[MGSA-L] Economic sanctions and infant mortality

[DANIEL P. TOMPKINS]

I'm sending this to various friends and colleagues who might have a
regional, professional or personal interest.

Dursun Persen has just published "Economic Sanctions and Human
Security:  The Public Health Effect of Economic Sanctions" in the
journal, Foreign Policy Analysis (7 [2011] 237-251).  It's grim,
disturbing, and informative.

Persen begins by noting that Pericles' Megarian Decree was "arguably
the earliest recorded use of economic sanctions."  Another first for
Athens!  He then quotes a Woodrow Wilson speech:  "Apply this
economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need
[of] force ... It does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted."
then he gets to work, studying a series of cross-national data from
the 1970-2000 period for evidence of maternal and infant mortality.
This has received increased attention as reports flowed in from
pre-invasion Iraq, Cuba, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia and Haiti, among
other countries, but Persen uses what appears to be a novel lens:
when are sanctions most lethal?

There follows a series of hypotheses and efforts at evaluation, based
on info from World Health Organization and UNICEF.  Interestingly, two
hypotheses -- that strength of the target nation's economy or
involvement of an international organization reduces the effect of
sanctions -- have no statistically significant support.  The variables
that _do_ contribute to high mortality are:

ongoing civil war in target countries

levels of economic development in target countries

direct and indirect cost to the target countries (reduced in some
cases by 3rd party intervention like USSR to Cuba)

United States involvement in sanctions

Of all these variables, the "US as Sender" is by far the most lethal.
Several reasons are mentioned:  US global economic dominance, US
government control over US companies, and US influence with third
parties, public and private.

Finally, "even ... humanitarian exceptions ... do not guarantee the
protection of civilians from the cost of sanctions."  Trade
limitations can reduce import of non-medical supplies needed for
electricity and water, thus "contribut[ing] to the collapse of medical
services."  Persen notes that limited sanctions like asset freezes or
reduced arms sales are less damaging, but "their success rate ... is
questionable."

***

This is all grim, as I said above.  Wilson may have been right that
sanctions are silent and "peaceful" but he also said, "deadly."
People in the Balkans talk about the US sanctions on Serbia:  here's a
vivid short summary (with very full bibliography).  Anyone interested
in (for instance) Macedonia (where Greece imposed sanctions for 19
months) or Gaza might find this study useful.  As would anyone really
concerned about how the United States "projects power"  in the world.
Exactly how much damage Athens did to Megara is a topic for another
study.

Best,

Dan
-- 
Daniel Tompkins
pericles at temple.edu