<p>The thesis investigates how two of the world’s most powerful international actors, the US and the EU want to promote democracy and human rights. The aim is to compare how the US and the EU work in order to support a democratic development in the world. In order to fulfill the purpose of the thesis a qualitative text analysis was used. Since the aim is to compare the US and the EU I believe this method is beneficial. The questions that are being investigated are about the contributions the US and the EU give to e.g. Saudi Arabia and Russia and if the contributions are mainly characterized by `hard or soft power´. The result showed that in general no conclusion can be drawn when it comes to the characteristics of the contributions. However, in the examples taken from the EU- Russian and the US- Saudi Arabian relationships the contributions are characterized by `soft power´. The other relationships the thesis discusses are instead characterized by `hard power´.</p>

One of the mayor security problems nowadays is the international terrorism and it has become a threat to the European people as well. The number of the attacks is increasing, European citizens are traveling to Middle East to join foreign terrorist groups and online propaganda is being more and more popular. The main goal that terrorists have is to get worldwide attention and harm as many people as possible. To answer the research questions of this study: What are the measures that the EU has taken to fight terrorism? And To what extend can EU’s counter-terrorism approaches be explained by hard-soft power theory? a qualitative one case study method has been used. The results of this study show that EU has taken many significant measures in the fight against terrorism, such as implementation of common strategies and regulations but also in giving mandate to Europol that is now the leader partner in the European counter-terrorism approach. There have been many improvements in the last years, but there are still gaps that need to be filled, especially in the collaboration between the Member States.  The study has also concluded that EU is mostly using Soft Power as a tool for the international politics.

Vast amounts of energy resources have equipped Russia with powerful means of influence on energy dependent Ukraine. This essay places Russia’s current energy policy towards Ukraine into a broader theoretical perspective. Drawing on the work of John Mearsheimers theory of Offensive Neorealism and Joseph. Nye’s theory of Hard and Soft Power, the essay explains why and how Russia as regional hegemon use its energy weapon to build regional spheres of influence. How Russia chooses to use its energy resources depends on the level of external pressure. Essays analysis shows that the essays chosen theories goes a long way to explain the overall pattern of Russia’s energy policy toward Ukraine from 2004-2014. The thesis concludes that Russia was in fact using its energy resources as a geostrategic foreign and security policy instrument.

The thesis investigates how two of the world’s most powerful international actors, the US and the EU want to promote democracy and human rights. The aim is to compare how the US and the EU work in order to support a democratic development in the world. In order to fulfill the purpose of the thesis a qualitative text analysis was used. Since the aim is to compare the US and the EU I believe this method is beneficial. The questions that are being investigated are about the contributions the US and the EU give to e.g. Saudi Arabia and Russia and if the contributions are mainly characterized by `hard or soft power´. The result showed that in general no conclusion can be drawn when it comes to the characteristics of the contributions. However, in the examples taken from the EU- Russian and the US- Saudi Arabian relationships the contributions are characterized by `soft power´. The other relationships the thesis discusses are instead characterized by `hard power´.