Finding a profitable balance between East and West: why Ukraine is choosing not to choose

Abstract

This research took Ukraine‘s balancing act between the EU and Russia as its point of departure. It has tried to explain why Ukrainian foreign policy and its subsequent positioning between the Eastern and Western vector is the way it is. This knowledge has been acquired by using the theoretical framework of the liberal intergovernmentalist approach, as put forward by Andrew Moravcsik (1991, 1993). This study shows that the Ukrainian domestic bargaining process shows three important features: The centrality of the presidency; the dominance of informal politics in the Ukrainian political system; and the importance of pragmatic considerations in the domestic bargaining process.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Amsterdam
Supervisor	Annette Freyberg-Inan (Supervisor)