UofM’s Dr. Dursun Peksen Receives Nearly $800K Grant From the National Science Foundation

Project focused on Government-imposed Restrictions on International Economic Relations

July 20, 2023 — Dr. Dursun Peksen, a professor of political science at the University of Memphis, has received a $795,576 grant from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Government-imposed Restrictions on International Economic Relations.”

The three-year project will put together a new cross-national dataset on international sanctions by the United States, European Union and the United Nations from 1992-2022.

Peksen will serve as the co-PI with Timothy Peterson of Arizona State University.

“I am excited about this NSF grant that will allow me and my colleague, Tim Peterson, to study an important area of U.S. foreign policy,” said Peksen. “It will offer some of our students the opportunity to collaborate with scholars and students at Arizona State University and gain essential research skills.”

The United States is well-situated to employ restrictions on international economic relationships given its central role in global finance, the strength of the U.S. dollar and the technological lead of U.S. firms. The U.S more frequently uses increasingly complex economic sanctions to address major global challenges, and as rising powers such as China seek greater global influence by circumventing U.S. restrictions while imposing their own.

“The new dataset will allow scholars to test new theories on the use, effectiveness and consequences of sanctions,” said Dr. Matthias Kaelberer, professor and chair of the UofM’s Department of Political Science. “I cannot stress enough the significance of this award for Dursun and the department. It is a tremendous recognition of Dursun’s scholarship.”

The project will offer more insight into how policymakers decide whether and what kinds of sanctions to impose, as well as the manner in which economic restrictions affect compliance with U.S. foreign policy goals.

The project will help policymakers and scholars better understand the “effectiveness” of economic restrictions aimed at coercion and containment of adversaries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela, among other U.S. foreign policy goals.