When is blacklisting effective? Stigma, sanctions and legitimacy: the reputational and financial costs of being blacklisted

Abstract

ABSTRACTBlacklisting is a policy tool that is used extensively in the international political economy, and blacklists have been invoked following the Panama Papers scandal, Russia's annexation of Crimea and the Democratic Republic of North Korea's proliferation activities. To analyse the principal mechanisms at work in what is an understudied tool of global governance, this paper compares the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s and the Financial Action Task Force's blacklisting of secrecy havens in the years 2000–2009. We show that blacklisting can be used to impose both reputational and financial costs on a state and highlight three factors that contribute to a blacklist's effectiveness: the stigma attached to the act that led to the blacklisting, the nature of any sanctions that it imposes and the blacklist's legitimacy. The blacklisting of Liechtenstein and Nauru highlight the interplay between these factors, but they also raise questions about the legitimacy of blacklisting itself.