ABSTRACT
It would probably be no exaggeration to assert that studying international politics by and large means studying various types of power relations and the application of different power instruments by actors operating in the international arena. David Lake argues that 'Political authority is never a dyadic trait between a ruler and a single subject, but derives from a collective that confers rights upon the ruler'. Coercion and authority, for all their analytical differences, are not easy to distinguish from each other. There are numerous manifestations of authority relations in the modern world, and the scope of the use of authority is expanding. This chapter shows how the formal institutions that structured authority relations de facto not only declined, but were replaced by coercion using the example of Russia-EU relations. There is one tool of coercion that is available to all countries. This tool is economic sanctions or a threat to impose them.
