The great blockade of Lithuania: Evaluating sanction theory with a case study of Soviet sanctions to prevent Lithuanian independence

Abstract

Previous work in political science has looked to dyadic, international, and domestic factors in senders and targets of sanctions for explanations of why they sometimes succeed and frequently fail. In this paper, we present a case study of the sanctions imposed by the Soviet Union over Lithuania’s declaration of independence in 1990. We examine the dyadic, international, and domestic factors that influenced the outcome of the sanctions and connect them to existing theoretical and empirical work in the literature. While dyadic and international factors played important roles, we find the strongest evidence for the role of domestic political factors in the Soviet Union and Lithuania in determining the outcome of the dispute.