Suchergebnisse

The objective of this paper is to explore the Russian interpretation of the concept of security and to question this interpretation. The first part of the essay provides a historical overview of the relationship between NATO and Russia. Although the relationship between NATO and Russia has never been friendly, it has not always been hostile. How did it become so? How did Russian security policy makers come to the conclusion that NATO posed a clear threat to Russia? What is behind Russia's intransigent stance towards NATO? Is there even a solid basis for this attitude? What does this tell us about the Russian understanding of security? After an overview of the different concepts of security and an examination of the notion of strategic security culture, the second part of the paper attempts to answer these questions. It concludes that Russia's strategic security culture has imperialist features and points out why, in the longer term, Russia will be the main victim of this.

Although since 1990 the indispensable institutional requirements of democracy have been in place in Hungary, studies revealed that Hungarian society in the past 25 years failed to gain sufficiently strong attachment to the norms and values a well functioning democracy requires. Other studies also indicated that these signs, indicating serious shortcomings in democratic political socialization are especially evident in the young generation. In looking for an explanation of this troubling phenomenon political scientists theorised that the low adherence to these values could be the consequence of citizens' low level of activity in voluntary organizations. Could active participation in a voluntary organization reduce the deficits in democratic political socialization? In order to answer this question, this paper set out to examine to what extent the shortcomings of democratic political socialization could be detected among members of a student association ('Depolit') at the University of Debrecen, Hungary.