How do sanctions affect incumbent electoral performance during elections? Although existing literature suggests that sanctions may shorten or prolong incumbent tenure, we are less informed about their role in incumbent electoral fortunes. This research argues that sanctions hurt incumbents’ vote shares because citizens are more likely to hold their elected officials accountable for sanction-induced economic hardships and political instabilities. It also argues that the electoral punishment is pronounced in less democratic countries because sanctions, together with elections, significantly limit dictator’s co-optation strategy and open a greater window of opportunity for once repressed opposition groups in a repressive regime. Using 381 multiparty elections in seventy-nine countries between 1972 and 2012, this research finds that sanctions deteriorate the incumbent electoral performance, and they do so for autocratic leaders more than the democratic leaders. This study has important implications about the potential accountability in autocracies, the timing of sanctions imposition, the role of oppositions’ mobilization, and broadly speaking, the role of sanctions in democratization.

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