Roadblock Politics

There are so many roadblocks in Central Africa that it is hard to find a road that does not have one. Based on research in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR), Peer Schouten maps more than a thousand of these roadblocks to show how communities, rebels and state security forces forge resistance and power out of control over these narrow points of passage. Schouten reveals the connections between these roadblocks in Central Africa and global supply chains, tracking the flow of multinational corporations and UN agencies alike through them, to show how they encapsulate a form of power, which thrives under conditions of supply chain capitalism. In doing so, he develops a new lens through which to understand what drives state formation and conflict in the region, offering a radical alternative to explanations that foreground control over minerals, territory or population as key drivers of Central Africa's violent history.

Stakeholder Relations Perspectives in Managing Nigeria’s Rising Crimes

In today’s Nigerian society, crime represents a critical stakeholder. The unprecedented rise in crimes, such as, armed robbery, cultism, kidnapping, terrorism, banditry and cattle rustling has constrained the Nigerian government to introduce several crime fighting approaches. Despite government efforts, especially through State security forces, crimes have assumed a worsening dimension with increasing cases of attacks and abduction of villagers, worshippers, travellers and other settlers around Nigeria. Schools around the country are not spared, as both students and staff of different levels of educational institutions are kidnapped for ransom and sometimes killed by bandits and terrorists. Many Nigerian farmers have also been forced to abandon their farms due to incessant attacks. Not only are lives and property threatened, the Nigerian economy is also distressed by the impacts of insecurity on agriculture and the attendant hike in the prices of essential food commodities. Following the seeming inability of regular government crime fighting approaches to substantially deal with Nigeria’s rising insecurity, this paper examined the application of stakeholder relations perspectives to approach the country’s worsening insecurity. The qualitative paper combined Stakeholder and Relational Dialectics as theoretical cornerstone. It examined the impacts of some crime-yielding challenges, such as, illiteracy, unemployment, poverty, economic inequality and pseudo-social participation on the meteoric rise in crime in Nigeria. The paper recommended the application of dialogue in managing the rising militia activities and crimes. It was also recommended that beyond equipping State security formations, Nigerian government should direct attention to the conditions that breed crimes in the country.

"People are Crying, but I Can’t Stop Laughing": Protest Reaction of the Deportees of Tomsk region to Joseph Stalin’s Death

The research featured special reports from the Tomsk Department of State Security about the “anti-Soviet” protest movement of Tomsk deportees in the first months after Joseph Stalin's death. The analysis revealed how the deportees adapted to the authority demands and imitated their loyalty to the system, even when the regime positions was clearly weakened. The author analyzed the sanctions imposed on the deportees and the behavior of the local punitive officials, who received no instructions from Moscow. Most likely, the “anti-Soviet” behavior was not so much a purposeful protest as an irrational reaction to such an extraordinary event as Joseph Stalin's death. The responsive actions of the Regional Department of State Security did not follow the new course of Soviet policy but rather the behavioral patterns formed during the Stalin era: violators were identified and punished severely and demonstratively.

Rethinking the “State Security-Human Security” Nexus in the Face of COVID-19

It is the argument of this chapter that the COVID-19 pandemic created a need to problematize how we understand security, especially the contrast between state security and human security. This chapter argues that the pandemic has illustrated the importance of human security as well as the need to understand it as a precondition for, and not as an alternative to, state and international security. However, the study does not argue that the increased importance of human security translates into the protection of all humans. The crude reality that security is always at someone's and something's expense sustains vulnerabilities within societies. The study acknowledges that the changes in the security implications (both material and perceived) do not necessarily or automatically translate to changes in policies. Institutional resistance to change and general political trends among other factors affect the extent to which policies will evolve in a direction that would better meet the security implications of the pandemic.

Safe and Secure Home Automation Through IoT Applications

In current conditions, robotization has changed into the fundamental piece of our lives. Everybody is completely subject to mechanization whether it is an extraordinary bundling or home robotization. So as to bring home automation into thought, everybody now needs a heterogeneous state security, and in our task on residential robotization, such high security highlights are completely on the best possible consumption for this reason. In light of the structure of the interruption zone, there are some fundamental interests in it. Piezoelectric sensors are compelling for sharpening appropriated wellbeing checking and structures. An intrusion detection system (IDS) is a structure that screen for suspicious movement and issues alarms when such advancement is found. While impossible to miss worthiness and presentation is, some obstruction divulgence structures are fit to take practice when poisonous improvement or peculiar action is perceived.

‘The Reconstruction of the Past is the Task of Historians and not Agents’

State security archives in Eastern Europe are shedding new light on the operative practices of the secret services and their interaction with performance art. Surveillance, tracking, undermining, disruption, writing of reports, and measure plans were different operative methods to be carried out in continuous repetitive processes. This paper argues that, through these repetitive working processes, state security agencies were permanently engaged in different forms of reenactments: of orders, legends, report writing, and inventing measure plans. With this operative reenactment, state security agencies not only tried to track down facts but also created ‘fake facts’ serving their agenda. These `fake-facts` were then again repeated and reenacted by informants endlessly to be `effective` in the surveillance and elimination of performance art.

IoT Applications in Smart Home Security

Robotization has changed into a fundamental piece of our lives. Everybody is completely subject to mechanization whether it is an extraordinary bundling or home robotization. So as to bring home automation into thought, everybody now needs a heterogeneous state security, and in our task on residential robotization, such high security highlights are completely on the best possible consumption. Piezoelectric sensors are compelling for sharpening appropriated wellbeing checking and structures. An intrusion detection system (IDS) is a structure that screens for suspicious movement and issues alarms when such advancement is found. Some obstruction divulgence structures are fit to take practice when poisonous improvement or peculiar action is perceived.

Legal and practical dimensions of the protection of areas, facilities and devices important for state security

The article discusses the legal obligations of heads of units included in the register of areas, facilities and devices subject to mandatory protection in the voivodeship. The obligation of the head of the unit to provide physical or technical protection of an object. Significant items for state security with the use of internal security services or personal and property protection agencies – that is often criticized. However, it should be remembered that the cooperation of services, guards and inspections with the private sector is necessary to obtain an appropriate level of security. In addition, practical ways to ensure the safety of areas, facilities and devices subject to mandatory protection are also presented. The current technological development does not reduce the protection of the facility only to physical protection, allowing the use of modern technical security systems in order to support the activities of specialized employees of armed security formations. Due to the above, the authors described the operation of selected technical security systems in protected facilities.

Ethnic issues in the western part of Czech Silesia from the perspective of state security forces in the years 1946 to 1948

The article is aimed on the security problems connected with ethnic issues in the region of western part of Czech Silesia in years 1946–1948. After the end of World war II came to the Czech borderland great number of new residents. The article deals with the security corps’ attitudes towards members of individual nationalities and examines the differences in their perceptions.