On the political impact of sanctions in Russia
Channel: Norsk utenrikspolitisk institutt NUPI
Date: 2022-09-27

In recent years, a growing body of research has been presented to shed light on the impact of sanctions, based on recent and past experiences. In Europe, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy has been a main contributor in the field, with Prof. Dr. Julian Hinz as a key participant. At the seminar, Dr. Hinz will provide a brief overview of earlier work on the economic impact of sanctions at IfW, and then present ongoing work on the economic and political impact of sanctions in Russia.

To shed light on this issue, Dr. Hinz (in ongoing work, jointly with Robert Gold and Michele Valsecchi) has studied the sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014 and their effect on voting behaviour in both presidential and parliamentary elections in Russia. On the economic side, the sanctions significantly hurt Russia's foreign trade. But politically, the success of sanctions was mixed: The preliminary results indicate that regime support significantly increased in response to the sanctions, at the expense of voting support of communist parties in Russia.

The seminar is part of the activity of the EUROSHOCKS project, funded by the Research Council of Norway during 2021-2024 and coordinated by NUPI, with IfW, the University of Groningen and LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science) as participants.