Suchergebnisse

The article outlines a position expressing the view that cyberspace opens up a new dimension of politics, in which cyber campaigns have the potential to become an important means or alternative to warfare in order to achieve strategic advantage. The consequences of cyber measures may not necessarily lead to disasters or military reprisals that disable a state's critical infrastructure at an unexpected moment but instead may affect the sources of power and its legitimacy. This fact forces one to ponder the question of the nature of the cyber conflict. Global awareness among policymakers about cyber warfare has increased significantly over the past few years, and many states are preparing to defend themselves against this threat. Cyber warfare is part of the evolution of conventional warfare, which in turn is linked to the broad changes in the social and political spheres and, above all, in the technological sphere. This paper aims to seek an answer to the question: are we facing cyber warfare? The answer to this question will be provided by analysing the events in the initial stage of the war in Ukraine in 2022.

Cyber security is a growing problem associated with everything a citizen or organisation does in cyberspace. The problem thus outlined fits into a multifaceted programme that can be addressed through cyber security management. The analysis in the article compares the level of cyber security awareness among the staff of public institutions and the private sector in four Central European countries, namely Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Public institutions are by nature open, decentralised and rich in a wide range of data about the state, society, economy, economics and research and innovation. For this reason, they are often exposed to serious cyber threats. This study examines the relationship between cyber security culture and the urgent need for preventive action against possible cyber threats. The main thesis of the study is that an adequate understanding of cyber security culture and improved awareness among employees about digital threats is key to achieving cyber security growth. The research illustrates breaches in so-called digital hygiene, which are caused by a lack of knowledge, skills and errors in employee behaviour. Following a survey of staff employed in both public and private organisations, an identification of key cyber security risk factors is made. Increasing staff competencies can help improve cyber resilience.

In the last decade, one can notice the huge interest of researchers in the field of cyberpolicy, which is primarily due to the widespread use of the Internet in the public space. This fact is also an impulse for conducting interdisciplinary research that combines knowledge from social sciences on the one hand, and uses content from technical sciences on the other. Compared to the form of conducting election campaigns in the 20th century in the U.S., during the 2016 election campaign there were significant changes in the conduct of political struggle. These changes consist above all in the use of cybernetic tools, which to a large extent, however difficult to determine, shaped electoral behavior. The contemporary political competition is more and more dependent on technology, which becomes the main element of the professionalization of election campaigns. Investigating the impact of cyberspace on electoral results is a big challenge, considering the fact that the area of cybertechnology is extremely complex. Cyberspace has now become a field for many political phenomena that are constantly evolving and in most cases their importance is immense for the functioning of the political system. The article is intended to deal with selected phenomena related to cybertechnology that were compared with other events from the U.S. election campaign in 2016. The article aims to investigate selected events resulting from the use of cybertechnology, which had an impact on electoral behavior.

Unrest, conflicts, and wars in various parts of the world have created huge political and business opportunities for private military companies. They can gather intelligence, provide security for rich and powerful political actors, and provide mercenaries to interest groups worldwide. Private Russian military forces with close ties to President Vladimir Putin are used in war zones and continue expanding their presence in many regions worldwide. The Wagner Group is the most famous Russian mercenary unit. It gained notoriety mainly by supporting Russian forces in the conflict in Ukraine in 2014. At that time, it also provided one of the services that the authorities in the Kremlin particularly appreciate in their actions, and that is the lack of attribution for conducting armed conflicts, thanks to which mercenaries play the role of separatist fighters. Since then, the organisation has been deployed in many countries, including Syria, Libya, Mali, the Central African Republic, Sudan, and Venezuela, always to covertly support representatives of regimes favoured by Putin. Like all other mercenary units in Russia, the Wagner Group does not officially exist, because Russian law does not allow mercenary activities. The article has two main objectives: first, to present an analysis of the activities of the Wagner Group, using the currently available information; second, to prove that the concept of hybrid warfare could best explain the Kremlin's use of Russian mercenaries.

The cybersecurity issue discussed in the paper is seen from the perspective of political science with the indication that the subject under discussion concerns the multifaceted nature of the state's actions, which consists of political, economic, social, and cultural factors. At the same time, the work also intends to prove that cybersecurity is not only a domain of technology because it is the mentioned aspects that shape the conditions of stable development of the state and its citizens in a space dominated by cyber technology in a much more decisive way. Given the growing role of cybertechnology in almost all areas of human life, its importance also forces and inspires political science to question the shape and model of modern policy, which is significantly evolving under the influence of new technologies. On the one hand, emerging cyber threats reveal the weakness of the state and the dependence of state institutions on cybertechnologies, but on the other hand, existing cyber incidents may also motivate many governments to take action to increase the level of cybersecurity.

The article presents basic relations which happen among Europeanization and the public politics on the example of the politics of the cohesion. The author makes the broad exploration objective concepts and also postulates determined conclusions and recommendations.

The role of the public sphere has increasingly come to the fore in studies concerning the state of democracy in Europe. Similarly the role of culture in formations and transformations not only of personal but of political identities as well has attracted attention. It is the purpose of this article to bring these areas together in a comprehensive approach to media, culture and democracy with a view of the public sphere as a crucial mediating field. Article focuses on the role of media in sustaining and developing democracy, a democratic dialogue and in fulfilling the role of media as the critical watchdog of the political system and other powerful players on the European scene. The concept of knowledge democracy is meant to enable a new focus on the relationships between knowledge production and dissemination, the functioning of the media and our democratic institutions. The emerging concept of knowledge democracy moreover obliges us to realise that the institutional frameworks of today's societies may appear to be deficient as far as the above mentioned undercurrents, trends and other developments demand change. Democracy is without a doubt the most successful governance concept for societies during the last two centuries. It is a strong brand, even used by rulers who do not meet any democratic criterion. Representation gradually became the predominant mechanism by which the population at large, through elections, provides a body with a general authorisation to take decisions in all public domains for a certain period of time. Fragmentation of values has lead to individualisation, to uniqueness but thereby also to the impossibility of being represented in a general manner by a single actor such as a member of parliament. More fundamentally media-politics destroy the original meaning of representation.

The changes in political life in Poland in the period 2005–2011, which restructured the existing balance of power (dominance of post-Solidarity parties at the expense of the post-communist party) force us to consider whether the party system evolution involves changes in the sphere of ideological divisions. But there also arises another question about the crisis of the left, which could mean the end of the previous model, intergroup rivalry. But there is no doubt that it occurred after 2005 events. Initiated processes took a completely different direction than those in the 90s. The purpose of the article is to explain the ongoing political disputes, and also attempt to answer the question: what factors shape the profile of program-ideological political formations in Poland.

Many commentators suggest that the Middle East political turbulence was foreseeable and it cannot be said it had been unexpected. However, the diplomatic and intelligence establishments in the United States and the European Union, which have the most crucial stakes in this region, seemed to have been so preoccupied with focusing on Al Qaeda, Hezbol-lah, Hammas, and the Taliban that in a narrow picture they seem to have lost sight of the revolutionary wave, which has altered the governments in Tunis and Cairo and shaved off some of the most hated and oppressive regimes with the sheer example of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qaddafi . The spectacular fall of such dictators as Mubarak, has led to the question, whether the "Arab Awakening" was a transformation or a revolution. There are also questions concerning the idea of democratisation of the third world and corruption, which change the Arab governments into "bad apples". According to the western view, democracy is a Janus-faced ideological god, pulling the strings of both politics and economics. One cannot exist without the other, therefore, when we reconsider the political aspect of the Arab uprising, we should not forget about the economy.