Political legitimacy has often been addressed in terms of the legitimacy of actors, while the legitimacy of policies as such is relatively neglected. This thesis argues that an analytical distinction between the categories of the actor and its action is necessary, since an actor's legitimacy does not automatically imply the legitimacy of its behaviour; furthermore, in real social discourse, actions are not exempt from legitimacy judgments. The ambition of the thesis is to make use of this research gap and to examine one of the most important tools of the EU's foreign policy by means of an analytical framework of political legitimacy. The selected cases are the current episode of CFSP sanctions against Russia; "appropriate measures" under the ACP Partnership agreement against Zimbabwe; and the informal arms embargo against China. Sanctions dealt with in the first two cases are deemed legitimate, while the arms embargo on China failed to meet the legitimacy criteria. Apart from the findings on legitimacy, two major conclusions can be drawn from the analysis: The lack of internal coherence is impairing the legitimacy of the EU's political measures; and the imposition of sanctions through an institutionalised political framework enhances their transparency in contrast to informal measures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:347354 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Šaturová, Gabriela |
| Contributors | Weiss, Tomáš, Young, Mitchell |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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