rising economic integration, and neoliberal economic hegemony---developments which also augmented the power of U.S. economic instruments of statecraft.; A comparative statistical analysis of sanctions episodes in the bipolar era versus the unipolar period constitutes the main quantitative test of this dissertation. Additionally, to measure the impact of economic statecraft on primary foreign policy objectives, this work employs case study analysis to examine the effect of economic instruments on democracy promotion and counterterrorism---respectively, the top priorities of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. The findings of this study reveal a marked increase in the efficacy rate of economic sanctions from the bipolar era to the unipolar era. Economic sanctions and economic incentives have also demonstrated considerable effectiveness in the promotion of democracy and counterterrorism objectives in the contemporary era. The results of this study suggest that the reigning cynicism about economic statecraft is outmoded and mistaken. Still, unipolarity is a finite state. An emergent challenge to the unipolar status of the international system would erode the effectiveness of U.S. economic statecraft.