Sanctions are among the most widely used foreign policy tools of governments and international organizations in response to national or international wrongdoings. Beyond the dichotomous question of whether to adopt or not to adopt sanctions against a target, decision-makers develop different designs when they impose restrictions: targeted sanctions like asset freezes and travel bans, arms embargoes, or economic sanctions such as financial restrictions and commodity bans. What accounts for this variation in the design of sanctions regimes? This article investigates this question by developing a configurational explanation that combines domestic- and international-level factors for the choice of an economic versus a targeted sanctions design. I test these factors on original data mapping European Union (EU) autonomous sanctions against third countries in force in 2019 through set-theoretic methods. The analysis shows that a militarily strong target’s serious misbehavior through grave human rights violations triggers EU action in the form of economic sanctions, however, only in combination with two conditions: first, the EU reacts to a misbehavior through the adoption of an economic design when the United States imposes economic sanctions, too (path 1); second, the salience of a target’s conflict triggers an economic design of sanctions in case of grave human rights violations (path 2).

制裁是各国政府和国际组织为应对国内或国际不当行为而使用最广泛的外交政策工具之一。除了对一个目标采取或不采取制裁的二元问题外，决策者在施加限制时会制定不同的设计：有针对性的制裁，如资产冻结和旅行禁令、武器禁运，或经济制裁，如金融限制和商品禁令. 是什么导致了制裁制度设计上的这种差异？本文通过结合国内和国际层面因素的配置解释来调查这个问题，以选择经济制裁和有针对性的制裁设计。我通过集合论方法在映射欧盟 (EU) 对第三国实施的 2019 年自治制裁的原始数据上测试了这些因素。分析表明，一个军事上强大的目标通过严重侵犯人权的严重不当行为会触发欧盟以经济制裁的形式采取行动，但是，只有在结合两个条件的情况下：首先，欧盟通过采用经济设计来应对不当行为，当美国也实施经济制裁（路径 1）；其次，目标冲突的显着性会在严重侵犯人权的情况下触发制裁的经济设计（路径 2）。分析表明，一个军事上强大的目标通过严重侵犯人权的严重不当行为会触发欧盟以经济制裁的形式采取行动，但是，只有在结合两个条件的情况下：首先，欧盟通过采用经济设计来应对不当行为，当美国也实施经济制裁（路径 1）；其次，目标冲突的显着性会在严重侵犯人权的情况下触发制裁的经济设计（路径 2）。分析表明，一个军事上强大的目标通过严重侵犯人权的严重不当行为会触发欧盟以经济制裁的形式采取行动，但是，只有在结合两个条件的情况下：首先，欧盟通过采用经济设计来应对不当行为，当美国也实施经济制裁（路径 1）；其次，目标冲突的显着性会在严重侵犯人权的情况下触发制裁的经济设计（路径 2）。