When Lifting Sanctions Signals Agency: Rethinking Whang’s
Domestic Audience Logic
Crisis and Security Management MSc, Leiden University, Dr. J.M. Hoye
Sanctions and (In)Security
An Argumentative Paper
S3715930
02-06-2026
5252 Words
, 2
Introduction
Sanctions remain among the most frequently deployed instruments of US foreign policy despite
an extensive scholarly record of instrumental failure. In response to this paradox, Taehee Whang
(2011) argues that sanctions persist not only because of their potential coercive utility abroad, but
also because they can generate domestic political benefits at home. His core mechanism proposes
that sanctions function as visible signals of resolve, allowing leaders to demonstrate strength to
domestic audiences even when sanctions fail coercively (Whang, 2011, pp. 787–789). Testing
this with monthly US presidential approval data from 1948 to 1999, he finds that sanctions
initiation is associated with statistically significant increases in presidential approval (pp.
796-797), providing leaders with an incentive to sanction independent of instrumental success.
In December 2014, President Obama announced a major shift in US-Cuba relations that
included the easing of long-standing sanctions and the restoration of diplomatic relations.
Importantly, the normalization initiative was not presented as the result of Cuban democratic
reform or target-state compliance. Within Whang’s (2011) framework, the symbolic domestic
benefit of sanctions derives from the visible signal of coercive resolve they project and explicitly
posits an audience cost for lifting sanctions without compliance (p. 790). Under this logic,
Obama’s easing of sanctions would have weakened that symbolic signal and risked reducing
presidential approval. Yet near-contemporaneous polling showed majority public support for
normalization across all dimensions tested, persisting despite vocal elite opposition from
Republican senators who publicly pledged to reverse the policy (CNN/ORC International, 2014,
p. 5; Diamond, 2014a; Diamond, 2014b).
The puzzle is this: Whang’s (2011) framework predicts that sanctions initiation generates
domestic audience benefits because sanctioning signals resolve and strength to domestic
, 3
audiences while remaining relatively low-cost. Under this logic, lifting sanctions without
obtaining compliance should generate audience costs rather than rewards, a prediction Whang
states explicitly (p. 790). The 2014 Cuba normalization contradicts this expectation directly:
sanctions were eased without target compliance, yet the public response was supportive rather
than punitive. The puzzle, therefore, is not simply whether sanctions produce approval benefits,
but under what conditions the removal of sanctions generates political approval rather than
political cost.
This paper asks: Why did the 2014 Cuba normalization, an instance of lifting sanctions
without target compliance, generate domestic approval rather than the audience costs implied by
Whang's (2011) symbolic sanctions framework? More specifically, the paper examines whether
Whang mis-specifies the source of domestic audience benefit generated by sanctions. While
Whang interprets approval gains as evidence that audiences reward coercive resolve, the Cuba
case suggests that audiences may reward visible presidential agency more broadly. If so,
sanctions may be politically valuable not because they signal coercive toughness specifically, but
because they allow leaders to demonstrate visible action and responsiveness in foreign policy.
Answering this question requires two types of evidence. The first concerns the immediate
domestic audience response to the normalization announcement, drawn from issue-specific
polling conducted in the weeks following the announcement. The second concerns the prior
domestic conditions that had altered the meaning of maintaining the embargo by 2014, including
shifting attitudes within the Cuban-American community and accumulated interest-group
pressure from agricultural exporters. Together, this evidence allows the paper to examine
whether the domestic audience benefit Whang (2011) identifies derives from coercive resolve
specifically, or visible presidential agency more broadly.
Domestic Audience Logic
Crisis and Security Management MSc, Leiden University, Dr. J.M. Hoye
Sanctions and (In)Security
An Argumentative Paper
S3715930
02-06-2026
5252 Words
, 2
Introduction
Sanctions remain among the most frequently deployed instruments of US foreign policy despite
an extensive scholarly record of instrumental failure. In response to this paradox, Taehee Whang
(2011) argues that sanctions persist not only because of their potential coercive utility abroad, but
also because they can generate domestic political benefits at home. His core mechanism proposes
that sanctions function as visible signals of resolve, allowing leaders to demonstrate strength to
domestic audiences even when sanctions fail coercively (Whang, 2011, pp. 787–789). Testing
this with monthly US presidential approval data from 1948 to 1999, he finds that sanctions
initiation is associated with statistically significant increases in presidential approval (pp.
796-797), providing leaders with an incentive to sanction independent of instrumental success.
In December 2014, President Obama announced a major shift in US-Cuba relations that
included the easing of long-standing sanctions and the restoration of diplomatic relations.
Importantly, the normalization initiative was not presented as the result of Cuban democratic
reform or target-state compliance. Within Whang’s (2011) framework, the symbolic domestic
benefit of sanctions derives from the visible signal of coercive resolve they project and explicitly
posits an audience cost for lifting sanctions without compliance (p. 790). Under this logic,
Obama’s easing of sanctions would have weakened that symbolic signal and risked reducing
presidential approval. Yet near-contemporaneous polling showed majority public support for
normalization across all dimensions tested, persisting despite vocal elite opposition from
Republican senators who publicly pledged to reverse the policy (CNN/ORC International, 2014,
p. 5; Diamond, 2014a; Diamond, 2014b).
The puzzle is this: Whang’s (2011) framework predicts that sanctions initiation generates
domestic audience benefits because sanctioning signals resolve and strength to domestic
, 3
audiences while remaining relatively low-cost. Under this logic, lifting sanctions without
obtaining compliance should generate audience costs rather than rewards, a prediction Whang
states explicitly (p. 790). The 2014 Cuba normalization contradicts this expectation directly:
sanctions were eased without target compliance, yet the public response was supportive rather
than punitive. The puzzle, therefore, is not simply whether sanctions produce approval benefits,
but under what conditions the removal of sanctions generates political approval rather than
political cost.
This paper asks: Why did the 2014 Cuba normalization, an instance of lifting sanctions
without target compliance, generate domestic approval rather than the audience costs implied by
Whang's (2011) symbolic sanctions framework? More specifically, the paper examines whether
Whang mis-specifies the source of domestic audience benefit generated by sanctions. While
Whang interprets approval gains as evidence that audiences reward coercive resolve, the Cuba
case suggests that audiences may reward visible presidential agency more broadly. If so,
sanctions may be politically valuable not because they signal coercive toughness specifically, but
because they allow leaders to demonstrate visible action and responsiveness in foreign policy.
Answering this question requires two types of evidence. The first concerns the immediate
domestic audience response to the normalization announcement, drawn from issue-specific
polling conducted in the weeks following the announcement. The second concerns the prior
domestic conditions that had altered the meaning of maintaining the embargo by 2014, including
shifting attitudes within the Cuban-American community and accumulated interest-group
pressure from agricultural exporters. Together, this evidence allows the paper to examine
whether the domestic audience benefit Whang (2011) identifies derives from coercive resolve
specifically, or visible presidential agency more broadly.
