Researching firms and sanctions: Theoretical and methodological considerations

As sanctions are often imposed by states on other states or their entities, they have been traditionally studied in state-centric environments, eschewing a focus on firms. Yet, firms are crucial actors in understanding sanctions. While scholarship has recently started to focus on the role of private actors (such as firms, banks, or insurance companies) in sanctions implementation, in this paper we argue for giving more attention to firms in the study of the impact of sanctions. In our chapter, we outline, theoretically, why firms matter, and how the study of firms fits with the existing scholarship on sanctions developed in the state-centric model. We also outline methodological challenges associated with studying the role of private companies in relation to sanctions and propose a number of avenues for future work.