The Myth of a Migration Crisis in France

Author(s):  
Isabelle Rigoni

France is an old immigration country but has been slow to recognize itself as such. Since 2000, the Western security context has produced a new stage in migration and asylum policies. The tragic and traumatic nature of terrorist attacks in France and other European countries has legitimized the strengthening of national security laws, fueled more conservative attitudes regarding cultural and ethnic diversity, and fed into debates on communitarianism, multiculturalism, and universalism. This chapter analyzes how migratory dynamics have been constructed as a crisis in contemporary France and examines the initiatives of civil society towards what politics and media consider to be a migration crisis. Finally, it analyzes the modes of action used by various social and institutional actors in the context of an imagined migration crisis.

Author(s):  
María Cristina García

In response to the terrorist attacks of 1993 and 2001, the Clinton and Bush administrations restructured the immigration bureaucracy, placed it within the new Department of Homeland Security, and tried to convey to Americans a greater sense of safety. Refugees, especially those from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, suffered the consequences of the new national security state policies, and found it increasingly difficult to find refuge in the United States. In the post-9/11 era, refugee advocates became even more important to the admission of refugees, reminding Americans of their humanitarian obligations, especially to those refugees who came from areas of the world where US foreign policy had played a role in displacing populations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4298
Author(s):  
Alissa Kain ◽  
Douglas L. Van Bossuyt ◽  
Anthony Pollman

Military bases perform important national security missions. In order to perform these missions, specific electrical energy loads must have continuous, uninterrupted power even during terrorist attacks, adversary action, natural disasters, and other threats of specific interest to the military. While many global military bases have established microgrids that can maintain base operations and power critical loads during grid disconnect events where outside power is unavailable, many potential threats can cause microgrids to fail and shed critical loads. Nanogrids are of specific interest because they have the potential to protect individual critical loads in the event of microgrid failure. We present a systems engineering methodology that analyzes potential nanogrid configurations to understand which configurations may improve energy resilience and by how much for critical loads from a national security perspective. This then allows targeted deployment of nanogrids within existing microgrid infrastructures. A case study of a small military base with an existing microgrid is presented to demonstrate the potential of the methodology to help base energy managers understand which options are preferable and justify implementing nanogrids to improve energy resilience.


2021 ◽  
pp. 312-324
Author(s):  
Ryszard Piotrowski

The system of governance in contemporary Poland is founded mainly on a negative narrative of distrust. That narrative brought to power the country’s present scaremongering rulers. They continue feeding the public with frightening stories of an influx of refugees, threats of war and terrorist attacks, evils of globalisation and a loss of cultural identity to foreign ways of life. A balance between distrust of rulers and trust in them is part of democracy’s constitutional identity. Those currently in power sow distrust in liberal democracy and its values – they violate the constitution, stir up distrust of elites, and make attempts at bringing the judiciary to heelwhile staging judges bashing propaganda campaigns. Distrust of European law and European institutions is part and parcel of this process. The negative narrative weakens and threatens to disenfranchise civil society, blurring the line between law and lawlessness. It also weakens those in power.


Author(s):  
Alla Orlova ◽  

The article considers a set of issues related to the formation of sustainability in the state at different levels of government: national, regional and local, with an emphasis on the sustainability of territorial communities. The concept of "sustainability" is defined, the criteria of sustainability for national security and its components at the local level are analyzed, in particular, in the formation of affluent communities. Sustainability is considered in various aspects: as a component of national security and defense of the state, in relation to the concepts of "cohesion" and "national security". Financial stability is justified as an important sign of the viability of local communities. The role of civil society in shaping the sustainability of communities is revealed, as well as different views of scientists on the impact of civil society on sustainability are analyzed. The foreign experience of implementation of the basic principles of sustainability in the life of communities is studied. The most important component of sustainability is the ability of the community to consolidate to counteract harmful and dangerous external and internal influences. Open partnership of public authorities with business structures and the public should be a prerequisite for this. It is proved that in the conditions of decentralization and various internal and external challenges, civil society (active citizens and civil society institutions) can and should be a driver of community sustainability. It is assumed that the implementation of state policy to promote the development of civil society should create a solid foundation of democracy in Ukraine as a component of national sustainability. Since the systemic mechanisms for ensuring national sustainability in the Ukrainian state at both national and local levels are not yet fully formed, the development and implementation of comprehensive strategic decisions in this area requires proper scientific substantiation, which is why the author’s contribution to this topic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
Vitaliy Kryvoshein

The study aims to analyse the connection among types of security intimidations: threats, challenges, vulnerabilities, and security risks, to establish the rapport between national and global threats, to review critical issues of the security environment.The study’s relevance is that the concept of security needs to be updated in the current changes in the global security context and the emergence of an increasing number and variety of threats under the transformations that are taking place. The research shows how the reconceptualization of security in the late twentieth century was influenced by global contextual changes associated with the end of the Cold War and the use of constructivist approaches in the social sciences. This dual change has led to a rethinking of security challenges in the second decade of the 21st century, leading to increased interest in this study. It is exposed that the concepts of vulnerability and risk are used not only in the context of foreign and defence policy, but also concerning ecologic security challenges caused by global environmental change, climate change and dangers and disasters, where there is no consensus within and among the community on vulnerability, and risks. In conclusion, it is proved that conceptual thinking on security threats has necessitated precise definition and consensus on these concepts, especially on practical policy measures to achieve agreed goals, and systematization of types of threats to all types of security and life support. It is determined that the degradation of traditional political institutions, against the background of the degeneration of the established international law system and order, cause the emergence of new threats to national security and, accordingly, political, as its subcategories. It is noted that modern researchers have paid little attention to studying the connection between the concepts of political security, state security and threats to state security. In the context of new globalization threats, states are facing a change in the security context and need to review security strategies and update the discourse on political and national security.


Author(s):  
К. В. К. В. Захаренко

In our state there are a number of complex problems in the field of information security that require urgent and radical solution. That’s why theoretical, methodological and political research of the problem of information security in Ukraine, which is experiencing a crisis phase of its development, is becoming especially relevant today. In order to develop an effective system of national information security, a detailed study of the experience of the leading countries of the world, which carry out effective information protection of their states and citizens, is necessary. Today there are national information security systems that have really proven their effectiveness and structural and functional perfection. Indeed, the successful development of a democratic state and civil society is possible only if the information resources are properly used and the state policy is implemented, which would ensure a high level of national information security. In the modern world, the basic principles and tools for the formation of effective information protection of the national security space have been developed already. At the same time, Ukraine needs to apply adequately the foreign experience of the most successful countries in this regard, correctly transforming it taking into account national specificity and the unique role of Ukraine in modern geopolitics. As an important indicator of the protection of citizens, society and state, information security is an integral part of national security. Therefore, its determination mainly focuses on preventing harmful effects that may result in various information threats, as well as eliminating and overcoming those effects with the least possible harm to society and humans. In this aspect, the study of not only the philosophical and phenomenological and socio-psychological determinants of information security of citizens, but also political and legal resources and mechanisms of protection of the information space of the state in the conditions of the functioning of the global information society acquires a special significance. А content analysis of the notion «information security» as a form of national security aimed at ensuring human rights and freedoms in relation to free information access, creation and implementation of secure information technologies and protection of the property rights of all participants of information activities, includes consideration of possible diversions in this area, especially at the international level. Today there is a situation of incompleteness of formation and fragmentary filling of the information space content of the country and the legislative base in our society. The efficiency of the information weapon itself has increased too quickly due to the rapid information circulation and the spread of information networks. As a result, mass media forms the «mass» person of our time, in turn this fact displaces traditional direct contacts, by dissociating people and replacing them by computers and television. At the same time it gives rise to apathy, uncritical attitude and indifference, it complicates the adequate orientation, causing the social disorientation. Informative safety has the human measuring. Therefore an important role in opposition to destructive external and internal informative influences is played by education of citizens. Her proper level called to provide the state and civil society. An in fact uneducated population easily is under destructive influence of informative threats of the modern global world. Unfortunately, Ukraine, does not have sufficient resources and technologies for adequate opposition to the external threats. Taking into account it strategy of forming of the national system of informative safety of our state can be only the maximal leveling of destructive influences from the side of external informative threats. To the end it is necessary to carry out democratic reforms Ukraine, generate civil society, to provide functioning of the legal state and increase of political and civil culture of population. At the same time it is necessary to bear reformers in a mind, that global nature of informative society predetermines rapid transformation of external threats in internal, converting them into permanent calls which are opened out within the limits of national in a civilized manner-informative and socio-political space. Besides modern global informative systems, mass medias, network facilities do a limit between external and internal threats almost unnoticeable.


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