The Ukraine Crisis: comparing the response of the EU and Canada (original) (raw)

Both Canada and the EU have contributed to resolve the Ukraine Crisis. However, while both EU and Canada are democratic and significant economic powers, and share the Western values of international law and sovereignty, the two responded differently. Thus, the research question that I address in the thesis is: How and Why does the response of Canada and the EU towards the Ukraine Crisis differs? Paradoxically, while Ukraine, showing commitment to European values since the Euromaidan, is far more important in terms of geopolitics and security for EU being at its doorstep and as a part of ENP, Canada has taken strong global leadership and provided non-lethal military assistance, while EU tried to resolve the Crisis in a diplomatic way. In fact, neither realism nor constructivism fully explain the substantive difference in a response towards the Ukraine crisis. However, Moravcsik’s Liberal international relations theory could shed the light on the matter. Indeed, both Canada and the EU are embedded into domestic and international civil society, which places structural constraints on their response to Ukraine Crisis by shaping the underlying preferences on which the foreign policy is based. In particular, I derive three explanatory variables to examine the response differences: strong Pro-Ukrainian community; policy coherence and unanimity of the position over Ukraine; interdependence with Russia as another actor involved. I conducted 12 in-depth interviews with political elites and experts on both Canadian and the EU foreign policy concerning the Ukraine Crisis. A wide range of primary and secondary data, as reports and statistics, complements the qualitative research stage. The thesis proceeds as follows. First, I examine the state of the field regarding the academic analysis of the response to the Ukraine Crisis. Second, I establish the theoretical framework of liberal international relations theory with its focus on domestic policy, and, simultaneously, drive three explanatory variables. Third, the methodology and case selection are explained. This is followed by the analysis of the main findings and a brief discussion. I end the thesis addressing the limitations of the research, followed by concluding remarks.