Studies in Politics, Security and Society

This publication responds to the need for providing fresh insights into the new international order, the Russian Federation’s aggressive war against Ukraine, the protection of people and borders, armaments, and finally, the threats caused by digitalisation, artificial intelligence and cyberspace. It is also a reflection of the achievements made in the field of security studies by the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, University of Warsaw – Poland’s leading academic centre. Three departments in the Faculty actively pursue this area of research: the Department of Internal Security, the Department of Strategic Studies and International Security and the Department of Information Technologies.

Volatility is one of the most characteristic features of contemporary security.
The level of threats increases or decreases, completely new phenomena appear
and quickly disturb the global balance and threaten the durability of security
systems. This dynamic nature of security verifies both the state and process, as
well as their understanding by researchers.
The monograph refers to key aspects of the contemporary understanding of
security, in its military, political, social, and informational context, as well
as other dimensions. It presents and analyzes the identification criteria and
determinants of security and characterizes the nature of contemporary threats
and the dynamics of their changes. Armed conflicts, terrorism, migration,
digital threats, loss of national identity, and populist use of security categories
to justify the use of extraordinary measures to combat threats are among the
selected areas discussed by the authors. The monograph also raises the issues
of cooperation for security, its management and education for security as a key
activity to ensure it.

The book introduces readers to the basic knowledge about changes in the political party system, which started to take place after the parliamentary elections in 2010.The introductory part introduces the basic development of the political party system in the Czech Republic, discusses the characteristics of new actors and described the two concepts used, i.e. the business firm-party and the far-right populist parties. On the basis of this introductory chapter, new political parties are introduced in more detail, namely Public Affairs, the Dawn of Direct Democracy and Freedom and Direct Democracy (associated with Tomio Okamura) and Andrej Babiš’s ANO movement.

This book presents the economic populism in British and American political discourse providing a current insight into the way Boris Johnson and Donald Trump communicate with the general public by raising fears over national security, immigration and technological advances. It shows how politicians asked for populism despite its poor economic record by using the same narrative of Conservatism. Unlike other books in the field which broadly discuss different aspects of populism, this book is the first in-depth analysis of economic populism containing political discourse studies. The recent populist discussion has started dominating the political arena in many countries. Hence, it seems that there is a need for a book that will explain the economic populism by showing its true nature.

The subject of the publication is the European Union's (EU) policy towards the countries of the Global South. The book focuses on the EU's external response to COVID-19 intentionally ignoring the topic of pandemic management in relation to Member States and the EU's single market. The publication aims to validate the hypothesis that the European Union has tapped into the pandemic to increase its role in international relations and influence the countries of the Global South. The goal of the publication was to highlight EU actions supporting Global South countries in combating the pandemic regionally dimension. Research methods characteristic of social studies were applied in the publication, including observation, source and statistical methods.

This book provides a critical analysis of literature regarding nuclear policy and nuclear waste disposal while presenting major arguments in favor of retracing the regulative profile of concurrent diversification processes in the context of renewable energy policies. The book focuses on public knowledge transfers in governance, which allows for identification of emerging factors in regional and state regulations, along with institutional industrial energy planning. Moreover, Amato scrutinizes current patterns of governmental knowledge transitions to explain how nuclear power policy and nuclear waste disposal facilities are regionally assessed. All of this happens in the context of a progressive, regulative integration of scientific policy directions, local knowledge innovation, nuclear energy policy, and more.

This book analyzes how the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, one of the most well-known actors within the humanitarian sector, has responded to the expanding humanitarian needs. The Movement of today not only cares for the wounded and the sick on the battlefields, but also responds to disasters triggered by natural and man-made hazard, engaging in a wide health and social program, as well as in rehabilitation and recovery efforts. Recent debate has forced the Movement to reflect on the scope of its current response. The analysis of the issues currently shaping the provision of humanitarian assistance is followed by a discussion of how they affect the Movement, its operational work in armed conflict, emergencies linked to natural hazards, as well as in times of peace.

The main objective of this book - New Political Parties in the Party System of Poland is to analyse and investigate new political parties that were successful in the parliamentary elections of 2011, 2015 and 2019 in Poland, as well as to analyse the Polish and Czech party systems in a comparative manner. The entry of new groups into Parliament has led to significant changes in the Polish party system, sparking discussions about business parties, populism and the role of social media in election campaigns. The book includes the following political parties: Palikot Movement, Modern, Kukiz’15, Robert Biedroń’s Spring and Confederation.

Cultural security is a concept that appeared relatively recently, but the issues within its scope – protection of identity and protection of cultural heritage – have accompanied humans almost since the dawn of time. In this monograph, an attempt is made to analyse cultural security taking into account various research perspectives and showing its multifaceted nature. This volume also constitutes a collection of case studies that focuses on the analysis of the state as the basic subject of cultural security. The authors attempted to define cultural security and the approach to it from various, often very different, research perspectives.

In modern political science, the phenomenon of political leadership is described and explained using diverse theoretical models, different analytical perspectives, or different research scales. Keeping in mind this theoretical and research pluralism, the author suggests applying an original integral explanatory strategy, which defines the relational leadership asymmetry between the leader and followers in terms of a dialectical subject–object relationship (co-determination); that is to say, in terms of a dynamic and complex political process in which the interdependencies and mutual influences of the leader and followers fall under analysis. In this sense, leadership is treated as a processual phenomenon in which the form, content, and shape of leadership depend not only on the talents, qualities, or abilities of the political leader, but also – and in a gradable manner – on the external environment and followers, their collective expectations, aspirations, goals, needs, etc.; or, speaking more broadly, the particular-political conditions in which the complex leadership mechanism takes place.

Poland and Taiwan: two parts of the world distant from each other, differing culturally and socially, and yet facing kind of similar challenges in the late 1980s and early 1990s – characterised by the transition from an authoritarian political system to liberal democracy. This book seeks to present the process of democratisation of Poland and Taiwan from the point of view of shared perspectives. Invoking the classical literature of transitology, it is possible to explore similarities and differences between the democratisation of Poland and Taiwan among socioeconomic factors, fragmentation in society, political culture, meso- structures (e.g. political groups, social movements), political institutions, historical and national- identity aspects, and international influences.

Considered by many the most talented continuator of the Nashville Agrarians, Melvin E. Bradford occupies a special place in the history of modern Southern conservatism. Bradford challenged established views of the founding, nature, and political tradition of the American Union and, most controversially, the "myth" of Abraham Lincoln. His writings substantially expanded the cultural and intellectual vision of the Agrarians by adding a new political dimension, and provided vitality and intellectual weight to the Southern conservative tradition. Bradford’s scholarship can significantly contribute to a more multifaceted and nuanced understanding of American history, tradition, and identity. This book is the first comprehensive analysis of Bradford’s political thought.