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| Volume X, Summer 2003, Number 2 |
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| EXCERPT: Beyond the Nation-State: Privatization of Economic Sanctions |
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| Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Barbara Oegg |
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Dr. Hufbauer is Reginald Jones senior fellow and Ms. Oegg is research associate for the Institute for International Economics.
DOMESTIC INTEREST GROUPS IN U.S. SANCTIONS POLICY
Special-interest groups -- business associations, ethnic-based or religious groups -- play a central role in the American political system. Organized for the purpose of exerting influence on policy makers in Washington, these groups not only aim to influence the government's domestic agenda, but also to lobby Congress to have their interests abroad served. In fact, many scholars claim that American foreign policy in the twentieth century has increasingly been determined not by considerations of national interest, but by the economic and ethnic interests of vocal minorities.1 Likewise, U.S. sanctions policy in the twentieth century also reflects the importance of organized domestic interests in shaping foreign policy.
American Jewish organizations were instrumental in the passing of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974. Sponsored by Senator Henry Jackson and Representative Charles Vanik, the amendment denied communist countries most-favored-nation trading status and access to U.S. government credits and investment guarantees as long as they restricted the emigration of Jews and other dissidents.2 Primarily aimed at the former Soviet Union, the "freedom-of-emigration" amendment continues to hold U.S.-Russian trade relations hostage. While the American Jewish community has recently indicated support for removing the Jackson-Vanik requirements for Russia, it wants assurances that U.S. policy will continue to promote human rights in that country.3
Economic sanctions imposed against South Africa in the 1980s also illustrate the success of interest-group lobbying. South Africa was a particularly instructive case study because it involved competing domestic interests: major multinational companies opposed economic sanctions, while African-American groups backed by a coalition of religious groups, labor unions and student activists favored them.
1 See Samuel Huntington quoted in Tony Smith, Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), p. 8.
2 Tony Smith, p. 58.
3 Congressional Research Service (CRS), Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) Status for Russia and U.S. Russian Economic Ties, Report to Congress by William H. Cooper, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2002, p. 6.
© Copyright 2003: Institute for International Economics
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