The Impact of Perceptions of Democratic Decline: Explaining French and German Foreign Policy toward Russia
Journal: KU ScholarWorks (The University of Kansas)
Year: 2016

In the last ten years, Russia’s growing assertiveness in international affairs has morphed into aggression as exemplified in Moscow’s military interventions first in Georgia in 2008 and subsequently in Ukraine in 2014. European countries responded to these events in markedly different ways. Whereas they decided not to implement sanctions against Russia in 2008, they reversed the non-confrontational course and sanctioned many of Russia’s top officials and a variety of businesses in 2014. This dis