Russia's narratives on the Western sanctions regime from 2014 to 2020

Abstract

5 Abstract This thesis aims to provide an overview of Russia's narratives surrounding the anti-Russian sanctions implemented by the West in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis. Employing the concept of "strategic narratives", the thesis aspires to outline the content and usage variation of Russia's strategic communication regarding the sanctions regime. After exploring what countries can, in theory, do to defend themselves against sanctions, it was predicted that Russia would strive to reach two goals with its strategic narratives, delegitimizing the sanctions regime and downplaying the sanctions' negative economic effects. The qualitative method of thematic analysis was used to explore the statements of Russia's political leaders on the sanctions and found that Russia indeed seeks to delegitimize the sanctions and downplay their effects. When investigating the usage of the two strategic narratives over time with the help of a quantitative Chi-square test, no significant differences could be found between economically turbulent and prosperous times for two out of three politicians, with the third one resorting more often to the delegitimizing strategic narrative in economically prosperous times. Meanwhile, two other external factors were identified as significantly influencing the strategic narratives' usage...