The price of sanctions - how far are the Western powers willing to go?

Sammanfattning: The research investigate the Visegrad countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) cohesion problem finding a joint position on the EU sanctions against Russia by answering the question: What is behind the Visegrad Groups different positions and lack of unity on the EU sanctions towards Russia?. To identify what is behind the Visegrad Groups different positions the theory spring from Putnam’s two-level game theory and will focus on Tsebelis Nested game theory. The two theory´s together enable to map out the Visegrad countries different games nested in an arena dynamics consisting of the three different arenas: the domestic arena, the supranational arena and the international arena. To be able to explain the V4 countries' divided positions, this research will use five different hypotheses, which will function as explanatory factors trying to describe what is behind each of the V4 countries taken position on the EU sanctions against Russia. The result of the research show that the countries positions and decisions on the three arenas, from their point of view, can be explained as rational choices and strategically decisions taken in the nested game surrounding the sanction war against Russia. Due to the fact that each of the V4 countries act rational to maximize their goal achievement, a coherence problem occur, which makes it hard for the V4 countries to reach an agreement on the “level 3” sanctions.