This study is a qualitative case study, with a theory-consuming approach and motive analytical structure that aims to examine Russia's ulterior motives, for the full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The analysis is based on a theoretical framework of two different international relations theories: realism and constructivism. Realism highlights security, military power and the survival of state in the international system while constructivism highlights the interactions between different constructed identities, norms and ideas within the international system. Together with the theoretical framework the analysis uses Kremlin's own statements, to see if it corresponds with the theoretical findings. The study concludes that the two theoretical perspectives complement each other in explaining Russia's ulterior motives and that Kremlin's own statements on Ukraine was able to correspond with the theoretical findings.

This essay presents and discusses John Rawls’s ‘The Law of Peoples’ and it’s ability to be used in practice. The theory’s ability to judge right and wrongful actions in liberal intervention is tested when applied to the current conflict in Syria, and is used to evaluate the actions made by the liberal state France, during its involvement in the crisis. The essay will discuss shortcomings in the theory, and possible solutions to these and will also come to discuss central ideas in the theory and the liberal ism. Other writers such as Michael Doyle and Simon Caney are discussed and presented more briefly. The essay will argue that the theory in The Law of Peoples is not sufficient to alone evaluate the conflict it is applied upon, and therefore not comprehensive enough to be used in practice without adjustments.

This thesis purpose is to examine the development of the European Union’s threat perception and identetity construction in regards to Russia. It uses a qualitive text analysis to study the national security strategies formulated by the memberstates Sweden, Germany, Italy and Poland and how these countries view of Russia is formulated. Furthermore it compares the change from before the annexation of Crimea and the Ukraine crisis and how this influenced the possibly change in perception of Russia. The study finds that the Russian action in Crimea and Ukraine has changed the threat perception in Sweden, Germany and Poland but that Russia is not mentioned in the Italy papers. Hence the identity construction is similar in the countries north of the Alps but Italy does not contrast its identety to Russia. From this the study concludes that the Russian threat is not enough to construct an European identity throughout Europe but there are patterns within the Union, which might indicate how the European project might continue.

<p>The question of whether there is soft law in international law has been as much the subject of contemporary debate as whether or not there is private legal authority in the international society. The legal boundaries seem to be blurred by the process of globalisation and the recent shift in international law. The traditional definition of international law has been outdated as new forms of treaties has introduced new subject of law to the judicial arena. At the same time a supplementary map of law has been added to the cartography of international law, soft law. These correlating processes have comprehensive political and legal consequences at both the international and national levels. This essay examines and identifies soft law from a legal-political perspective and locates and explores private forms of legal authority on the map of contemporary international law. In respect to theory, it accounts for an interdisciplinary approach involving issues of both international law and international relations. In the process this study examines issues regarding the relative legal normativity and the blurring of legal authority in international law. The focus is on the legal character, the constitutive practices and the legal and political influence of soft law. It discusses the influence and power exerted by soft law over state actors in the international system and at the national level. The essay finds that soft law is of substantial relevance in the international ambit. To some extent a limited normative force of certain norms is recognized in soft law even though it is conceded that those norms would not be enforceable by an international court or other international organ. To say that it does not exist because it is not of the enforceable variety, might blind students of international law to another dimension of the landscape of international practice. Soft law does not translate to soft obligations in the reality of international society, and it seems to be some confusion surrounding the obligations conceived by it. The research here presented suggests that its political and legal power is substantial. The researched examples do not display any real private legal authority in soft law. This is because soft law is found to be a separate phenomenon from international law proper. However, soft law’s impact on national governments combined with the wider acceptance of the presence of private actors in the creation of soft law suggests that private power is noteworthy in comparison. In one of the studied examples, the soft law is concluded by private business representatives solely, but in requiring the status of soft law it is dependant on the recognition of the international and national legal bodies.</p>

<p>During the spring 2007 Estonia and Russia collided in the biggest international conflict among themselves since the break up of the Soviet Union. The conflict concerned about the issue of Estonia’s removal of a soviet bronze statue from central Tallinn to a garden of honour, due to Estonia thought that the statue represented oppression. Chaos developed in Tallinn with disturbances and plunder. The relations between Estonia and Russia became very strained, as Russia considered the movement of the statue wrong. This thesis has examined how the two parties have handled this international conflict through measure how international they are from an official perspective. An examination has been made to see how well the two nations follow the official perspective in a real case. To be able to measure internationalism, a model by Kjell Goldmann has been used, where the idealistic internationalist should follow a certain pat-tern; outward-looking, universalism, coexistence-orientated, moderate. The re-sult showed that Estonia follows the idealistic international pattern owing to a well developed cooperation and membership in international organizations. While Russia ended up in the opposite side, the non internationalist pattern, due to difficulties with cooperation and too much inward looking approach towards the own country.</p> / <p>Våren 2007 hamnade Estland och Ryssland i den största internationella konflikten sinsemellan sedan sönderfallet av Sovjetunionen. Konflikten handlade om att Estland flyttade en sovjetisk bronsstaty från centrala Tal-linn till en krigskyrkogård, då man tyckte att den symboliserade förtryck. I Tallinn blev det ett kaos med oroligheter och plundring som följd. Relatio-nerna mellan Estland och Ryssland blev mycket ansträngda, då Ryssland an-såg att det var fel av Estland att flytta statyn. Denna uppsats har undersökt hur de båda parterna hanterade denna internationella konflikt genom att först mäta hur internationella de var utifrån ett officiellt perspektiv. För att sedan studera om de handlade i en internationell konflikt utifrån den offici-ella bilden. För att kunna mäta internationalism har en modell av Kjell Goldmann använts, där den idealistiske internationalisten skall vara enligt följande mönster; utåtsträvande, universell, samarbetsorienterad och mode-rat. Resultatet visade att Estland följer det idealistiska internationella mönst-ret tack vare ett mycket utvecklat samarbete och medlemskap i olika inter-nationella organisationer. Medan Ryssland hamnade på motsatt icke idealis-tisk internationalistisk sida på grund av svårigheter för internationella sam-arbeten och för mycket inåtsträvan till det egna landet.</p>

Kalla krigets slut innebar helt förändrade säkerhetspolitiska förutsättningar för de flesta stater. Då var världen uppdelad i två tydliga block med två styrande supermakter i ständig dragkamp medan vi idag har en annan verklighet med många olika allianser och asymmetriska hot av olika slag. Denna säkerhetspoltiska omdaning har också påverkat det vetenskapliga studiet av internationella relationer och framförallt under 90-talet deklarerade flera forskare det liberala perspektivets seger över realismen.  Denna uppsats är en fallstudie som tittar närmare på Europeiska unionens första marina insats, EUNAVFOR - Operation Atalanta och särskilt på Sveriges deltagande i den samma. Syftet är att söka efter de motiv som läggs fram för insatsen i såväl FNs resolutioner som EUs och Sveriges riksdags beslut för att sedan analysera dessa utifrån de två grundläggande vetenskapliga perspektiven inom internationella relationer.  Studien visar att sanningen ligger någonstans mitt emellan dessa två motsatta perspektiv. Båda förhållningsätten innebär ett antal antaganden och förenklingar vilka leder till blinda fläckar i studien och först när man ställer dem emot varandra framkommer helheten. Sveriges deltagande i operation Atalanta kan alltså förklaras av både strikt nationella motiv och av ett delat ansvar inom världssamfundet. / The end of the Cold War meant fundamentally changed conditions for policymaking in security matters for most states. Before, the world was divided between two blocks with two ruling superpowers in a constant tug-of-war, whiles we today have another reality with many different alliances and asymmetric threats of different kinds. This security transformation have also affected the academic study of international relations and in particular during the 90th many scholars declared the victory of the liberal perspective over realism. This thesis is a case study of the European Unions first naval operation, EUNAVFOR – Operation Atalanta and in particular the Swedish participation in this operation. The purpose of the study is to look for the motives in the decisions on different levels, from the UN security council, to the EU council and the Swedish parliament, and to analyze those motives according to the to major perspectives in IR-studies.  The thesis show that truth lies somewhere in between this two opposing perspectives. Both viewpoints result in a number of assumptions and simplifications that lead to blind spots in the study. Not until the two perspectives are compared with each other the whole picture will emerge. Sweden’s participation in operation Atalanta can be explained both with strictly national motives and with a concept of shared responsibility within the international community.

Sammanfattning: Denna uppsats ämnar ta reda på vilket förhållande de fyra brittiska partierna; Det Konservativa Partiet, Labour, Liberaldemokraterna och UKIP vill att Storbritannien ska ha till EU framöver. Uppsatsens utgångspunkt är debatten kring den folkomröstning Storbritannien kommer att genomföra angående EU-medlemskapet 23e juni 2016. Fokus i uppsatsen ligger på partiernas syn på statens roll i samhället och staters roll i internationell politik. Uppsatsen svarar även på vilka konsekvenser partierna ser som möjliga vid respektive utfall av folkomröstningen och vilka ämnen man lägger tyngdpunkt på i debatten. För att få svar på frågorna genomförs en beskrivande idéanalys. Som teoretisk grund används Europeisk integrationsteori och internationella relationer, IR-teori. Uppsatsen visar att partiernas inställning till EU och utrikespolitik inte är uniform. Inom gruppen partier som vill att Storbritannien blir kvar i EU ryms en mängd motsägelsefulla åsikter och vad ett eventuellt utträde ur EU skulle leda till är trots djupgående debatt mycket oklart.

With the aim of contributing one aspect to the international relations enterprise of understanding the grounds for security policy action, this essay makes a theoretical exploration of the basis for security strategy-making on the political level, with the aid of a multidisciplinary framework for analysis (combining research on strategy, narratives and role theory). Developing the concept of strategic actor by assessing its constitution through aspects of strategic theory (e.g. theories of action), role enactment, and strategic narratives, enables the study to construct an analytical tool which can be utilized to assess the strategic reasoning of actors within international relations. This analytical tool is tested for relevance by being employed to empirically analyse public security strategies of states and intergovernmental organizations as presumed strategic actors. Empirical analysis guided by the framework for analysis is conducted vis-à-vis a selection of security strategies (a.k.a. strategic concepts) between 2000 and 2010, of state-actors: the Russian Federation, the United States, the United Kingdom, and IGO-actors: the European Union and NATO. The essay increases the understanding of strategic actors’ strategy-making in general and security strategy-making in particular. The findings augment the understanding of the complex choices facing political units if they aim to credibly cast themselves as a strategic actor – at least regarding the aspect of reasoning strategically – as well as shedding some more light on the particular policy material that security strategies represents.

Sverige rankas ofta som ett av världens mest jämställda länder och år 2015 uttalade den socialdemokratiska regeringen, med Margot Wallström i spetsen, sina utrikespolitiska ambitioner med avsikt att föra den feministiska kampen framåt. Regeringen menade nämligen att den svenska jämställdhetsmodellen, med dess verktyg för jämställdhetsintegrering, borde vara tongivande också på den internationella arenan. Studien har därmed ämnat att undersöka det feministiska utrikespolitiska fältet, där syftet varit att studera hur utrikesförvaltningen och regeringskansliet positionerar Sverige i en internationell kontext. Hur beskrivs svensk jämställdhetspolitik och vad innebär den feministiska utrikespolitiken i praktiken? Genom ett diskursanalytiskt angreppssätt i kombination med intersektionella- och postkloniala teoretiska ramverk, har materialet brutits ned och kritiskt granskats, för att framhäva vilka sanningsregimer och attityder som ligger latent inskrivna i regeringens språkbruk. Detta för att få förståelse för vilka motsättningar och målkonflikter som påverkar implementeringen av de 'universella jämställdhet' som proklameras. Vilka individer avser regeringen hjälpa?

The purpose of the following thesis is to critically analyse the ideational content of the current Swedish security policy. The thesis examines ideational content present in the Swedish governments foreign policy declarations of 2019, 2020, and 2021 as well as the government bill for the total defence in the period 2021-2025. Through idea criticism this thesis scrutinise the logical rigour of statements. Coherent ideational content can be as a requirement on all political content, and especially concerning security policy dealing with high-risk values. Incoherence of ideas can be seen as an invalid policy. The two texts are read and the ideas are sorted into statements of values, descriptions and prescriptions. The statements are then compared to theoretical ideal types of international relations theory. Concord of ideal types can be seen as a coherent policy whilst discrepancy can be seen as incoherence. The study finds that value-statements, descriptive statements and prescriptive statements all corresponded to two ideal types. Swedish security policy can therefore be seen as incoherent.