Hurtful or Helpful? A Qualitative Study on How Economic Sanctions Affect Violence

Sammanfattning: Recently, people have developed a more nuanced understanding of the efficacy of economic sanctions, and it is now generally accepted that some economic sanctions have serious consequences for the civilian populations of the target countries. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether or not the imposition of economic sanctions has an impact on the levels of violence committed by different actors. Based on previous research on economic sanctions, and theories of violence, economic grievance, and political opportunity, the implementation of sanctions is anticipated to raise the degree of violence committed by state and non-state actors in situations where violence already exists. To evaluate the impact that the imposition of economic sanctions, a comparative case study was conducted on Zimbabwe and Burundi, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative material. The results of this study led to the conclusion that five years after the imposition of sanctions, there was a reduction in the amount of violence that occurred in both countries and given that the overarching premise was that the implementation of economic sanctions would lead to an increase in violence, the empirical study demonstrated that this appears to be inaccurate.