Background

Economic sanctions are measures restricting trade and finance with the aim to coerce the target state to change its policy to a desired direction. There have been economic sanctions against Russia since the unlawful annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, following Russia's attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the US, EU and UK have decided on and applied an unprecedented and acuumulating package of sanctions against Russia. The 13th sanctions package was decided on in February 2024, on the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion to Ukraine. Russia has responded to the sanctions with its own countermeasures, most of which are associated with energy, ie. crude oil and natural gas.

Economic sanctions

Council on Foreign Relations (2017) defines economic sanctions as "the withdrawal of normal trade and financial relations for foreign and security policy objectives." Hufbauer et al. (1990) add to economic sanctions also the threat of economic sanctions. The literature dealing with economic sanctions excludes economic policy goals from the scope of sanctions, such as, for example, the protection of domestic industry with the help of tariffs. Economic sanctions can also be seen as one part of a wider continuum of political pressure (e.g. Kaempfer & Lowenberg , 2007; Sivonen, 2017).

Although the definition of economic sanctions only includes foreign and security policy goals, in democratic states politics must sufficiently enjoy the support of the citizens. Sanctions may also have goals other than officially or publicly presented goals, such as the domestic political goals mentioned by Smith (1995), especially when the goals are significant and the sanctions are modest.

The impact of economic sanctions on political goals is seen to be caused by economic losses caused by sanctions or the threat of them, which in turn leads to a change in policy in the target state ( Blanchard & Ripsman , 2013, 5). Economic sanctions can coerce either directly (economic losses) or indirectly by leading to internal disunity and government opposition ( Pape , 1997). The most important measure of the effect of economic sanctions is the fall in gross domestic product ( Pape , 1997).

Blanchard & Ripsman (2013, 5) distinguish economic sanctions from economic warfare in that the latter aims to weaken the target state's military capability or warfare capability through, for example, an arms export ban. The measure of the success of economic warfare, on the other hand, is the amount of armaments (Pape , 1997).

Howlett (2023) gives a comprehensive overview of public policy design, including the processes, instruments, policy designers. There are indeed many different kinds of instruments which can be used in a policy design and many ways in which instruments of different types can be combined into a policy mix, an example of which is a sanctions package. Stark et al. (2021) studied public deliberation in an experiment, and found that it provides insight in any case, even if it does not alter the policy decisions, The EU sanctions packages were designed in the middle of a very lively public debate and strong emotions, so this is also an interesting viewpoint, although the policy decisions had to be made in this case under a very intense time pressure.

Scope

The scope of this work is to study the design of economic sanctions that the EU has imposed on Russia since the attack on Ukraine in February 2022. The aim is to study the evaluation of the planned or proposed sanctions on a member state level, and see how the necessary viewpoints and estimates of impacts are being compiled, which actors are involved in the process, and how the national position is being formulated and decided on. The methodology covers an overview on selected key theories on sanctions, with emphasis on sanctions design and ex ante estimation of effectiveness and impacts of sanctions, and as an empirical part, a series of theme-based interviews that include the most essential decision-makers and stakeholders in a member state. This study focuses on Finland as a case of an EU member state.

Research questions

The research questions are: 1) how widely were different stakeholders engaged in evaluating the sanctions, 2) in hindsight, which of the estimates were right and which on the other hand proved to be inaccurate, and were there unforeseen factors or phenomena, 3) how did the decision on the national position take place and which decision-makers were involved and 4) what are the key findings with respect to the sanctions theories found in literature.

Projected outcome

With this work, we expect to provide new findings on the design and ex ante evaluation of sanctions, along with a closer understanding how the preparation and decision-making is carried out in the three levels: society level, member state level and EU level. The member state chosen for this case study is Finland.

References

Blanchard, Jean-Marc. F., & Norrin Ripsman (2013). Economic statecraft and foreign policy: Sanctions, incentives, and target state calculations . Abingdon : Routledege .

Council on Foreign Relations (2017). What Are Economic Sanctions ?, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-are-economic-sanctions, (June 11, 2019).

Howlett, M. (2023). Designing Public Policies: Principles and Instruments (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003343431

Hufbauer, Gary Clyde, Jeffrey J Schott & Kimberly A Elliot (1990). Economic sanctions reconsidered: History and current policy (Vol. 1) . Washington: Institute for International Economics.

Kaempfer , William H & Anton D Lowenberg (2007). The political economy of economic sanctions. In T. Sandler & K. Hartley ( Eds .). Handbook of Defense Economics, Vol 2 , 867-911.

Pope, Robert. A. (1997). Why economic sanctions do not work . International security , 22(2), 90-136.

Sivonen, Pekka (2017). On the conditions for the success of Western military coercion and intervention. Science and Weapons , 75, 213-223.

Smith, Alistair (1995). The success and use of economic sanctions. International Interactions , 21(3), 229-245

Stark, A., Thompson, N. K., & Marston, G. (2021). Public deliberation and policy design. Policy Design and Practice, 4(4), 452-464

Local innovation labs (LILs) act as incubators in the public sector, designed to address multifaceted societal issues through innovative solutions (Criado et al., 2020; Engels et al., 2019), and are thriving on a diverse set of resources ranging from financial, human, to technological capital (Tõnurist et al., 2017; Choi & Park, 2020). Despite their potential, LILs are often constrained by limited resources, compelling public managers to make strategic choices to innovate that are resource dependent (Borins, 2001). Consequently, understanding the influence of various dimensions of resource dependence becomes essential for delineating the strategic choices made within these innovation ecosystems (Malatesta & Smith, 2014; Phonkaew, 2001; Oliver, 1991). Therefore, this study proposes the following research question: how do sources of dependence and degree of dependence affect the strategic choices to innovate of German local innovation labs?

To address this question, this study embarks on a qualitative exploration where dependence is directly rooted or what is being depended upon and how it affects strategic choices of LILs. Through a multiple case study approach (Hunziker & Blankenagel, 2021), this study examines 10 LILs across Germany, varying in organizational size and degree of publicness. The data collection involves semi-structured interviews (Adams, 2015).

The contribution of this study is threefold. Firstly, the theoretical contribution lies in the description of how internal and external sources of dependence (Gandia & Gardet, 2017) in the innovation process of LILs explains their variance in strategic choices. Secondly, by examining the role of different dimensions of resource dependence in German LILs, this study strengthens the understanding of resource dependence on strategic behavior in innovation initiatives (Acar et al., 2014; Gross, 2017). Finally, this study contributes to the fields of public administration and strategic management by providing a clearer understanding of how strategic management can enhance innovation outcome in public organizations.

The full paper will be organized as follows. The first section offers a brief review on strategic choice. Further, two dimensions that might influence strategic choices are addressed in section two: degree of dependence and source of dependence. The next section presents the theoretical model of resource dependency theory. In section four the cases and methodology are presented. The finding sections show bundle of central resources involved in the innovation process, a matrix of innovation strategies adopted given resource availability and dependence, and lastly the typology of strategic choices based on resource dependence and responsive strategies. The paper ends with conclusion and recommendations for further research.

The proposed paper aims to address the impact of agencification on democratic governance of public sector organisations. The relationship between agencification and democratic values is explored in relation to the changing relationship between politics and technocracy. Existing literature suggests that the creation of arm’s length bodies redefines the boundaries between technocracy and politics and leads to new modes of governance that move beyond traditional patterns of governing, democratic control and accountability. The paper aspires to take the discussion one step further by approaching agency technocracy not as a rival but as a complementary to the political and democratic values of the public sector.

The key research question seeks to address if and how the shifts in public sector’s organisational structures from traditional bureaucracies to semi-autonomous agencies could be a driver for strengthening democratic governance. The concept of democratic governance is contextualised within the framework of post-NPM theories, such as the theory of New Public Governance, Public Value and the New Public Service, which serve as the relevant theoretical background of the analysis.

The research variables will be operationalized via the comparative study of three agencies from the Greek public administration, namely the National Transparency Authority, the Independent Authority for Public Revenue and the Growth Fund of Greece. The research methodology will be based on qualitative and quantitative data, also including targeted interviews with government officials and top-level managers of these organisations.

The findings are expected to shed light on the relationship between agencification and democratic governance and to contribute to the relevant discussion on the conciliation of the political and technocratic values of arm’s length bodies. The results of the research could also be helpful for practitioners in order to better understand the challenges that arise from the ongoing transformations in the organizational environment of public administrations and to shape their strategic response for creating public and social value within this new framework of governance.

This paper explores how political and administrative delegation relate to strategic management and governance in public sector organizations. This issue relates to two well-known themes in the public administration and the strategic management literatures, namely the politics–administration divide and the structure-conduct-performance framework. These themes are also relevant in public sector strategic management but has been relatively little studied empirically so far. This analysis utilizes administrative data from several official sources, including data from a survey of administrative organization in the population of 356 municipalities in Norway in 2024. The analysis utilizes data for demographic, economic, political, structural, administrative, and management factors, which are hypothesized to relate to political and administrative delegation and governance structures by contracting out and inter-organizational cooperation. These variables were used in descriptive analyses and multivariate analysis with path models with political and administrative delegation as intermediate variables, and performance management system design as the dependent variable. The preliminary analyses with a usable sample of 266 municipalities gave the following results: Organizations with much financial resources have much political delegation. Organizations with political bodies with high party concentration have little political delegation. Organizations with much citizen participation bodies and arenas have little political delegation. Large organizations have much administrative delegation. Organizations with large top-management teams have much administrative delegation. Finally, organizations using many management tools have much administrative delegation. This explorative analysis indicates that delegation and strategic management may be relevant for understanding the politics–administration relationship within a structure-conduct performance framework in public management.