International Sanctions and Authoritarian Resilience in a Fragile State

This article explains why international sanctions often failed to produce political transformation in certain authoritarian regimes in so-called fragile states. Drawing on a comparative analysis based on a most similar systems design of two episodes of sanctions in Burundi (1996-1999 and 2016-2022), it shows that the resilience of Burundian regimes depends less on their level of economic dependence than on their ability to mobilize identity-based resources. The study highlights how Burundian leaders have resisted sanctions, either by promoting an ethnicized political compromise or by adopting a strategy of resistance grounded in nationalist and identity-based rhetoric.