Foreign Policy Strategies of the European Union

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Date

2015-06

Authors

Wurscher, Inessa

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

This thesis examines the foreign policy techniques utilized by the European Union (EU) today through the case studies of the current crises in Ukraine (2013-present) and Syria (2011-present). The European Union has been long considered to be weak in terms of creating and implementing a common foreign policy, however in recent years the EU has strived to become a more active global actor. Many factors affect what foreign policy strategies the EU will use in order to respond to international issues. This thesis looks specifically at the factor of distance. Given this focus, the underlying question of this work is: how do the foreign policy strategies and methods used by the European Union to deal with international crises differ between issues that are close to home and those that are more removed? In order to address this question, the thesis looks at a variety of news sources and official EU documents to present an analysis of what the EU has done in each case and how these actions compare. The purpose of this analysis is to provide a clearer picture of the EU’s abilities to form and act on external policy decisions as a single entity.

Description

59 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of International Studies, Spanish and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2015.

Keywords

International Relations, European Union, Syria, Ukraine, Foreign policy, Crisis response, Russia

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