The Impact of Western Sanctions on Putin's War
Journal: Canadian Journal of Political Science
Year: 2022

Abstract In response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the West imposed a package of unprecedented sanctions that has failed to generate meaningful domestic backlash against Putin's war. Leveraging extant research on the survival of authoritarian regimes under economic sanctions, I show that their devastating economic costs notwithstanding, sanctions are unlikely to destabilize Putin's regime or pressure him to withdraw his troops from Ukraine. The key to explaining this outcome is to zero in on t