“The Stick Is Much Bigger than the Carrot in Biden’s New Border Plan”
motherjones.com 6 January 2023. A news report about US immigration control
Usage
Like the German Zuckerbrot und Peitsche, the expression carrot and stick refers to a combination of reward and punishment; promises and threats; incentives and sanctions - or a choice between these. The image, of course, is of the stubborn donkey - will it work for a tasty carrot dangled in front of its nose, or will it move only if the farmer beats it with the stick?
A farmer, or a government, might use a "carrot-and-stick approach", combining the two. In the headline above, the Biden administration is said to be offering a new way for immigrants to apply to enter the US legally, rather than risk crossing the border illegally.
The phrase is used more widely than its German equivalent, so if you're in a meeting where someone asks, "What can we offer by way of a carrot?" or "My employer is dangling a big fat carrot", they're talking about incentives.
A similar concept is "good cop, bad cop", the psychological tactic used in police interviews, whereby two officers take turns offering encouragement and threats alternately until the interviewee cooperates.
Background
Although this phrase feels very old - farmers have been trying to move stubborn donkeys for millennia - there's no evidence of it in writing in English before the late 19th century. An 1876 article about the philosopher John Stuart Mill refers to "this carrot and stick discipline to which Mr John Mill was subjected". However, the phrase may well have been in informal use long before that.