Varför Libyen, men inte Syrien eller Venezuela? : En fallstudie om Rysslands inkonsekventa reaktion till Responsibility to Protect-doktrinen

By agreeing to The Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) at the United Nations World Summit in 2005, and later adopting a resolution reaffirming the support, the Russian federation accepted a responsibility of the international community to protect populations of other states, if the state itself manifestly fails to protect its own populations. However, Russia has acted in an inconsistent way by exercising its commitment to the R2P principle occasionally. The purpose of this study is to give an answer to the question of why Russia has acted in an inconsistent way to The Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Analyzing the inconsistency puzzle through the realist, liberal and constructivist lens, questioning why Russia has accepted an R2P intervention regarding Libya to halt ongoing mass atrocities, but repeatedly has vetoed against R2P interventions regarding Syria and recently regarding Venezuela, the study concludes that a combination of the three approaches is needed to explain and understand Russia’s inconsistent reaction. Second, it concludes that Russia acted inconsistently because President Medvedev was affected by, and agreeing with, international norms, thereby accepting an R2P into Libya, while President Putin was affected by, and wanted to hold on to the Russian identity. By rejecting R2P interventions in the Syria and Venezuela cases, Putin thereby secured Russian national interests, using a liberal narrative as a pretext for the actions