Replication Data for: Unmasking the Black Knights: Sanctions Busters and Their Effects on the Success of Economic Sanctions

Despite clear expectations that sanctions busters undermine the effectiveness of economic sanctions, most empirical studies of the phenomenon fail to find that they significantly affect sanctions outcomes. One explanation for these puzzling results is that past studies have almost all relied on Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott’s (1990) dichotomous, time-invariant “black knight” variable to operationalize the occurrence of sanctions-busting. This piece develops a more nuanced account of how the timing, quantity, and nature of sanctions-busting trade affects sanctions’ outcomes and codes a new set of sanctions-busting variables that capture these distinctions. Two competing accounts of sanctions-busting are tested in the analysis, one that asserts that only politically motivated sanctions busters (i.e., black knights) negatively affect sanctions’ success and one that asserts that commercially and politically motivated sanctions busters jointly undermine their success. These rival accounts are tested using a competing risks analysis of 96 episodes of US-imposed sanctions from 1950 to 2006. The results indicate that while black knights alone do not make sanctions more likely to fail, in conjunction with commercially-motivated sanctions busters they do exercise a potent, negative effect on sanctions’ success. These findings have important implications for how third party responses affect sanctions outcomes.

尽管学界普遍认为制裁规避者会削弱经济制裁的有效性，但针对该现象的绝大多数实证研究均未发现其会对制裁结果产生显著影响。针对这一令人困惑的研究结论，一种可能的解释是：过往相关研究几乎均采用赫夫鲍尔（Hufbauer）、肖特（Schott）与埃利奥特（Elliott）1990年提出的二分、时不变‘黑骑士’（black knight）变量，来操作化定义制裁规避行为的发生。本文构建了更为细致的分析框架，阐释制裁规避贸易的时机、规模与属性如何作用于制裁结果，并编码生成了一组全新的制裁规避变量，以捕捉这些差异化特征。研究中对两种对立的制裁规避理论展开检验：一种观点主张仅具有政治动机的制裁规避者（即‘黑骑士’）会对制裁成功产生负面影响；另一种观点则认为兼具商业与政治动机的制裁规避者会共同削弱制裁的成功率。我们通过对1950年至2006年间96起美国实施的制裁案例进行竞争风险分析，对这两种对立理论进行了实证检验。结果表明，尽管单独的‘黑骑士’并不会提升制裁失败的概率，但当其与具有商业动机的制裁规避者共同出现时，便会对制裁成功产生显著的负面抑制作用。上述发现对于第三方反应如何影响制裁结果这一议题，具有重要的理论启示与实践价值。