Search

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article situates the interdependence debate in IR theories within contemporary world politics and reconsiders the concept of complex interdependence against current deglobalising dynamics. A notion of fragile interdependence is developed to explore the reversibility of interdependent relationships, an issue which has become increasingly important. Russia-EU relations, during and in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis, serve as the core case study to illustrate the implications of the theoretical debate. The focus is placed on two dimensions of their interdependent relationship: (non-energy) trade and gas. Although both dimensions have been reversed during this geopolitical crisis, there has been a contrasting pattern. In a comparative manner, the case study illustrates the ramifications of the theoretical debate, and, more importantly, the extent to which complex or fragile interdependence is relevant. This article argues that fragile interdependence would better capture the reversals, although, at the same time, complex interdependence may still be relevant to account for the rebound in resilient interdependent relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engagement with Russian civil society is the least contested part of the EU's current and expected future approach to Russia. There is broad agreement on the need to conduct a dialogue with Russian citizens and to facilitate people-to-people contacts, as well as to support civil society as such. However, this general goal is not fully matched by a clear understanding of what the basic features and sentiments of Russian society are today. This article seeks to sketch an unvarnished picture of Russian society, knowledge of which is essential for the effective design and successful conduct of any engagement activities (their formats, channels of communication and content). The key problems include the lack of enthusiasm among ordinary Russians for the European project, and their growing confusion—fuelled by authoritarian control and disinformation—about European institutions and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Przegląd Europejski is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The IISS's Baltic counter-offensive scenario underrates the contributions that Europe's forces could make to deterring and defending against Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the event of future Russian aggression in the Baltic region, the initial defence will almost certainly fail. Many experts believe that NATO's potential military strength is enough to assure deterrence. Accordingly, Alliance troop presence on NATO's eastern flank is sparse indeed. Yet, repeated Russian aggression in the European security space suggests caution. Should the Baltic states be overrun, as in 1940, it is far from clear that Allies will contribute strong forces to restore their sovereignty and territorial integrity. The burden would then fall on the major powers – the UK, France, Germany, Poland and, above all, the US – to respond quickly and decisively. In this hypothetical scenario, R D Hooker, Jr envisages a Russian attack on the Baltic states and assesses the prospects of taking them back, concluding that under current conditions, success is unlikely. ◼ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic sanctions impose costs on sender as well as target states, and those costs increase with the degree of interdependence between the states in question. We test the hypothesis that EU member states that are more economically interdependent with Russia would be the most opposed to the imposition of sanctions on Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine in 2013–2014. However, an analysis of the debate over the imposition of sanctions shows the opposite: a modest positive correlation between economic interdependence and support for the sanctions among EU member states. This finding further calls into question the fundamental linkage between economic self-interest and conflict avoidance among interdependent states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die Politik von US-Präsident Donald Trump, der Brexit und die Rückkehr Russlands auf die internationale Bühne haben die Prinzipien der europäischen Sicherheitsarchitektur infrage gestellt. In dieser Phase des Umbruchs wirft die angestrebte Emanzipation der Europäischen Union im Bereich der Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik grundlegende Fragen auf und könnte die zuletzt angespannten Beziehungen zum wiedererstarkten Russland verändern. Dieser Aufsatz widmet sich diesem Sachverhalt im Bereich der maritimen Sicherheit, die von herausragender Bedeutung für die Weltwirtschaft und die Sicherheitspolitik ist. Insbesondere wird anhand jüngst veröffentlichter Sicherheitsdokumente die zentrale Frage erörtert, ob die EU in Bezug auf ihre eigenen Seegrenzen und gegenüber ihrem derzeitigen Hauptherausforderer in diesem Bereich, der Russischen Föderation, eine tragfähige militärische Strategie formuliert hat. Basierend auf einer vergleichenden Analyse der jeweiligen, von Russland und der EU konzipierten strategischen Leitlinien zeigt sich, dass dies gegenwärtig nicht der Fall ist. Schließlich argumentiert der Verfasser, dass vergangene Entwicklungen und aktuelle Trends darauf hindeuten, dass die EU in Zukunft gegenüber Russland eine eigenständige maritime militärische Sicherheitsstrategie entwickeln sollte, die auf mögliche Herausforderungen der Zukunft zu reagieren imstande ist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cold War was a confrontation dominated by dogmatic ideology; the rise of Gorbachev and his attempts to inject new thinking into the Soviet Union were critical in ending that standoff. Generally, Gorbachev was successful in the field of foreign policy and many of his ideas and actions created lasting legacies which have shaped the world today. However, one idea which failed to gain much traction was his proposal regarding a Common European Home. The aim of this paper is to examine how this opportunity was missed or why hasn't it been taken advantage of, before moving on to analyse whether shared aims, freedoms, values and responsibilities exist between Russia and the EU today. Opinion polling shows that Russian values and opinions are complex, but often similar to other post-communist countries that have successfully become European Union member states. The issue of NATO expansion stands out as more problematic than a lack of shared values between the EU and Russian citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the contemporary identity-role construction of small states in South-East Europe is closely linked to the process of reshaping the relative geometry of regional influence of the EU-centre and its powerful marginal actors. This has become increasingly obvious since 2008 with the unraveling of the global economic crisis, Russia's revived influence in the region, and the crisis of EU enlargement − processes that are usually perceived as challenges to the prevalent European conception of order. This paper seeks to explore the interaction of more powerful actors from both the European ' center' and its 'margins' with the small states on the South-East margin, by developing the framework that builds on Noel Parker's theory of 'positive marginality' and the updated 'constellation theory' by Hans Mouritzen and Anders Wivel. Theoretically, I propose the concepts of 'marginality constellation', 'thin' and 'thick' margins, to understand how small states frame their understanding of agency in world politics more broadly. Empirically, the paper delves into Croatia's and Serbia's foreign policies from 2014 on, to illustrate how the two countries manage their foreign policy identity narratives to respond to the shifting geopolitical centre-margin discourses of the EU and Russia in light of the crisis in Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Espacios is the property of Talleres de Impresos Oma and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Economists have suggested it was optimal to signal the odious character of bonds when they were issued. However, since the odious debt doctrine has not been recognized by any court, one could argue that denouncing odious debts is useless. Exploiting a unique historical episode, this paper quantifies the impact of protests on odious debts. In 1906, the Russian government floated a bond in Paris to cover the costs of its war against Japan but also to raise money to crush the political movements wishing to reform Russia's political system. Issued without parliamentary consent, this loan met with fierce opposition. Press campaigns in Great Britain, France and Germany denounced its odious character. If failure or success is determined solely by the ability to prevent a loan from being issued, then the campaign failed. We argue, however, that failure or success should be determined in light of the financial costs imposed on the issuer for future loans and even the ability to force a postponement of these loans. We show that these campaigns increased the yields of all Russian bonds traded in Paris, and thus Russia's future borrowing cost. Yields on the 1906 loan, which was specially targeted by the campaigns, rose even more. However, once the press campaigns stopped, yields experienced a declining trend, highlighting the important role the press may have on odious debts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian energy company, has major export markets in the European Union, but these are changing, challenging the established trading principles of Russian gas. The EU promotes switching to hub-based pricing, whereas Gazprom, despite adapting to some degree, has continued to highlight the advantages of long-term contracts. This article analyses the reasoning of selected Gazprom actors from an institutional-cultural perspective. Apart from conflicts of interest between Russia and the EU, it finds deep-seated differences in worldviews and perceptions of appropriate behaviour in trade relations. Such factors may play a larger role in decision-making than is generally acknowledged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current article is focused on the various types of populism in Estonia (e.g. Estonian national populism, hybrid populist discourse, etc.) in which we discuss the complex phenomenon of populism in two contexts: EU political upheavals (the refugee crisis of 2015 which received special attention from populist politics in Europe) and complex Russian-EU relations. For our analysis we interviewed several Estonian politicians and opinion-leaders. We also analyzed Russian language media sources in Estonia, covering a broad spectrum of populist narratives among the Russophone population of Estonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting on the results presented in articles in this special issue, European leaders should take greater account of external perceptions in crafting the European Union's strategic narrative and guiding its actions. Failure to do so has impaired external policies like the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership. Leaders emerging from the Arab uprisings perceived the EU as complicit with their countries' former anciens régimes and Russian leaders see EU support for democracy and the market economy in former Soviet states as duplicitous and instrusive. Awareness of such perceptions should be filtered into EU decision-making, without validating views that European officials and diplomats consider misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While no breakthrough in relations appears imminent, greater openness to dialogue and eventual normalisation has arisen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the impact from Russian import ban on trade between the Russian Federation and the selected Western countries -- especially EU members. Because of the applied ban characteristics, the European Union could be considered as the most affected subject of Russian protectionism. This paper identifies the changes affecting EU agrarian export performance in relation to the Russian Federation. Changes in the trade of vegetables, fruits, meat and animal products, dairy and dairy products and fish are identified. This paper also provides an overview of changes related to Russian trade competitiveness and territorial structure. The result of the applied import ban was a significant reduction of Russian agrarian import value -- within the first three years alone, the value of imports was reduced by 7,389 million USD. The import ban also changed the overall competitiveness of Russian agricultural trade, while recognising that the comparative advantages of some commodity groups was reduced. The processed data is analysed through a set of the following instruments: self-sufficiency ratio, import dependency ratio and in the final part of the paper, the Lafay index (LFI) will be used for a brief analysis of the comparative advantages of the products included in the ban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part of the special cluster titled Bukovina and Bukovinians after the Second World War: (Re)shaping and (re)thinking a region after genocide and 'ethnic unmixing', guest edited by Gaëlle Fisher and Maren Röger.Over the course of the 1990s, the region of Bukovina, once the easternmost province of the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire, gained unprecedented visibility abroad. This was the case in German-language space in particular. There, Bukovina became the subject of newspaper articles, books, films, and exhibitions; travel and tourism to the area developed; political agreements and partnerships were even established between German or Austrian and "Bukovinian" regions. These initiatives, across "East and West," across the former Iron Curtain, were meant to bridge the former divide. But many were based on proclaimed historical and cultural connections: as the widespread slogan read, Bukovina "returned to Europe." In the process, historical Bukovina, by then split between Romania and a newly independent Ukraine, was not so much rediscovered as resurrected, reconstructed, and reinvented on the basis of existing ideas and assumptions. This raises a range of questions: why Bukovina, why in these countries, and why then? In this article, I identify different groups of actors, trends, and phases in the popular resurgence of Bukovina after 1989–1991 and highlight their origins, differences, and interactions. By tracing the activities and narratives of some of the key actors of the reinvention of the region after 1989–1991, this article explores the tensions between visions of the past and visions of the future in Germany, Austria, and Europe after 1989. It thereby also contributes to a critical reflection on the meaning of the wider "return to Europe" of Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU-Russia higher education cooperation has continued despite global tensions including Crimea incorporation. One example of this cooperation is the development of Finnish-Russian double degree programmes. This paper focuses on institutional environments where double degrees develop and asks how and why they produce uncertainty from inside Finnish and Russian universities in the period of this unfavourable political situation. The matryoshka model is applied to understand the institutional environment of a university and the institutions around it. The institutional nature of a double degree is determined by comparative analysis of how internal university stakeholders in Finland and Russia perceive a programme’s benchmarks. The study is based on the analysis of interviews conducted in partner universities. This paper discusses how perceptions of double degrees influence uncertainty in programme provision within and between institutional environments in Finnish and Russian universities. In addition, the level of institutionalisation of the double degrees may be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German—Polish relationship developed strong, deep roots over the two and a half decades since the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the unification of Germany. The Ukraine crisis revealed, or rather was a stark reminder that, Germany and Poland have different perspectives about Russia’s relationship to Europe, its impact on the region’s security, and how best to guarantee that security. Whereas Germany sought to cultivate a special relationship with Russia in the late 1990s, Poland saw a need to Europeanise relations with Russia. Elections in Poland in 2015 directed further attention to the country’s differences with Germany and the EU. Despite their occasionally divergent foreign and security policy perspectives, however, both countries have practical reasons to work toward strengthening European foreign and security policy cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the relations between Europe and Russia are pivotal to understanding the state of play in international relations. It mentions about the Russia's foreign and domestic policy, along with discusses that effective European strategy towards Russia, democracy in the EU's eastern neighborhood, and transatlantic relations and their role in dealing with the Kremlin, Russia.

The article discusses the uncertainties arising from the Ukraine War and questions the persistence of interstate war, the future of EU-Russia relations, and the impact on the EU's security approach, emphasizing the need for a significant update in security and defense policy.

The 'greater Nordic space' between Great Britain, Germany and Russia has over time varied with the balance of power. The Baltic States e.g. have been in and out of the space, rejoining by regaining sovereignty after the end of the Cold War. Russia's actions in Ukraine and beyond during 2014 mark the end of the Post-Cold War period and its aspiration to peaceful integration. The small states of the greater Nordic space are now rediscovering their inescapable geopolitical nearness to Russia. Drawing on RSCT and Nordic-Baltic integration literature, the article contributes to understanding the Northern European part of the Euro-Russian Regional Security Complex. Theoretically, the article links RSCT and integration logics through the twin concepts of a 'security region' (given outside-in as one part of a negatively defined RSC), and a 'political region' (created inside-out under the shield provided by the security region). To link the two concepts, Heidegger's idea of Geworfenheit, or thrownness, is employed to capture how the states of the greater Nordic space are always already subject to the dynamics underlying that space and how this condition affects the states' interpretation of their changing surroundings, including translation into political regionality. Empirically, the article therefore argues that Russia's new foreign policy has created a greater Nordic space 'security region' - supported by the United States - that is paving the way for new integration initiatives to a strengthened 'political region' inside the space, possibly as a 'greater Nordic region'.

The article highlights information on interconnections between borders and identities of Europe. it mentions several aspects of binary thinking on the refugee crises in Europe includes study of refugee crises as a story about Europe itself that involves complex combination of national identities and supranational institutions; impact of Russia in influencing refugee debate in Europe; and structurally imbalance of the refugee debate.

This article compares media representations of how Europe and Russia handled the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Belarus and Ukraine in the period 1992-2014. It shows that the official and alternative media in Belarus featured competing representations of Europe and Russia that were linked to the national narratives of the Belarusian authorities and opposition, while the official and alternative media in Ukraine carried congruent representations of Europe and Russia that were not linked to the competing national narratives of the political actors. It is further argued that while the media in Belarus constructed its national identity as present-oriented, the media of Ukraine presented its national identity as past-centred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contours of regionalism in a wider Europe are shaped by two dominant actors, the European Union (EU) and Russia, which often have divergent visions of the regional landscapes in a vast area constituting their common neighbourhood. The EU can be characterised as the promoter of normative regionalism, while Russia generates different forms of civilisational regionalism. Russia’s emphasis on the civilisational underpinnings of its regional integration model paves the way for two different strategies: one based on liberal imitation and replication of EU experiences in order to strengthen Russia’s position in the global neoliberal economy, and another grounded in illiberal contestation of the normative premises of the EU with the purpose of devising an ideologised alternative to the liberal West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While conventional arms control in Europe poses stiff challenges, Russia and the West share an interest in stability that makes it feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland’s Right to Return policy for Ingrian Finns (1990-2010) presented Russian and Estonian citizens who qualified as having Finnish ancestry the legal means to resettle in Finland. The policy was initially driven by Finnish President Mauno Koivisto, who spoke publicly of his belief that the Ingrian Finnish minority in Russia was Finnish because it was Lutheran rather than Orthodox. However, Finnish politicians increasingly abandoned the view of a common Lutheran identity between Ingrian Finns and Finland, and shifted the discussion to language, ancestry and historical memory, which were used to both endorse and disendorse Ingrian Finns’ Finnishness. We argue that the disappearance of religion from the Right to Return discourse was a strategic - if not necessarily conscious - choice that emphasized the more primordial aspects of Finnish identity (and the Ingrian Finns’ lack of those), which in turn enabled stricter restrictions and, ultimately, the discontinuation of the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the essay is to explain the mixed record of Russian-European interaction in the Balkans and the Black Sea region from the mid-1990s onwards. The essay attempts to modify Iver Neumann's work on Russia and the idea of Europe in two main ways. First, instead of Neumann's longue durée approach, the essay focuses on one generation of Russian policymakers to understand the role that the idea of Europe occupies in the mindset of the contemporary Russian elite. Instead of Neumann's 'True/False Europe' dichotomy, the essay does furthermore offer a denser web of Russian Selves and European Others, in order to explain with greater precision the mixed record of Russian-European security interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the "Moscow identity" of Russian philosopher Fyodor Avgustovich Stepun (1884-1965), who was born, studied, and lived for many years in Moscow until the Bolshevik regime expelled him from Soviet Russia in 1922. The author uses a wealth of factual material to show how the features of Stepun's "Moscow" life are related to the various stages of his intellectual creativity and social life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of poet and statesman Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) in the development of the "Russian northern-dom" idea, a rich concept of identification that played a major role in the history of Russian geopolitical and philosophical-ideological thought from the eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, receding to the background only in the mid-nineteenth century with the arrival of the "classical" Russian opposition of "Westernizers" and "Slavophiles." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the varying circumstances of the extensive travels abroad in 1875-1876 of Russian philosopher Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853--1900). The author devotes particular attention to Solovyov's time spent in the Italian town of Sorrento near Naples, where, in the old Hotel Cocumella, Solovyov finished his treatise The Sophia (in French) that he had begun in Egypt, a treatise in which he outlined the earliest contours of his great philosophical system. Using a wealth of documentary materials, the author examines events associated with Solovyov's stay in Sorrento, and later in Florence, Venice, and Genoa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the work of a distinguished Russian philosopher, historian, and political scientist Alexei A. Kara-Murza. Kara-Murza has been developing unique genres of philosophic study, including philosophical travelology and a local study approach that lies at the junction of the philosophical investigation into the history of Russia and historical examination of local places. The method he is advancing could be called an "intellectual topography of Russian history." This method of philosophical-historical research pioneered by Kara-Murza assumes an inquiry into the genesis of ideas, images, and artistic and historical associations that have been emerging as the cultural spaces of Russia and Europe meet and mingle: the semantic topoi of cultures that encourage thinkers and writers into creative and philosophical reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian challenge to the European security system is internal rather than external, because despite all the political efforts at distancing Russia from Europe, the indivisibility remains undiminished. The underlying assumption for Russia’s course is that the West is in irreversible decline, and the conclusion about the dissolution of the West-controlled world order is established in the key doctrinal documents. Instead of passively waiting for this meltdown to develop, it makes perfect sense for the Russian leadership to accelerate it pro-actively, using various levers, including military force. Moscow acts on the assumption that its “unconventional” methods could yield results only if augmented by military threats, against which the Europeans cannot master convincing counter-argument. The imperative to sustain and update credibility of these threats necessitates allocation of greater share of available resources to military build-up, which clashes with economic rationale of reducing this burden in the situation of protracted stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the counterbalance of EU and Russian soft powers in Georgia through identifying the main strategies, frameworks, tools and the domains of operation. The analysis is done on macro and micro levels by exploring the counterbalance within political, economic, cultural and educational spheres and simultaneously scrutinizing the fluctuations of public attitudes towards the EU and Russia in Georgia. Via the detached conceptualization of Soft Power, the study illustrates foreign interest frameworks and consequences of the soft power practices on the two levels of analysis. Cultural domain appears to be the most vulnerable vis-à-vis Russian soft power presence, paving the way to the political influence further illustrated by the alterations in public attitudes. Whereas for the EU, economics and education are the spheres where soft power is best revealed and public attitudes are affected respectively too. Georgian political establishment has been stable in providing legitimization and legal frameworks for the EU presence through the mentioned fields. The influential power of Russian cyber and media tools and anti-Western myths that counterbalance EU soft power on a micro level are closely examined throughout the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author examines one of the most important issues in the spiritual maturation of Russian culture. Peter the Great brought Russia back to Europe as a military and political power. Yet, the great country needed to assimilate European culture. In this context, we could rightly call Karamzin a Russian European who laid the groundwork for the development of genuinely Russian culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although officially Russian state-owned energy companies operate as independent entities, their actions often lead to suspicion that they are acting as a tool of Russian state foreign policy. Countries on the southeastern borders of Europe – Bulgaria and Greece – are prime examples of where this might be the case, since they not only have a central position in Russia’s plans to penetrate European markets through new transport infrastructure but are also part of competing plans for routing non-Russian gas to Western markets. The main focus of the present research is on the natural gas and oil sectors, as these are the traditional foundation of Russian energy exports to Europe. The aim of this paper is thus to provide an objective, evidence-based analysis of Russian activities in the natural gas and oil sectors of Greece and Bulgaria in order to establish whether its actions have been implicitly or explicitly politicized and have served to strengthen Russian influence in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Russian aggression against Georgia in 2008, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, constant pressure on Belarus and political ambitions in Moldova have brought Russia's geopolitical ambitions in the former Soviet republics to the spotlight and pushed them into facing a difficult dilemma between a growing partnership with the EU or further cooperation with Russia and the Eurasian Union. The article assesses potential threats for four post-Soviet republics (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine) which may result from Russia's imperialistic ambitions. The study is based on the common features of two recent conflicts in Georgia and Ukraine and relevant economic and ethnic data. Based on the assumption that a common neo-imperial pattern exists in Russia's initiatives outside its nearest borders, the current research focuses on the key elements of Russia's neo-imperial dependence model, the current stage of the dependence-cycle and the pre-conditions for the target state to escape the dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship has increasingly acknowledged the importance of public attitudes for shaping the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy. Economic sanctions emerged as one of CFSP's central tools. Yet despite the emergence of sanctions as a popular instrument in the EU foreign policy toolbox, public attitudes towards sanctions are yet to be studied in depth. This article explains public support for EU sanctions, using the empirical example of sanctions against Russia. It looks at geopolitical attitudes, economic motivations and ideational factors to explain the variation in public support for sanctions. The conclusion suggests that geopolitical factors are the most important, and that economic factors matter very little. Euroscepticism and anti-Americanism play an important role in explaining the support for sanctions at the individual level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]