Kindle$34.99Available instantly
Paperback$46.82
Read sample
Follow the authors
Vali NasrVali Nasr
Follow
Narges BajoghliNarges Bajoghli
Follow
How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare Paperback – 6 February 2024
by Narges Bajoghli (Author), Vali Nasr (Author), & 1 more
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars (22)
ISBN-13: 978-1503637801 ISBN-10: 1503637808 Edition: New
Sanctions have enormous consequences. Especially when imposed by a country with the economic influence of the United States, sanctions induce clear shockwaves in both the economy and political culture of the targeted state, and in the everyday lives of citizens. But do economic sanctions induce the behavioral changes intended? Do sanctions work in the way they should?
To answer these questions, the authors of How Sanctions Work highlight Iran, the most sanctioned country in the world. Comprehensive sanctions are meant to induce uprisings or pressures to change the behavior of the ruling establishment, or to weaken its hold on power. But, after four decades, the case of Iran shows the opposite to be true: sanctions strengthened the Iranian state, impoverished its population, increased state repression, and escalated Iran's military posture toward the U.S. and its allies in the region. Instead of offering an 'alternative to war,' sanctions have become a cause of war. Consequently, How Sanctions Work reveals how necessary it is to understand how sanctions really work.
==
Review
"How Sanctions Work is an important study... with findings likely applicable to other countries marked by coercive sanctions, securitized state responses, and interstate rivalries." --Zep Kalb, Phenomenal World
"[How Sanctions Work] is a comprehensive and insightful account of Iran's survival and resilience under sanctions. By incorporating local testimonies and vivid descriptions of Iranian streets and social spaces into the research, the book allows readers to picture everyday life in Iran under sanctions, where hope and vibrancy still existed - characteristics that remain evident even amidst the new war." --Zahra Niazi, LSE Review of Books
"[How Sanctions Work] presents a new approach to understanding sanctions by highlighting Iranian narratives and the effect of economic hardships on their everyday lives." --Zeinab Nikookar, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
"A masterpiece. This book is a powerful, humane indictment of forty years of failed US sanctions policy regarding Iran. The damage sanctions have caused to those sections of Iranian society that we in the West want to promote is heartbreaking. This book deserves a wide audience." --Anand Toprani, author of Oil and the Great Powers: Britain and Germany, 1914 to 1945
"A vital study of the most tragic case in the recent history of economic sanctions. Bajoghli, Nasr, Salehi-Isfahani, and Vaez powerfully demonstrate how large the gap between the severe material effects and the limited political efficacy of sanctions against Iran has grown." --Nicholas Mulder, author of The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War
"An indispensable book on sanctions' impacts in Iran, How Sanctions Work, opens a window into the fraught, little-understood, but ubiquitous and hugely consequential practice that seems to have supplanted diplomacy in current foreign policy and international relations. This volume shifts our understandings of what sanctions do--in Iran and beyond." --Arzoo Osanloo, author of Forgiveness Work: Mercy, Law, and Victims' Rights in Iran
"Economic sanctions are often viewed as preferable to war as a way to alter the strategic decisions of actors who violate international norms. Yet as the authors of this provocative critique suggest, sanctions can often be equally devastating." --Lisa Anderson, Foreign Affairs
"For the analysts in Washington and Tehran newly evaluating sanctions and their effects, How Sanctions Work is a valuable resource. By centering the targeted country in the discussion of sanctions efficacy, Bajoghli, Nasr, Salehi-Isfahani, and Vaez demonstrate what a case study on sanctions should look like." --Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, Responsible Statecraft
"In an increasingly connected world, understanding how sanctions work and their impact on society is increasingly important, making this book a significant contribution to discussions on foreign policy and international relations." --Asminih Ambo, Economic Record
"In the recent How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare, authors Vali Nasr, Narges Bajoghli, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez present a detailed study on the long-term impacts of economic sanctions on Iran.... The authors demonstrate that decades of Western sanctions, including the Trump administration's 'maximum pressure' campaign of 2018, have neither modified Iran's international behavior in ways intended by policy makers nor precipitated any semblance of regime change." --Steve H. Hanke, Reason
"It is these stories of ordinary people that may humanize a population that has been forgotten to the political rhetoric of states. Far from an obscure political policy, which is intentionally wrapped in complicated legal language to make the issue seem too complicated for the average person to comprehend, sanctions are a form of warfare that is becoming more crucial to discuss and understand. With its far-reaching yet accessible study, How Sanctions Work is a timely and much-needed contribution to that discussion." --Assal Rad, Inkstick
"The way sanctions deal out damage--the chain of causation from the president's pen to turmoil in Iran--is less well understood. Even if the issue weren't muddled by heavy propaganda, the process is complicated. How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare presents an easily digestible set of data on sanctions." --Matthew Petti, Reason
"The costs and consequences of the financial penalties that have been layered onto Iran are the subject of How Sanctions Work.... The authors cover all this in a succinct and accessible manner." --Ray Takeyh, Survival
"There is no shortage of publications on the Iran sanctions, but it is rare to see such detailed, serious work on this topic by highly knowledgeable scholars. How Sanctions Work introduces a wealth of information and perspectives not generally found in the existing Western academic literature." --Joy Gordon, author of Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions
"We live in an age where sanctions have become an instinctive reaction by US policymakers (and to a lesser extent also European leaders) when feeling challenged by rival nations. How Sanctions Work represents a smart call to rethink some taken-for-granted assumptions about the power and effects of what historian Nicholas Mulder would call 'the economic weapon.'" --Marc Martorell Junyent, Manara Magazine
About the Author
Narges Bajoghli is an anthropologist and Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins SAIS. Vali Nasr is Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins SAIS. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani is Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech. Ali Vaez is the Director of the International Crisis Group Iran Project.
Top
About this item
Similar
From the Author
Questions
Reviews
How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare
How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare
Product details
Publisher : Stanford University Press
Publication date : 6 February 2024
Edition : New
Language : English
Print length : 212 pages
==
From Australia
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars A Necessary Book — But One That Demands a Careful Reader
Reviewed in Australia on 18 February 2026
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Before engaging with How Sanctions Work, readers — both Iranian and non-Iranian — should be aware that the authors, Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr, have intellectual and professional proximity to diplomatic circles associated with Iran’s foreign policy establishment, particularly during the era of Mohammad Javad Zarif.
This does not invalidate the book. But it does mean the reader should approach it with analytical attentiveness rather than passive acceptance. Scholarship is never written from nowhere.
That said, the book performs an important service: it dismantles the simplistic assumption that sanctions mechanically weaken regimes.
The authors show that in the Iranian case, sanctions did not produce collapse. Instead, they reorganized power. Informal networks expanded. Actors with access to shadow trade and restricted channels consolidated influence. As formal markets contracted, para-state and security-linked economic actors gained structural advantage.
This is one of the book’s strongest insights: sanctions function not merely as pressure, but as a filter. They eliminate weaker competitors while fortifying those already embedded in resilient networks.
However, the book’s early use of the term “resilience” deserves scrutiny.
Yes, the Iranian economy proved more resilient than Washington predicted. Oil dependency decreased in relative terms. Non-oil GDP sectors expanded. The macro-structure adapted.
But resilient for whom?
If resilience is defined as regime survival or macroeconomic endurance, the term may be defensible. If defined in terms of social welfare, purchasing power, and class stability, the picture becomes far more troubling.
Inflation surged. Currency depreciation eroded savings. The middle class compressed. Fixed-income earners lost ground. Meanwhile, those holding assets — foreign currency, property, politically protected capital — often saw their relative wealth rise in inflationary conditions.
Sanctions did not simply punish the state. They redistributed pressure downward while allowing certain networks to consolidate upward.
This is where the book becomes especially relevant for Iranian readers — particularly members of the diaspora who advocate intensified sanctions as a moral strategy. The analysis presented here complicates that position. If sanctions strengthen oligarchic structures while shrinking the economic space of ordinary citizens, then calls for escalation require serious ethical reflection.
Who has skin in the game?
Policymakers forecasting regime fragility do not absorb inflation. Activists demanding escalation from stable economies do not watch their wages evaporate. The cost is borne by households inside the sanctioned system.
For non-Iranian readers, the book also quietly destabilizes a long-standing policy assumption: that sustained economic pressure will inevitably fracture elite cohesion or produce systemic collapse. The Iranian case suggests that adaptive capacity may have been underestimated. When sanctions are launched on predictions of brittleness and brittleness fails to materialize, the consequences are not academic. They are social.
Perhaps the most important contribution of How Sanctions Work is that it forces a shift in perspective. Sanctions are often discussed as instruments of strategy. This book reveals them as instruments of social restructuring.
They do not simply target states. They reshape class relations.
They do not simply constrain regimes. They redistribute vulnerability.
They do not simply weaken power. They may harden it.
This is not an argument for absolving Tehran of repression. Nor is it a defense of Western policy. It is a call for structural literacy.
A system may prove resilient.
A regime may endure.
GDP composition may shift.
But if resilience belongs to institutions while precarity belongs to citizens, the moral accounting is incomplete.
How Sanctions Work does not shout its conclusions. It lays out the structure and leaves the reader with the responsibility.
And that responsibility is not theoretical. It is ethical.
Helpful
Report
From other countries
luigi
5.0 out of 5 stars Lo consiglio vivamente
Reviewed in Italy on 26 November 2025
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Ottimi libro. Molto interessante e con un approccio innovativo
Report
Translate review to English
S. Nasiri
5.0 out of 5 stars Very informative and worthwhile reading
Reviewed in the United States on 17 February 2024
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
The author has done a great job in tackling a fairly complex topic of Sanctions as a tool of super powers and imperialist goal. It has done a deep dive in the effectiveness of this deterent tool on one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, Iran. With over four decades of constant sanction and over 2000 various implementation it shows that it has not been able to achieve its intended objectives. Very informative and fruitful reading.
Report
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Molto interessante
Reviewed in Italy on 22 March 2024
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Un’analisi puntuale di come le sanzioni abbiano colpito l’Iran: numeri e dettagli per ricostruire i passaggi cruciali della storia politica degli ultimi anni.
Report
Translate review to English
Need customer service?
‹ See all details for How Sanction
==
==
==
No comments:
Post a Comment