Patterns Of The EU Sanctioning Behaviour In The Post-Communist Countries (1992-2020)

This final thesis presents a study devoted to the topic of «‎Patterns of EU sanctioning behaviour at the post-communist countries (1992-2020)». The main aim of this research was to analyze the influence of linkages of targeted countries to the EU, that were formed on the basis of 4 dimensions, on the presence and absence, and also extent of the sanctioning tools throughout the period from 1992 to 2020 among post-communist states. Sample of 16 cases with 12 countries that entailed both sanctions episodes and absence of any restrictive measures was researched. For that was used qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to establish the patterns of the behaviour of the EU. As the data were used different primary sources and databases, which include Official Journal of European Union, such indices as V-Dem, Uppsala Conflict Data Program, WITS, International Migration Database, CPI of Transparency International and many more secondary sources. Overall in this work were used 49 academic pieces of literature, 26 internet resources and 17 normative sources. In the end, it turned out that indeed high linkage of the targeted state to the EU leads to the presence of sanctions, as it was supposed by the first hypothesis. But the second hypothesis that high linkage is contributive to the high intensity of sanctioning tools could not be proved as correct. The structure of the work includes two chapters, in first of which literature review on the sanctions in historical perspective and current states of affairs of the EU sanctions field is presented. The second chapter contains the procedure of imposition of sanctions by the EU, our theoretical premises and chronological part devoted to the story behind each case in the sample. Finally, the empirical analysis with the usage of QCA is produced in the last part of the second chapter.