International sanctions

In this episode, Matthias Catón speaks with Julia Grauvogel, Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA). They discuss the implications of economic sanctions and talk about different types of sanctions and the ways to measure their effects on the “target” (the country receiving the sanctions) and the “sender” (the country imposing the sanctions).

Matthias and Julia discuss why countries apply sanctions frequently and how effective they are, depending on the type and context of the application. Julia describes different concrete sanction regimes, such as during Apartheid in South Africa and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. She also talks about the economic clout that the United States and other Western countries have and how a continued de-dollarisation of the world economy might affect it. Julia provides her prediction on the future of sanctions as a foreign policy tool.

About the guest

Dr. Julia Grauvogel is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) and spokesperson of the research team “Interventions and Security”. She leads the research project “Sanctions Termination in Times of Crises: Unpacking the Role of External Shocks” funded by the German Research Foundation.

Her work on international sanctions and authoritarian rule has appeared in leading journals such as International Studies Quarterly and the Journal of Peace Research. Her commentary has been featured in taz, NZZ, and tagesschau24, among other outlets.

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