scholarly journals Who Knows What's Going On? Mapping New Security Landscapes in Contemporary Espionage Fiction

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 775-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW PEPPER
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The State ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
The Cold War

This article explores whether or to what extent the contemporary espionage novel is able to map and interrogate transformations in the post-9/11 security environment. It asks how well a form or genre of writing, typically handcuffed to the machinations and demands of the Cold War and state sovereignty, is able to adapt to a new security environment characterized by strategies of “risk assessment” and “resilience-building” and by modes or regimes of power not reducible to, or wholly controlled by, the state. In doing so, it thinks about the capacities of this type of fiction for “resisting” the formations of power it wants to make visible and is partly complicit with.

scholarly journals Beyond the Territorial Trap?: The Geographic Interrogation of Sovereignty

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-15
Author(s):  
Matthew Derrick
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The State ◽  
State System ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Dialectical Relationship ◽  
Post Communism ◽  
The Cold War

Sovereignty is now a key concept in geographic scholarship. However, sustained geographic investigation of sovereignty commenced only in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Cold War order. Early, important contributions to the interrogation of sovereignty were historical, providing rigor in understanding the dialectical relationship between space and politics in the development of the state system. By the close of the twentieth century, however, historical complementarity in important geographic tracts on sovereignty, conditioned by new geopolitics of post-communism, gave way to diverging prognostications among academic geographers on the contemporary and future nature and salience of state sovereignty.

THE CONCEPT OF HYBRID THREATS

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 1795-1799
Author(s):  
Nenad Nenad ◽  
Rina Kirkova
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Hybrid Methods ◽  
The State ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Collective Interest ◽  
Security Environment ◽  
State Actor ◽  
Hybrid Threats ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Cold War

In 2016, during the Warsaw summit, NATO and EU reached an agreement to improve the cooperation in the fight against the hybrid threats, describing the security situation in Europe as space where many hybrid activities take place. The security environment of the modern democratic societies is endangered due to the intensive hybrid activities that are manifested via campaigns aimed to misinform, hostile cyber-activities and radicalisation of vulnerable groups in the society.The security environment during the Cold War was defined with the two confronting super powers, with each trying to surpass the other building an international security system of bipolar relations. Today, in state of hybrid threats, when the security environment is not more secure than during the Cold War, the security setting is much harder to define. The threats, methods of action and activities are multidimensional and the relations among various actions remain unclear.The state actor constantly try to become stronger, while the non-state actors seek own statehood or recognition of their activities. Seeking to achieve their own ambitions, the non-state actors challenge the West and its institutions, representing thus hybrid threats for their security. Dealing with the hybrid threats includes synchronised use of military and non-military means against specific weaknesses of the enemy. Unless detected and dealt within timely manner, the state of dealing with hybrid threats will reach the state of hybrid warfare.We live in a time of hybrid influences, where state and non-state actors challenge the modern western democracies and their institution that are considered to be a threat or competition in meeting their goals and interests. The aim of the hybrid threats is to create – by detecting the adversary’s weaknesses, such as ideological differences, technological deficiency, society polarisation, geostrategic factors and infrastructure – conditions to achieve their own goals.If the desired goals are not achieved with the hybrid methods, the hybrid threats can create conditions for future conflict, when the situation can escalate in hybrid war with significant increase of the armed violence. The modern democratic states should have coordinated coherent approach to understand, detect and respond to hybrid threats as collective interest.

Prologue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Intangible Heritage ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Print Literacy

The section introduces Part II, which spans the period 1946 to 2014, by tracing the history of the debates about culture within UNESCO from 1947 to 2009. It considers the central part print literacy played in the early decades, and the gradual emergence of what came to be called ‘intangible heritage’; the political divisions of the Cold War that had a bearing not just on questions of the state and its role as a guardian of culture but on the idea of cultural expression as a commodity; the slow shift away from an exclusively intellectualist definition of culture to a more broadly anthropological one; and the realpolitik surrounding the debates about cultural diversity since the 1990s. The section concludes by showing how at the turn of the new millennium UNESCO caught up with the radical ways in which Tagore and Joyce thought about linguistic and cultural diversity.

Human (In)Security

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Hayes
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Human Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
The Cold War

The 1990s was host to a range of conflicts emerging from weak or failed states. These conflicts typically involved significant humanitarian crises and widespread human rights abuses. Within this changing global environment, new security thinking started to engage “people” as the referent of security, moving away from the previous privileged status granted to the state as the only referent of security. The end of the Cold War enabled the human security paradigm to provide a significant challenge to the primacy of the state in security thinking. On the other hand, human security has been subject to much criticism and there has been heated debate over its applicability within the security agenda. This chapter argues that despite earlier concerns over its efficacy, human security has made inroads into security thinking and is mutually reinforcing to national security.

Violent Origins of Authoritarian Variation: Rebellion Type and Regime Type in Cold War Southeast Asia

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Slater
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
The State ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Authoritarian Rule ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

AbstractDictatorships are every bit as institutionally diverse as democracies, but where does this variation come from? This article argues that different types of internal rebellion influence the emergence of different types of authoritarian regimes. The critical question is whether rebel forces primarily seek to seize state power or to escape it. Regional rebellions seeking toescapethe state raise the probability of a military-dominated authoritarian regime, since they are especially likely to unify the military while heightening friction between civilian and military elites. Leftist rebellions seeking toseizethe state are more likely to give rise to civilian-dominated dictatorships by inspiring ‘joint projects’ in which military elites willingly support party-led authoritarian rule. Historical case studies of Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam illustrate the theory, elaborating how different types of violent conflict helped produce different types of dictatorships across the breadth of mainland and island Southeast Asia during the Cold War era.

The Escape to Turkey. Ways and Methods of Illegal Border Crossings into Turkey from the perspective of SSI documents (1945-1948)

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Daniela Popescu
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Border Crossings ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Police Services ◽  
The Cold War

"The Escape to Turkey. Ways and Methods of Illegal Border Crossings into Turkey from the perspective of SSI documents (1945-1948). Romania`s first years after the communist regime took political power in Romania, concurrent with the onset of the Cold War, meant a reshuffle of the state institutions at first and later a dramatic impact on people`s lives. The political and institutional purges were the first signal that soon repression and terror will follow, thus prompting numerous Romanian citizens to leave the country. Yet, due to the strict surveillance of the Secret Police Services which did not easily allow traveling to Western countries, the only way to escape was through illicit border crossings. One of the most common destinations was Turkey, with documents issued between 1945 and 1948 by the Secret police services revealing an impressive number of such cases. Keywords: Illegal border crossings, escape, communism, Romania, Turkey. "

Algeria: Military Past as Prologue

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Lenze, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The State ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Military Rule ◽  
Military Involvement ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

Algeria is a state in the Maghreb that has been dominated by military rule for the majority of its existence. The National People’s Army (ANP) used nationalism to justify its intervention into politics while ensuring that withdrawal would occur only if national identity were protected. Algeria, similar to other Middle Eastern states, underwent historical trajectories influenced by colonialism, the Cold War, and post-9/11 politics; briefly experimented with democracy; and as a result, experienced the military as the dominant institution in the state. The resignation of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika after 20 years of rule in April 2019, following six weeks of popular protest, has raised questions as to whether democratization is possible. Algeria’s history of military involvement in politics, the strength of the military as an institution, and its cooperative links with domestic elites and international actors portend the endurance of authoritarianism for the foreseeable future.

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