Security Studies

This article explores whether political corporate social responsibility (PCSR) may be better understood through its inclusion into the realm of high politics instead of its current characterization as belonging to low politics. The key argument is that the growing role of private companies in the provision of security is too widespread and its implications are too important to be ignored by the PCSR literature. By extending the scope of its inquiry into high politics, the insights from PCSR research could enrich the debates in several other social sciences that also study political roles of private companies. An interdisciplinary dialog about the numerous inroads of private companies into high politics could help the PCSR scholars in their quest to reach beyond an instrumental view of corporate politics.

"S odkazem na relevantní poznatky ze zahraniční literatury jsou v tomto textu představeny způsoby, kterými působení soukromých bezpečnostních služeb v České republice může ovlivnit samotné vnímání bezpečnosti coby veřejného statku zajišťovaného státem všem občanům.
Building on the findings from foreign analysis of security privatization, this text illustrates the possible ways by which the practices of private security companies in the Czech Republic affect the perception of security as public good available to all citizens."

"The internet stays a high potential infrastructure of open interaction, hence, governmental desires in monitoring the internet are growing. A demonstrative example might be the attempts to make any technology based communication ‘traceable’ with the help of a European scheme of data retention (EU direction 2006/24/EC) and its national ratifications.

Regarding this, two theses come up: First, governments try to achieve their logic of ‘real life’ internal security also within the internet regime. Second, the internet changed the society in so far as it opened space for new relevant communities and actors – lobbying more and more on institutionalised paths.
This will be shown by analysing the processes in the UK and Germany. A focus will lie on each national implementation of the EU’s data retention directive. Societal and especially political differences will find some notion as well, as they build the framework of any political decision making process."

La ricerca tende a porre in evidenza le dinamiche strategicamente rilevanti che caratterizzano lo spazio cibernetico. In particolare, su quattro livelli di analisi: la prima parte è descrittiva (cos'è il cyberspace, le definizioni classiche e gli errori da sfatare); la seconda geopolitica (le novità e le implicazioni geopolitiche classiche indotte dall'avvento del cyberpower); la terza parte si focalizza sulle dinamiche prettamente militari (cos'è la guerra cibernetica, il modello strategico di riferimento, i modi, i fini e i mezzi del cyberpower, il superamento delle teorie classiche della guerra, le implicazioni nel diritto internazionale); la quarta ed ultima parte si sofferma sulle implicazioni dell'era cibernetica sulle Relazioni Internazionali (s-politicizzazione della guerra, la diffusione del potere e la violenza illimitata e il passaggio dall'era post-eroica alla guerra post-umana).

"The Maastricht treaty on the European Union (EU) erected a three-pillar edifice of European integration whose third pillar comprised various forms of cooperation in justice and home affairs. Many practices had existed much before 1992 and their inclusion into the new organization was a kind of cosmetic surgery. That face-lifting of cooperation in justice and home affairs had obvious consequences for the nature of the third pillar and the overall balance of EU policies. The third pillar was a strictly intergovernmental area where the EU members kept their sovereign right to decide upon their home affairs and judicial cooperation, as well as regulate migration flows and safeguard their national borders.

EC institutions did not have much say on those matters, and any progress of cooperation depended on consensus between the members. The Maastricht treaty established legal/formal and institutional grounds for EU cooperation in managing internal security through intergovernmental consultations regarding the movement of persons in the EU, and concomitant flanking measures in the fields of police and judicial cooperation. EU politics of internal security was formally strengthened in the Amsterdam Treaty, and practically through incorporation of acquis Schengen into the legal framework of the Union. The gradual widening of the Schengen area, the abolition of controls at internal borders and the reinforcement of flanking measures, especially at external borders, allowed the EU to set up a comprehensive and relatively efficient system of internal security.

Although the Amsterdam treaty, reforming the EU, intended to improve the fluctuation of numerous policy fields, its provisions concerning justice and home affairs were controversial. Firstly, a relatively simple and transparent structure of third-pillar cooperation was replaced by a multilevel asymmetrical and entangled cross-pillar construction in an "area of freedom, security and justice." Provisions relating to immigration, visas, asylum and other policies related to free movement of persons were transferred to the Community pillar. The third pillar was reduced to police and criminal justice cooperation. The Schengen acquis was inserted into the framework of the EU although its provisions were granted a special autonomy.

Discussions about the reform of the EU have dominated a general political and theoretical discourse on European integration at the threshold of the 21st century. A host of supranational institutions and intergovernmental bodies along with politicians and government officials from the EU members have perseveringly deliberated upon the most suitable and desirable shape of a future EU. The 2007 Lisbon treaty ended the long and tortuous trip to a new arrangement for European integration although its fate is still undecided. Moreover, the formal abolition of the pillar structure was partially undermined by special provisions concerning, first of all, internal security matters, especially police cooperation and criminal justice.

The process of constitutionalisation of the EU came amidst a great global security debate. The symbolic and political impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, when Western civilization lost the feeling of stability and entered a new stage: a ‘war on terror,' brought about new challenges for the EU in the area of security. Transnational processes, in which the EU and its Communities have, for decades, assumed a leading and creative role, changed the traditional perception and understanding of security.

One of the objectives of European integration has been to make inhabitants of the continent feel safer and more confident in the institutions of public life. The challenge of transnational threats such as terrorism, cross-border organized crime, large-scale migrations, asymmetrical conflicts or WMD proliferation had also to be met by the European states. Confronted for decades with such disquieting events and phenomena, the Europeans managed to work out, within the framework of European integration processes, certain arrangements allowing for more effective and long-term cooperation in preventing and combating the major threats to European security."

"Tato studie analyzuje limity i další možné oblasti privatizace bezpečnosti v České republice (ČR) v souvislosti se stále rostoucím počtem zde působících soukromých bezpečnostních služeb (SBS). S odkazem na nejnovější zahraniční studie privatizace bezpečnosti a na základě rozhovorů s majiteli a/nebo manažery v ČR působících SBS tato studie ukazuje, že proces privatizace bezpečnosti se neodehrává mimo struktury českého státu, neboť samotná (ne)činnost jeho složek v oblasti zajišťování bezpečnosti je spolu s pochopitelnou snahou SBS o maximalizaci svého zisku skrze nabídku nových, či rozšíření nabídky stávajících služeb, jedním z jeho klíčových determinantů. Nastíněním možných oblastí pokračování i mezních limitů procesu privatizace bezpečnosti v ČR má proto tato studie ambici být podkladem nejen pro akademickou, ale i politickou diskuzi o způsobech zajišťování bezpečnosti občanů ČR v dohledné budoucnosti.
This study analyzes the limits and further areas of possible privatization of security in the Czech Republic in the context of a growing number of private security companies (PSCs). With reference to the recent foreign studies of security privatization and interviews conducted with the owners and/or managers of PSCs operating in the Czech Republic, this study shows that the process of security privatization is not taking place somewhere outside the structures of the Czech state because the very (in)activity of its components in providing security, along with the understandable efforts of PSCs to maximize their profits by offering new services, or extending the range of the existing ones, represents one of its key determinants. By outlining possible further areas as well as limits of security privatization in the Czech Republic, this study has the ambition to be the basis for not only an academic, but also a political debate about the ways of ensuring the safety of the citizens of the Czech Republic in the foreseeable future."

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of EU-NATO relations and assesses the cooperative progress as well as the rivalrious tensions between both organizations at the individual, organizational, member-state and inter-organizational levels. The main argument of the article is that the EU has benefited from NATO's input as a Model and Mentor in the early years of the ESDP, but has recently tried to differentiate and autonomize itself in international security politics. What is desperately needed, amidst all technical agreements and deadlocks at the member state level, is a comprehensive 'strategic grand bargain' that allows both organizations to effectively tackle future security challenges in a mutually reinforcing manner.