http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0331-0277
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ABSTRACT
Democracy promotion through economic sanctions has become commonplace. Previous studies argue that an important challenge to the effectiveness of democratic sanctions is the contravening support of black knights. However, these studies underestimate conflicting interests between the target and its black knight. In this paper, I propose a bargaining model for understanding how targets obtain support from black knights. The target’s main source of bargaining power is its threat to defect from the black knight and obtain support from an international rival. However, the credibility of this threat decreases with democratic sanctions because they hinder cooperation with a likely source of support, namely the sender. Therefore, targets take steps towards democracy to improve their bargaining position relative to the black knight. To probe my argument, I conduct a deep single case study of EU sanctions against Belarus between 2004 and 2016 with Russia as a black knight. Sanctions should have no effect in this paradigmatic case of black knight support. Yet, there is substantial evidence that democratic sanctions have increased the cost of electoral fraud and state repression in Belarus. This indicates that the conflicting interests of targets and their black knights provide windows of opportunity for democracy promotion.
ORCID
Mikkel Sejersen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0331-0277
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Jakob Tolstrup, Jørgen Møller, Francesco Giumelli, Clara Portela and the participants of the 2018 EWIS workshop on European sanctions for thoughtful and valuable comments and feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Belarus TV First Channel, 9 July 2010.
2 Yakouchyk, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ambitious.”
3 Council of the European Union, Council Common Position 2004/661/CFSP.
4 See e.g. Ambrosio, “Insulating Russia from a Colour Revolution.”
5 Terminology: sanctions are referred to as restrictive measures in the EU and I use the two terms interchangeably. I follow conventions from research on sanctions and use the term “target” for the regime under sanctions and recipient of black knight support. The term “sender” refers to the entity imposing sanctions. See e.g. Drezner, “Sanctions Sometimes Smart.” Finally, for the sake of consistency, I use the term “black knight” for the third party providing black knight support even in times when it refuses to help the target. In the case study, the Lukashenko regime is the target, the EU is the sender, and Russia is the black knight.
6 Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War.
7 On the competition between the EU and Russia for influence in Belarus, see Tolstrup, Russia vs. the EU; Yakouchyk, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ambitious”; Vieira and Vasilyan, “Armenia and Belarus.”
8 Tolstrup, “Black Knights and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes.”
9 Peksen and Drury, “Coercive or Corrosive”; von Soest and Wahman, “Are Democratic Sanctions Really Counterproductive?”
10 Escribà-Folch, “Authoritarian Responses to Foreign Pressure,” 689.
11 von Soest and Wahman, “Are Democratic Sanctions Really Counterproductive?”
12 Peksen and Drury, “Coercive or Corrosive.”
13 von Soest and Wahman, “Are Democratic Sanctions Really Counterproductive?” 967.
14 Ibid., 963.
15 Ibid., 960.
16 Tolstrup, “Black Knights and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes,” 676.
17 Obydenkova and Libman, Autocratic and Democratic External Influences in Post-Soviet Eurasia; Chou, “Have the Black Knights Arisen?”; Chou, Pan, and Poole, “The Threat of Autocracy Diffusion in Consolidated Democracies?”
18 Tolstrup, “Studying a Negative External Actor.”
19 Muller, “Dependent Economic Development.”
20 Whitehead, “Antidemocracy Promotion”; Bader, China’s Foreign Relations and the Survival of Autocracies; Weyland, “Autocratic Diffusion and Cooperation.”
21 Chou, “Have the Black Knights Arisen?”
22 Bader, China’s Foreign Relations and the Survival of Autocracies.
23 Whitehead, “Antidemocracy Promotion.”
24 Silitski, “‘Survival of the Fittest’.”
25 Aidt and Albornoz, “Political Regimes and Foreign Intervention.”
26 Bader, “The Political Economy of External Exploitation”; Chen and Kinzelbach, “Democracy Promotion and China.”
27 Lake, “Anarchy, Hierarchy, and the Variety of International Relations.”
28 The target will also seek to diversify its international ties to decrease dependence on its former black knight as outlined in Yakouchyk, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ambitious.”
29 Ibid., 199.
30 Fearon, “Signaling Foreign Policy Interests.”
31 Bennett and Checkel, Process Tracing.
32 Mahoney, “After KKV.”
33 Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash; Balmaceda, The Politics of Energy Dependency; Bosse and Korosteleva-Polglase, “Changing Belarus?”; Silitski, “Preempting Democracy”; Tolstrup, “When Can External Actors Influence Democratization?”; Tolstrup, Russia vs. the EU.
34 Bennett and Elman, “Case Study Methods in the International Relations Subfield.”
35 Bader, “The Political Economy of External Exploitation”; Wehrey, “Saudi Arabia’s Anxious Autocrats.”
36 Fiori and Passeri, “Hedging in Search of a New Age of Non-Alignment,” 690–5.
37 Hassan, “Undermining the Transatlantic Democracy Agenda?” 483–4.
38 Samokhvalov, “Ukraine between Russia and the European Union,” 1378–82.
39 Pourgourides, Disappeared Persons in Belarus.
40 Council of the European Union, Council Common Position 2004/661/CFSP.
41 New York Times, 18 October 2004.
42 The Globe and Mail, 20 October 2004.
43 Council of the European Union, Council Common Position 2004/848/CFSP.
44 Reuters, 22 April 2005.
45 The Washington Post, 22 April 2005.
46 Moscow Times, 25 April 2005.
47 UNIAN news agency, 25 March 2005.
48 Council of the European Union, Council Common Position 2006/276/CFSP.
49 Belapan news agency, 26 March 2005.
50 Belarusian National State Broadcasting, 10 April 2006.
51 Silitski, “Survival of the Fittest.”
52 Tolstrup, “Black Knights and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes.”
53 Belarus National State Broadcasting, 8 December 2005.
54 Kommersant, 9 March 2006.
55 Belarusian National State Broadcasting, 20 March 2006.
56 Balmaceda, The Politics of Energy Dependency.
57 Interfax-Ukraine news agency, 24 June 2006.
58 Reuters, 30 September 2006.
59 Russian Channel One Worldwide, 1 January 2007.
60 Balmaceda, The Politics of Energy Dependency.
61 Die Welt, 30 January 2007.
62 Belapan News Agency, 19 October 2007.
63 ITAR-TASS news agency, 24 October 2007.
64 Belapan News Agency, 3 December 2007.
65 The New York Times, 17 August 2008.
66 The New York Times, 21 August 2008.
67 The Guardian, 29 September 2008.
68 OSCE Final Report, 28 November 2008.
69 Council of the European Union, Council Common Position 2008/844/CFSP.
70 Interfax-Ukraine news agency, 22 October 2008.
71 Belarus TV First Channel, 10 February 2009.
72 Belapan News Agency, 1 April 2009.
73 Belapan News Agency, 18 February 2009; Belapan News Agency, 30 December 2008.
74 Marples, “Outpost of Tyranny?” 770.
75 Council of the European Union, Council Common Position 2009/314/CFSP.
76 Balmaceda, The Politics of Energy Dependency.
77 RBC Daily, 29. January 2010.
78 Rossiya 1 TV, 15 June 2010.
79 BelGazeta, 15 December 2010.
80 The Guardian, 21 December 2010.
81 The New York Times, 15 January 2011.
82 Council of the European Union, Council Decision 2011/357/CFSP.
83 Belapan News Agency, 25 May 2011.
84 The New York Times, 15 May 2011.
85 Interfax News Agency, 21 June 2011.
86 Belapan News Agency, 1 July 2011.
87 The International Herald Tribune, 25 September 2011.
88 Council of the European Union, Council Decision 2012/642/CFSP.
89 Interfax News Agency, 26 December 2011.
90 Belapan News Agency, 5 March 2014.
91 Belarusian First TV Channel, 17 July 2014.
92 Ukrainian 5 Kanal TV, 18 August 2014.
93 Belarusian state radio, 29 January 2015.
94 Belarusian state radio, 29 April 2015.
95 Interfax News Agency, 6 October 2015.
96 Belapan News Agency, 6 January 2016.
97 Belapan News Agency, 24 August 2016.
98 Belapan News Agency, 9 September 2016.
99 Belapan News Agency, 13 October 2015.
100 OSCE Final Report, 15 October 2015: 10, 14, 19, 21.
101 Council of the European Union, Council Regulation 2016/277.
102 Tolstrup, “Black Knights and Elections in Authoritarian Regimes.”
103 On Russia, see e.g. Tolstrup; Ambrosio, Authoritarian Backlash. On China, see e.g. Bader, “The Political Economy of External Exploitation”; Chou, Pan, and Poole, “The Threat of Autocracy Diffusion in Consolidated Democracies?” On Saudi Arabia, see e.g. Darwich, “Creating the Enemy, Constructing the Threat.”
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Mikkel Sejersen
Mikkel Sejersen is a PhD student at Aarhus University with current research interests such as economic sanctions, democratization, and state repression.