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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcast
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
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Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition

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  • The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

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  • Labor Migration in Russia | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy

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  • Did Russia Put Its Geopolitical Glasses Back On? It Never Took Them Off in the First Place

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  • Between the EU and Russia: Domains of Diversity and Contestation (April 29-30)

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RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Study: U.S. Sanctions Hurting Russians’ Support for US, not Kremlin

  • November 14, 2017
  • Henry Hale

Are American sanctions hurting support for Putin? New political science research suggests the answer is no.

This study was presented at the 2017 convention of the main association for specialists on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia (ASEEES) in Chicago, being one of many important policy relevant studies presented there.

One of the most timely papers was presented by Columbia University’s Timothy Frye, whose study finds that U.S. economic sanctions on Russia have not significantly weakened support for the Kremlin’s rule. Instead, they have lowered Russians’ opinion of the US. What he concludes is happening is that Putin’s annexation of Crimea continues to pay such large political dividends that they are overwhelming any negative effects of Russia’s suffering economy on his popularity and are leading Russians to react negatively to anyone who objects.

Importantly, Frye is also able to rule out that the sanctions themselves are benefitting Putin: They are not, he concludes, generating a backlash among the Russian population.

This is all accomplished in experiments conducted in nationally representative suveys in Russia in November 2016 and January 2017. Specifically, when being asked to say how much they trust the Russian leadership, randomly selected people who are reminded about the sanctions do not become more anti-Kremlin but do become more anti-American, while people reminded that the sanctions came in response to Crimea become significantly more pro-Kremlin.

On one hand, these findings would seem to kill an argument often made by sanctions critics that sanctions should be ended because they are backfiring, bostering Putin’s popularity. Whie this is good news for sanctions supporters, the findings indicate that they now need to make a case that sanctions are working through a channel other than public opinion if they are to continue to be justified. Such a case might point to sanctions’ capacity to send signal of American resolve that may be important in its own right. We will be publishing a fuller account as a PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo soon, so please keep on the lookout for it.

Henry Hale
Website | + posts
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; Co-director, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES); Co-director, PONARS Eurasia

Affiliation

Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University

Links

The George Washington University (Bio)

Expertise

Political Regimes, Ethnic Politics, Federalism, Democratization, Political Parties, Politics of Post-Soviet Countries
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/henry-hale/
    Would Putin’s Own People Punish Him for Invading Ukraine?
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/henry-hale/
    Russia may be about to invade Ukraine. Russians don’t want it to.
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/henry-hale/
    Putin Has Off-Ramps: Let’s Not Block Them
  • Henry Hale
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/henry-hale/
    Authoritarian Rallying as Reputational Cascade? Evidence from Putin’s Popularity Surge after Crimea
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  • November 14, 2017
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