Abstract ▼

Before politicians used refugees as a tool of interstate relations, refugees and asylum seekers were perceived only as a symbolic or realist threat in social perception. With the use of refugees as a tool of international politics, the phenomenon of threats felt in society has deepened with securitization and started to pose threats to human security. This dialectical relationship between society and the state also changes and transforms the direction and form of the threat. The study will investigate how symbolic or realistic threat perceptions in the public have evolved into securitization by governments, how these two phenomena strengthen each other, and what they mean in terms of human security. The quantitative data used in this study will be explained with integrated threat and securitization theories. This study aims to examine the variations in threat perceptions associated with refugees in Europe, employing an integrated threat theory framework. The focus will be on investigating questions such as “What types of threats are attributed to the presence of refugees and asylum seekers in European countries?” and “What factors contribute to the divergence in perceived threats?”. Furthermore, the study will explore the implications of these divergent threat perceptions on national and regional migration governance within each country. This paper will focus on the refugee crisis and examine the cases of Turkey, Greece, and Germany, which are mainly on the refugee transit route and host the largest number of refugees in Europe. In order to describe which threat perception has a decisive impact on Europe, the 7th wave (2017-2020) datasets provided by the “World Values Survey (WVS)” from 2010-2022 will be examined in comparison with previous waves. The cases of Germany, Turkey, and Greece in these datasets will be the main focus of the study.

Abstract ▼

The United States’ strategic narrative on the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has evolved throughout a half-century of changing world orders and mutual perceptions of strategic intent. From the early 1970s and during the last two decades of the Cold War, the US saw a bipolar world in which it sought to assist China’s own rise as a partner in Soviet containment and economic globalisation. During its “unipolar moment” in the post-Cold War era, Washington maintained strong economic engagement but increasingly perceived Beijing as an uneasy partner and rising competitor. With the acknowledgement of the transition towards multipolarity, a bipartisan consensus emerged in Washington about the necessity to contain China’s rise as a global political and military power and to blunt its challenge to the “rules-based order” (RBO). The evolution from globalisation “friend” to global “foe” points to three directions of the current US strategic narrative on China’s rise: defending the RBO, de-coupling to secure Western-normed globalisation, and shaping the Indo-Pacific security environment. The paper concludes that while the US has succeeded in aligning the three forms of strategic narrative (system, identity, and policy), it faces considerable challenges, including from China’s counter-narratives.

Abstract ▼

Kazakhstan witnessed the most substantial and powerful “political earthquake” in January 2022, in its thirty-year history as a Republic. Protests against the increase in the price of energy soon turned into violent riots, during which 225 people lost their lives. The causes of these events are certainly complex and profound. In order to eliminate part of the cause, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev first proposed and then implemented reforms that changed the constitutional and legal systems and, to a large extent, transformed the political system. In lieu of a super-presidential system, there have been endeavours to establish a presidential system featuring a robust parliament, which not only exercises legislative authority but also assumes a substantial oversight role. In addition, the method of electing people’s representatives in the assemblies was changed, a balance of power and responsibility was established, and better mechanisms for respecting human rights and freedoms were ensured. This paper describes and analyses both the reforms themselves and their reasons. At the same time, it challenges theses about the past and future character of the Kazakh political system. The theoretical framework is based on modern normative political concepts, including dialectical-critical discourse in the part of the research that refers to the views of individual authors on the history of Kazakhstani constitution-making. The methodological framework is based on the case study analysis. Conclusions support the thesis that reforms are oriented towards the long-term stabilisation of institutions and ensuring security.

Abstract ▼

This paper deals with new developments in the EU integration of Serbia after the Russian fully-fledged invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. It attempts to analyse the contextual setting and efficiency of sanctions pressuring by the EU directed at Serbia. The key leading question regards the extent of the efficiency of conditionality in cases sensitive to national identity. The research comes up with a comparative analysis and juxtaposes the case of sanctions pressuring with conditionality regarding cooperation with the ICTY and normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina within the Brussels Agreement. This study is based on empirical research and 22 interviews conducted during fieldwork in Belgrade (March–April 2023) and Brussels (May 2023), involving the perspectives of NGOs, experts, academics, and representatives of governmental and EU institutions.