International sanctions have been one of the most commonly used tools of Western foreign policy in the post-Cold War era to instigate democratization globally. However, despite long-term external pressure through sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and/or the United...

A significant part of economic coercion deployed by the US, EU and the UN targets authoritarian regimes' ruling elites, and aims to promote liberalization by encouraging defections and discouraging repression. We develop a model to study the effects of such measures. The ruler chooses how much...