Power, politics, and paramilitaries; why nations stand with Russia or Ukraine
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2025-06-25
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en
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The war in Ukraine has not just affected Ukraine and Russia, but has made ripples around the world. Due to its global impact, states decide to support one side or the other. It is crucial for policy makers to understand what makes a state choose a side, and for researchers to understand alliance formation in general. Current theories in the field of International Relations each identify their own factors that could explain position taking, but it is unclear which are most important in this case.
This thesis investigates position taking in the Ukrainian-Russian war as a case of position taking in general. This is done through a three-step method: a literature study into general theories behind position taking, a literature study about the different motivations for position taking in this conflict specifically, and a regression model to test which of the variables from the second step have been significant so far.
We found that multiple variables were of importance. These were, in order of decreasing importance: past voting similarity to the West, strength of democracy, economic stability, past voting similarity to Russia, NATO membership, political stability, presence of Russian PMCs, the size of the armed forces, and imports from Russia. This is a mix of security, economic, and ideological concerns. We take this to mean that there is no International Relations theory that can explain position taking by itself, as the factors are highly diffuse, and do not solely focus on a single topic like security, economy, or ideology.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen