The main objective of this study is to analyse problem representations within national and multilateral policy concerning environmental migration in Central America. The study mainly focuses on Mexico and Costa Rica’s national legal frameworks regarding environmental migration but also draws on bilateral as well as multilateral agreements ratified by the countries. In a two-step analysis, the perspectives of human security and state security are used to identify key representations, followed by an application of Bacchi’s (2016) post-structural policy analysis tool ‘What is the problem represented to be?’, allowing for an understanding of environmental migration policy in a wider context. The results of the study show how human security characteristics are most prevalent within environmental migration policy, albeit acknowledging the implicit prevalence of state security characteristics. The study makes attributions to the understanding of the discourse and conceptualisation concerning environmental migration and recommends further studies on efficient interlinkages between human and state security-oriented policies.

Cette thèse de doctorat sur travaux interroge les déterminants de l’émergence d’un corpus criminologique du XVIe au XXIe siècles en explorant l’interaction entre le droit, l’exercice du pouvoir et la société. La thèse repose sur une méthode historique et interprétative dont l’objectif est de formuler neuf propositions théoriques d’exposition du rôle joué par le droit pénal et sa jurisprudence, les initiatives politiques de l’exécutif et du législateur, et enfin les us, coutumes et constructions sociétales dans la formation du corpus criminologique contemporain. Au cheminement de cette archéologie juridique, politique et sociale, nous exposons le rôle parfois déterminant joué par la formation du corpus criminologique dans la société. / This PhD on career dissertation explores the deciding factors of the emergence of a criminology corpus in between the XVIth and XXIth centuries, by focusing on the interactions between the Law, executive sovereign power, and society at large. Historical and interpretative analysis allows for formulating nine theoretical propositions enlighten the potential roles played by penal law, its jurisprudence, the decisions of the sovereigns, and societal habits (social construction) in the upcoming of contemporary criminological corpus. As our legal, political and social archeology unfolds, we unveil the sometimes-decisive role played by criminology in the formation of modern societies.

The "internal enemy" was a formal term heavily represented in the language of the State Security (a secret service of the Czechoslovak Republic and Czechoslovak Socialist Republic), denoting a specified category of opponents to the then regime. The State Security's task was to protect the socialist and social system by fighting the external and internal enemies, with the security forces having been the authorities deciding who met the criteria. The thesis entitled "The Internal Enemy Image in the Discourse of Security Forces" aims to find out how the discourse of the State Security defined the term "internal enemy". The thesis is divided into the theoretical and empirical parts. The empirical part applies the qualitative analysis of the discourse to search for the characteristic of the term "internal enemy". All of the texts analysed in the thesis come from the Security Services Archive, administering relevant files of the era, and date back to the 1950s-1980s.

This study investigates the Finnish government members’ argumentation prior to Finland’s strikingly unanimous parliamentary vote in favour of NATO membership on May 17, 2022. By focusing on the government representatives’ accounts, the study aims to shed light on how the NATO membership decision is crafted to represent Finland’s security interest after a decades-long tradition of military non-alignment as a cornerstone of the country’s securityand foreign policy. With help of Merlijn van Hulst and Dvora Yanow’s dynamic approach to framing based on the theoretical concept of frames as actors’ “definitions of the situation”, the study shows comprehensively the processes at play when the government members constructa NATO membership as Finland’s security interest. Furthermore, the approach reveals patterns among the representatives of how the different framings are embraced. For example, the study shows that the representatives’ framings are the most united when it comes to the view of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the rule-based order and the view of a NATO membership as a deterrent preventing future military attacks rather than as a solution to any immediate threat. While the dynamic approach to framing shows comprehensively the work framing does in constructing a NATO membership as Finland’s security interest, the approach has some shortcomings that future research should deal with to increase the potential of the approach in War Studies research.

Scholars tend to approach small states’ military strategies in terms of restraints and opportunities in the external security environment, largely overlooking the influences of a state’s domestic particularities. This thesis aims to explore how the theory of strategic culture, regarded here as an inherent, domestic context in which strategy is formulated, can add nuance to such realist analyses of how small states build and adjust their defence capabilities. Through a comparative case study design and a qualitative content analysis method, this thesis examines the adjustments in Denmark and Sweden’s military strategies following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the central similarities and distinctions between those. The influence of strategic culture on the respective states’ strategies is examined based on three foundational elements, dominant threat perception, approach to strategic partnerships, and geographical patterns and strategic exposure. The findings of this thesis demonstrate that the neorealist perspective of adjustments in small states’ military strategies can indeed be complemented with a view of the states’ unique strategic cultures, particularly with regard to the differences between the two empirical cases. Most notably, such a view allows for a deeper understanding of distinctions in the underlying rationales which guide the development, organisation and mission of the respective states’ Armed Forces.

This Master's thesis will look at the Political trials in Czechoslovakia - The case of "Zpěvačka", it will focus on one of the many politically motivated processes that took place in Czechoslovakia during the communist regime, i.e. 1948-1989. The focus of this paper is to analyse the key archival sources, which is now an investigation by the State Security in the case of "Zpěvačka", now stored in the Archive of Security Forces. The trial of the anti-state oriented group of people around Radana Melicharová who were accused of collaborating with foreign intelligence services took place in the spring of 1957. This shows that even the so-called foundation period of the communist regime, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia continued to implement political processes to control the opposition. This thesis brings the main characters of the process Radana Melicharová et al., describes their illegal activities and analyses the motives of each participants on illegal activities. And also discusses about the main trial itself at the Regional Court in Prague, subsequent appeal trials and the efforts to rehabilitate convicts. Contribution of the work lies in the fact that it complements many previously published scientific studies on the topic of the political process and less known and studied process with a...

The objective of this study is to examine the role of the political élite in the analysis of the causes of conflicts and insecurity as well as the determination of threats to national security in the Third World with particular reference to West Africa using Côte d’Ivoire as a case study. To achieve this aim, the study employed a conceptual framework of national security that highlighted the concept of security and the distinction between the traditional notions and widening views of security as manifested in the post-Cold War approaches to the subject. The differences between the various levels of security, namely national security and state and regime security were examined. A distinction was made between minimal and maximal states on the one hand, and strong and weak states on the other which enabled the application of the concepts to Third World countries, including Africa. The concept of threats and vulnerabilities and how subjective elements of threat assessment blurred the difference between national security and regime security, were also analyzed including the causes of armed conflicts in developing countries and in Africa specifically. Based on these concepts, the study analyzed the political, socio-economic and security conditions of the Ivory Coast in the period before and during French rule, including the post-independence era. The aim of the historical analysis was to highlight the critical role played by the élite in the identification of threats to national security. This role invariably identified with the protection of élite interest or regime security and often reflected a subjective view of threats to security, the management of which created high levels of insecurity leading to the armed conflict in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002. The study established that the preservation of élite interests and power is the root cause of conflicts in Africa and West Africa. Subsequently, élite cohesion becomes critical to the security of the state as élite disunity leads to manipulation of objective threats or risks that generates insecurity that not only transcends borders, but also creates a security dilemma for states as well as conditions for irredentism. / Dissertation (MSecurity Studies)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

This Thesis is focused on the samizdat periodical called Information on Charter 77, which belonged to the important sources of spreading the informations within the dissent and publicizing the key thougts and concepts of Charter 77. The periodical was publishing the Charter documents, communiques of the Comittee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted, brief messages about represion of the normalisation regime, dissident's letters adressed to the state organs, critical reviews and annotations of other samizdat periodicals and books and rarely the reflections on the economy. Topic of the research are personality profiles of the protagonists, functioning of the "independent" editing, preparing and distribution of texts, forming of the distributional net, conspirative milieu (using codes, pseudonyms, conspirative apartments, konfidence etc.), financing and sending abroad.

Law firms maintain and store voluminous amounts of highly confidential and proprietary data, such as attorney-client privileged information, intellectual properties, financials, trade secrets, personal, and other sensitive information. There is an ethical obligation to protect law firm client data from unauthorized access. Security breaches jeopardize the reputation of the law firm and could have a substantial financial impact if these confidential data are compromised. Information security policies describe the security goals of a law firm and the acceptable actions and uses of law firm information resources. In this dissertation investigation, the author examined the problem of whether information security policies assist with preventing unauthorized parties from accessing law firm confidential and sensitive information. In 2005, Doherty and Fulford performed an exploratory analysis of security policies and security breach incidents that highlighted the need for research with different target populations. This investigation advanced Doherty and Fulford's research by targeting information security policies and security breach incidents in law firms. The purpose of this dissertation investigation was to determine whether there is a correlation between the timing of security policy development (proactive versus reactive policy development) and the frequency and severity of security breach incidents in law firms of varying sizes. Outcomes of this investigation correlated with Doherty and Fulford's general findings of no evidence of statistically significant relationships between the existence of a written information security policy and the frequency and severity of security breach incidents within law firms. There was also a weak relationship between infrequency of information security policy updates and increase of theft resources. Results demonstrated that, generally, written information security policies in law firms were not created in response to a security breach incident. These findings suggest that information security policies generally are proactively developed by law firms. Important contributions to the body of knowledge from this analysis included the effectiveness of information security policies in reducing the number of computer security breach incidents of law firms, an under represented population, in the information assurance field. Also, the analysis showed the necessity for law firms to become more immersed in state security breach notification law requirements.

Trotz ihrer großen Bedeutung für den DDR-Sport und ihrer mächtigen Trägerbetriebe Staatssicherheit, Volkspolizei, Innenministerium und dem Amt für Zoll und Kontrolle des Warenverkehrs stellt die staatliche Sportvereinigung Dynamo bis heute ein Forschungsdesiderat dar. Obwohl Ergebnisse zu einigen speziellen Themen die Vereinigung betreffend vorliegen, wurde die wissenschaftliche Erarbeitung eines institutionshistorischen Basiswissens in Form einer allgemeinen Entwicklungsgeschichte stark vernachlässigt. Die vorliegende Studie beleuchtet die unbekannte Frühzeit der mächtigen, aggressiv-dominanten Sportorganisation und vollzieht deren Genese, Entwicklung und Etablierung in den 1950er Jahren quellengestützt nach. Im Vordergrund stehen die strukturellen Fragen, mit welchen Mitteln sich Dynamo etablierte, warum die Sportvereinigung eine privilegierte Sonderstellung einnahm und auf welche Weise sie Separatinteressen im von der SED-Führung beherrschten DDR-Sportsystem durchsetzte. Die Quellen belegen eine konspirative Gründung der Sportvereinigung Dynamo durch die Staatssicherheit im Juli 1952 und eine anschließende, nach den Anordnungen des Staatlichen Komitees für Körperkultur und Sport regelwidrige Okkupation der Sportvereinigung Deutsche Volkspolizei durch Dynamo im März 1953, die in der heutigen Forschung fälschlicherweise als Gründung der Sportvereinigung Dynamo gilt. Die Vereinigung war von Beginn an mit einer besonderen Organisationsstruktur, einem elitären Selbstverständnis und mächtigen Trägerbetrieben ausgestattet, die die Einnahme einer privilegierten Sonderstellung ermöglichten. Begünstigt wurde dies durch eine ehrgeizige Führungsriege und den politischen Interessen des Politbüros. Die Studie zeigt, dass Dynamo ein starkes Hegemoniebestreben entwickelte, und dass im Inneren eine fortwährende, zum Teil auch konspirativ umgesetzte Beherrschung der Majorität Volkspolizei durch die Minorität Staatssicherheit bestand. / In spite of the fundamental importance for the GDR-sport and in spite of the powerful “Trägerbetriebe” ”Staatssicherheit”, “Volkspolizei”, “Ministerium des Innern” and “Amt für Zoll und Kontrolle des Warenverkehrs”, the sports organisation Dynamo is not explored very well. There are research results about some special subjects, but scientifically basics in terms of a general history of development do not exist. This study examines the undocumented first years of the powerful, aggressive and dominant organisation. It sheds the light on the origin, development and establishment in the 1950s by evaluating contemporary documents. Very much emphasis is on structural questions: how could the sports organisation Dynamo establish itself? Why could it achieve such an exceptional position? And how could Dynamo implement its own interests, although the sports system in the GDR was controlled by the SED-leadership? The documents show, that the sports organisation Dynamo was found in July 1952 by the “Staatssicherheit”. They also prove a following occupation of the “Sportvereinigung Deutsche Volkspolizei” by Dynamo in March 1953. This take-over violated the orders of the “Staatliches Komitee für Körperkultur und Sport” and is spuriously known as the foundation of the sports organisation Dynamo. From its foundation Dynamo was gifted with an especial organisational structure, an elitist self-image and powerful “Trägerbetriebe” to get into a privileged and exceptional position. This development was abetted by an aspiring leadership and the political interests of the “Politbüro”. The study shows, that Dynamo developed a strong endeavour for hegemony, and it proves a constant, partly conspiratorial control of the majority “Volkspolizei” by the minority “Staatssicherheit”.