Nicholas Ross Smith

The EU and Russia's conflicting regime preferences in Ukraine: assessing regime promotion strategies in the scope of the Ukraine crisis

This paper evaluates the competitiveness of the European Union (EU) and Russias regime preferences in their foreign policies towards Ukraine in the scope of the on-going Ukraine crisis. It is argued that the underpinning geopolitical environment Ukraine currently resides in, wedged between two much larger powers (the EU and Russia), renders it a vulnerable target state for regime promotion from both sides. Indeed, since the 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine, both the EU and Russia have had discernible regime promotion strategies in their foreign policies. The EUs regime promotion has focussed on facilitating democracy in Ukraine, along with more material interests (trade and strategic aims) while Russia has reacted with increasingly zero-sum policies which pursue its preference for having a loyal and Russian-facing regime in Ukraine. Ultimately, the increasing competitiveness of the EU and Russia has been a key factor in the onset of the Ukraine crisis, which offers important insight into the relationship between large powers and the smaller third states which lie in their overlapping spheres of influence.

EU–Russian Relations and the Ukraine Crisis

EU-Russia relations have been defined by a number of defining parameters that affect the conflict-cooperation framework of the two actors. Nicholas Ross focuses on this complex relation by scrutinising the effects and side-effects of the Ukraine Crisis, as well as the role of western security architecture in qualitatively defining the cooperation-conflict ratio. The author’s descriptive approach covers both overt and covert elements that have constituted points of friction in an analysis that implicitly refers to a forceful interdependence framework. The Ukraine crisis has emerged as a critical test that still divides the two sides and sets challenges on multiple, inter-connected levels. RossSmith’s supports that the crisis gave vent to divergent, if not contending, theoretical approaches to regional security settings and the way interests of the sides involved can be accommodated. The book by Nicolas Roth Smith looks into the issue from different perspectives with a view to providing insight to a complex security spectrum that, to a great extent, defines security in the bilateral, multilateral and European contexts. The three levels of analysis used, namely historical, empirical and theoretical, provide an inclusive and conclusive picture of the choices made by the EU and Russia in the Ukraine crisis under the impact of NATO’s expansion to the East. The book reflects insights into neo-classical theory, defining the spatial dimension of the issue within the context of a “shared neighbourhood”. The author defines Ukraine as a testing territory, a testing ground for EU – Russia relations. After pointing out the increased, in the specific milieu, importance of constructivism, he uses the main EU-centric theories of explaining EU foreign policy choices, namely: the institution-oriented approach

The EU under a realist scope: Employing a neoclassical realist framework for the analysis of the EU’s Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement offer to Ukraine

This article breaks from the dominant liberal-idealist literature and examines the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy decisions from a realist perspective. Through employing a novel, EU-focussed neoclassical realist framework, the EU’s offer of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) to Ukraine is argued as being a result of the mediating influence of its normative power role identity, the (mis)perceptions held by its foreign policy decision-makers and the institutional constraints inherent to its foreign policy decision-making process, which filtered systemic pressures (emanating from the European geopolitical setting) into the final foreign policy decision. Thereafter, this article assesses the EU’s responses to the Ukraine crisis, offering policy reflections and recommendations.

The EU’s Difficulty in Translating Interests into Effective Foreign Policy Action: A Look at the Ukraine Crisis

Abstract The EU’s foreign policy response(s) to the unfolding Ukraine crisis has further illustrated its difficulty in making effective foreign policy decisions. Using a neoclassical realist analytical framework, this paper argues that although the EU did have tangible collective interests in pursuing its Ukraine foreign policy, it was unable to adequately filter these through its domestic setting. Three key constraints to the EU’s Ukrainian foreign policy> were identified: decision-makers ’ miscalculations; rigid normative demands; and a reliance on consensus politics. Ultimately, the Ukraine crisis illustrated that the EU, in current incarnation, cannot translate interests into effective foreign policies, even when making policy for their direct neighbourhood.

In Croatia’s slipstream or on an alternative road? Assessing the objective case for the remaining Western Balkan states acceding into the EU

Since the ‘mega-enlargement’ of the European Union into the erstwhile communist territories of Eastern Central Europe and the Baltics in 2004/2007, the prospect for further EU enlargement(s) has seriously dissipated. Terms such as ‘enlargement fatigue’ and ‘absorption capacity’ have become en vogue in the post-2007 enlargement setting where older EU member states have developed negative attitudes towards future enlargements. However, the accession of Croatia into the EU in 2013 has inevitably raised questions of which states or regions could be next. This paper contends that due to a multitude of issues surrounding Turkey, particularly the political impasse within the EU towards Turkish accession coupled with its sheer size, only the smaller states of the Western Balkans represent viable candidates (Iceland’s accession prospects have stalled significantly due to internal pressures). This paper argues that the limits of EU eastern enlargement are set by both prevailing (subjectively defined) political attitudes founded on various grounds in the leading EU member states and by the rationally defined objective capacity of the EU’s institutions to absorb potential new member states. It is through the latter, and in comparison to the three most recent accession states - Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia – which this paper attempts to assess the objective potential of the remaining Western Balkan states to accede into the EU in the near future.

Can Neoclassical Realism Become a Genuine Theory of International Relations

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War dealt a major blow to the reputation of “realism” in the field of International Relations (IR). Of the prominent realist approaches of the time, none were challenged more than the dominant approach, neorealism (broadly defined). Neorealism’s rigid presumption of systemic determinacy was perceived by many as being degenerative and, ultimately, incapable of explaining international politics to the same degree as competing research programs that focused more on domestic-level or ideational variables, such as liberalism or constructivism (Kratochwil 1993; Legro and Moravcsik 1999; Vasquez 1997). While some (e.g., Mastanduno 1997; Mearsheimer 1994; Waltz 2000) were unwavering in their conviction that neorealism remained a strong theory of IR for explaining international outcomes, others (e.g., Schweller 1996; Sterling-Folker 1997; Zakaria 1999) acquiesced to include an additional focus on domestic-level variables (and, to a lesser extent, ideational variables) in their realist analyses. Rose (1998) termed this new strand neoclassical realism (NCR). He elaborated that NCR scholars were bound by an