TOPICS OF PAST PUBLIC LECTURES
delivered by our PostDoc fellows
Jonata Anicetti
Collaboration and Competition in Defence Innovation Across Europe
WHEN: December 6, 2023, 10:30-11:50
VENUE: MUP Prague-Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10,
Room no. 206
Jonata Anicetti
EU Defence Cooperation: The Impact of the War in Ukraine
WHEN: December 6, 2022, 13:30-14:50
VENUE: MUP Prague-Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10,
Room no. 307
Synopsis: This lecture aims to familiarize graduate students to debates on EU defence cooperation in the context of the Transatlantic relationship and Europe’s strategic cacophony. In particular, after providing a brief historical overview of defence cooperation in Europe, the lecture will address two questions, namely: Has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine strengthened EU defence cooperation and its quest for strategic autonomy? And, relatedly, has the war widened or reduced Western and Eastern European differences with regard to EU arms collaboration, extra-EU off-the-shelf arms procurement, and defence offsets?
Christine Andreeva
The evolution of EU counter-terrorism after the terrorist attacks of 2015-2016: Focus on information-sharing and cooperation in law enforcement and intelligence
WHEN: December 14, 2022, 9:00-10:50
VENUE: MUP Prague-Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10,
Room no. 307
Overview: EU counter-terrorism is a hybrid policy stuck in the limbo of European integration. Despite the bodies and mechanisms in place to facilitate policy and operational cooperation, until 2015 the gaps in governance and operational inefficiency caused decreased capacity for prevention and response. The attacks in Paris and Brussels (2015-2016) brought about a critical juncture in EU counter-terrorism. The increased efficiency of cross-border and inter-agency coordination in intelligence and police work could not be achieved before this juncture, due to flaws in the institutional design and legislative framework. This lecture will familiarise students with the inherent issues in EU information-sharing and will elucidate the distinctive effects of the 2015-2016 juncture on the development of European counter-terrorism.
EUROPEAN SECURITY AND BEYOND
and the launch of a new face of CEJISS
WHEN: 8 November 2021, 15:45-17:15
VENUE: MUP Prague-Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10,
Room no. 305
PROGRAMME:
Welcome & Start
Oldřich Bureš | Centre for Security Studies, Metropolitan University Prague
Aleš Karmazin | Central European Journal of International and Security Studies
Jonata Anicetti | European University Institute
Paying the Buyer: European Arms Suppliers and Extra-EU Offset Demands
Christine Andreeva | Metropolitan University Prague
The Evolution of Information-Sharing and EU Counter-Terrorism
15th anniversary of the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS) and launch of its new face
Announcement of the winner of the anniversary award for the best paper by a PhD candidate, a postgraduate (Master’s) student or a recent graduate
Maritime Security
Alexandr Burilkov
WHEN: April 3, 2019 from 10:40-12:10
WHERE: Room no. 109, MUP Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10, Prague 10
Free entry, no registration required.
Far-Right Extremism and Terrorism
Alexandr Burilkov
WHEN: April 3, 2019 from 14:00-15:30
WHERE: Room no. 003, MUP Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10, Prague 10
Free entry, no registration required.
Energy Security
Izabela Surwillo
WHEN: March 27, 2019 from 10:40-12:10
WHERE: Room no. 109, MUP Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10, Prague 10
Free entry, no registration required.
Post-Cold War Military Innovation in Regional Powers
Alexandr Burilkov
WHEN: Tuesday December 5, 2017, 16:00-17:30
WHERE: Room no. 305, MUP Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10, Prague 10
Free entry, no registration required.
Abstract: In the past 20 years, a number of regional powers have emerged to challenge the status quo established by the fall of the Soviet Union. From a military perspective, of particular interest are the irredentist regional powers such as China, Russia, or Iran, which are dissatisfied with regional or even global power structures and security arrangements. This lecture examines military innovation – focusing on navies and maritime forces – amongst these regional powers, meaning tactics, strategies, and technologies that do not emulate the standard practice of established militaries, especially those of NATO, and therefore could lead to increased complexity in already-tense security climates. The lecture draws on the historical tradition of naval theory, as well as neoclassical realism, to argue that these recent developments mirror other pushes by irredentist powers to compensate through innovation, as was the case in the Soviet Union.
Quantitative methods in international relations
Alexandr Burilkov
WHEN: Tuesday December 12, 2017, 12:20-13:50
WHERE: Room no. 307, MUP Strašnice building, Dubečská 900/10, Prague 10
Free entry, no registration required.
Securitizing Energy: From Geopolitics to Energy Democracy
Izabela Surwillo
Tuesday November 21, 2017, 16:00-17:30
Abstract: Energy security emerged as one of the ‘new’ security issues in the post-Cold War era. Due to its ‘total’ character it impacts all sectors of human activity as well as other security areas – political, societal and environmental included. However, the vast majority of energy security analysis tends to focus on the local and global market forces and narrowly defined economic indicators for operationalizing energy security. The mainstream research is also primarily conducted from a limited methodological perspective that often relies on economic modeling, but rarely includes qualitative data that would give more consideration to the multiplicity of local actors, agendas and perspectives. Yet, the contextual analysis of the energy security phenomenon shows that the realist focus on the geopolitics of gas/oil supply and the ‘zero-sum’ game of pipeline politics are only a part of the story. Similarly to the analysis of climate security, the security dynamics of the contemporary energy sector defies the logic of exception as the dominant and universal logic of security. Namely, not only the logic of risk, war and subsistence shape local energy security agendas, but the emerging logic of emancipation increasingly plays a role in different national settings. Characterized by the gradual democratization of energy systems, individuals as the referent objects of security, the rhetoric of social empowerment/liberation and reflexive security practice – the energy security logic of emancipation marks yet another mutation of the meaning and practice of energy security and has important policy consequences for the domestic contexts. The presentation will look at this phenomenon in greater detail at the example of Germany, Poland and Ukraine.
Slides from the lecture are available here
Book Launch and Public Lecture:
The Democratic Quality of European Security and Defence Policy: Between Practices of Governance and Practices of Freedom
published by Routledge
Evans Fanoulis
Wednesday April 19, 2017, 17:30-19:00
About the book: Due to the increase of security challenges in the proximity of Europe, the prominence of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has augmented. This book is a systematic effort to empirically approach the democratic deficit of CSDP, to understand its social construction and propose ways to remedy it.
The book uses Foucault’s approach of governmentality to unravel the social construction of this deficit and to illuminate the power relations between the different actors participating in CSDP governance and the constraints upon them. Finally, applying the normative reading of agonistic democracy, the author suggests concrete ways for EU citizens to have a say in the political choices of statesmanship in CSDP governance.
The Democratic Quality of European Security and Defence Policy will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of EU foreign and security policy and more broadly of European governance, European Politics and democracy.
Risk Analysis and State Failure
Dr. Huseyn Aliyev
Monday April 10, 2017, 17:30-19:00
Which factors account for the global phenomenon of state failure? Do states fail because of economic problems or due to political violence? This research project aims at assessing the risk of state failure by challenging the existing theory on failed states and suggesting that neither armed conflict nor economic factors are instrumental towards the state failure. Rather, it is the presence of armed groups that weakens state structures and contributes towards their decline. These extra-state armed actors are not only rebel groups and other ‘regime-challengers’, but, most of all, pro-regime elements, such as pro-government militias, warlords, tribal coalitions, political factions and clans. A statistical risk analysis of all nation states between 1995 and 2015 is conducted to examine the validity of above theoretical claims. This study employs quantitative survival analysis in order to assess the risk of state failure globally and its association with other variables.
The Syrian refugee crisis: A failure of the EU’s comprehensive approach to security?
Dr. Evangelos Fanoulis
December 6, 2016, 17:00-18:30
Lecture outline: Even though on the table for many years, the EU’s comprehensive approach to security has gained much prominence and publicity since the mandate of the High Representative (HR) Catherine Ashton. In 2014 the Foreign Affairs Council acknowledged the HR’s recommendations with regard to the further operationalisation of the comprehensive approach and asked her and the EU Commission to present an action plan on the implementation of the approach, which they did in 2015. From all this institutionalisation, how much has indeed been tested in practice? Research so far has examined the implementation of the approach in EU activities in Africa (e.g., in the Gulf of Eden, in the Sahel), yet little has been said about the more recent crisis in Syria and the resultant Syrian refugee crisis. This paper looks at whether the EU has made use of the whole spectrum of the comprehensive approach in order to cope with the Syrian crisis and the Syrian refugee crisis, arguing that this has not been the case. The first section of the paper briefly presents the latest institutional developments with regard to the EU’s comprehensive approach to security and takes notice of its so far implementation. The second section examines the EU’s reaction to the crisis in Syria and to the resultant refugee crisis, assessing to what extent they can be seen as part of the EU’s comprehensive approach to security. The concluding remarks of the paper revisit the argument and check whether the current political realities in Europe’s neighbourhood may dictate a new wave of institutional modifications so that the EU’s comprehensive approach to security to be more effective in the context of EU foreign policy.
Examining the impact of civil wars and armed non-state actors on state failure
Dr. Huseyn Aliev
November 23, 2016, 17:00-18:30
This lecture examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritized armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transition from fragility to failure. Global quantitative analysis of state failure processes from 1995 to 2014 is employed to validate the hypothesis that although armed conflicts are widespread in failed states, civil violence does not lead to state failure and large numbers of failed states become engulfed by civil war only after the failure occurs. In addition, this study seeks to demonstrate a direct link between the presence of violent non-state actors and state failure. It also emphasizes that armed non-state actors operating in failing states not only consist of rebels, but also include pro-regime elements, such as militias, warlords and criminal networks. Each of these types of actors is expected to contribute to the process of state failure differently.
Designing Social Research: Before Methodology
dr. Andrea Gilli
May 23, 2016, 15:00-17:00
Lecture outline: Does a cold winter prove that global warming is not happening? Does world poverty prove that international trade makes countries worse off? In order to answer these questions, we need a solid research design – an idea about how to conduct research, included the type of methodology to use, and the data to rely on. This lecture will provide students with solid understanding of research design and will rely on practical examples to illustrate what problems researchers recurrently face and how to address them.
Discourse Analysis: A Quick Guide
dr. Evangelos Fanoulis
March 8, 2016, 17:00-18:30
Seminar outline: In the last decades the notion of discourse has gained momentum in humanities and not merely in sociolinguistics. We saw it figuring in the works of prominent political philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Jürgen Habermas. More recently, discourse analysis has been presented by scholars such as Norman Fairclough, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as the epistemoligical plane and hermeunetic device to explore the “social” and the “political”. This seminar will try to provide some concrete answers to what discourse is and what discourse analysis entails. The seminar will start with an examination of discourse as an essentially contested concept. It will then briefly present the main schools of discourse analysis: critical discourse analysis and post-structuralist discourse analysis, emphasis paid on the Essex School of discourse analysis. The objective of the seminar is to shed light on practical questions regarding the utility and applicability of discourse analysis for the study of politics. Is discourse analysis simply another method of qualitative research? What type of research questions can discourse analysis help us with? What type of empirical data can we use for discourse analysis? What is the role of the discourse analyst in discourse analysis? Is discourse analysis a suitable analytical tool for sub-disciplines such as electoral politics or policy studies or is it only fitted for political theory?
Socio-Economic Inequality and War: Who Dies in American Wars? The Evolution of Tactics and Technology and the Casualty-Gap
dr. Andrea Gilli
December 1, 2015, 17:00-19:00
Lecture outline: Are poor people filling the ranks of US armed forces? Do they disproportionately bear the human cost of American military operations abroad? These questions have important substantive policy and theoretical implications, which are related, among others, to policy-makers’ incentives to rely on force as well as to civil-military relations. According to a wide consensus among policy-makers, the public and international relations scholars, the poor are both more likely to enlist in US armed forces and to bear the burden of US security. In this article, we argue that there are two main problems with the existing research. First, its causal mechanism is based on unwarranted assumptions. Second, the empirical evidence supporting this argument relies on aggregate data (e.g., average income and education by zip-code) that do not permit to reach definitive conclusions about enlisted personnel’s socio-economic background. We address these problems by drawing on recent works on the evolution of modern warfare and technology in order to develop a demand-side theory of military personnel that we test on individual-level data gathered from the Department of Defense and the NLSY97 survey. Our empirical analysis questions the existing consensus and shows that, coherently with our theory, those who join the armed forces are not statistically different from the median household with regard to education, cognitive abilities, parental income and other socio-economic indicators. Our work thus provides theoretical and empirical reasons to question the casualty gap hypothesis
The Non-European Other as Undemocratic Barbarian: When the EU Talks about Security through Democracy
dr. Evangelos Fanoulis
November 2, 2015, 17:00-19:00
Lecture outline: The Arab Spring, the Libyan, Syrian and Ukrainian crises as well as the most recent refugee crisis have acutely depicted how debates on Europe’s Other remain salient and substantial. This lecture discusses the gradual and social construction of European identity, posing two interrelated research questions. What is the significance of the non-European Other for the social construction of European identity? And are democracy and security somehow associated with the process according to which we define Europeanness and its corresponding Otherness? By looking at speeches and statements of the High Representative of the EU, I argue that the current understanding of Otherness in Europe increasingly revolves around lacking a culture of democracy; and that the European Self securitises the non-European Other, stigmatizing it as undemocratic Barbarian, resulting eventually into a distinction of European, democratic Selfness and non-European, undemocratic Otherness. The lecture starts by critically engaging with existing debates on the formation of European identity. It proceeds with analysis on how the European Self defines itself contra to the democratic deficiencies of a non-European Other. The genealogical discussion of the HR’s political statements shows how the EU securitises the non-European Other because of low progress in democratisation. The concluding parts sets the agenda for further research around the topic.
The Diffusion of Drone Warfare? Industrial, Infrastructural and Organizational Constraints
dr. Andrea Gilli
March 30, 2015, 17:00-19:00