The EU - a Normative Power: Understanding the EU's motivations through its use and non-use of sanctions (restrictive measures)

Abstract

The objective is to understand to what extent the EU’s behaviors/reactions, especially the use of sanctions, against the third countries vary in accordance with strategic or normative motivations and secondarily how the EU’s foreign policy choices have been varied over time. For this purpose, the thesis explores the EU’s stated motivations and actual practices by employing content analysis. Additionally, both the EU’s use and non-use of sanctions are analyzed through case studies of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus from 2002 to 2013. The theoretical frameworks of neo-realism and social constructivism/normative theory are used to derive the hypotheses. The results show that the EU’s stated motivations pursue its normative considerations, yet the perception of threat by undertaking an intermediary role influences actual practices, accordingly motivations. When the perception of threat is high, the norms forming the basis of stated motivations give way to motivations such as stability and security. Moreover, it is seen the weaknesses of all case-countries in the field of human rights and democracy norms continue to be present over time. In response, the EU specifies its explicit demand from Belarus by defining the democratization criteria. For Ukraine and Russia the EU acts relatively strategically and narrows down its focus generally on the weaknesses of the norms that also concerns the investment climate. The EU’s scope of normative power seems to be influenced by its capability vis-à-vis third countries.