Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The article presents the problem of selected aspects of social security in Poland. A source of motivation to address the issue of social security for the author was the geopolitical situation related to the increase in the number of Muslim immigrants in Europe in recent years and the current COVID-19 epidemic. Counteracting the threats of a social nature has become one of the main activities of the state in the 21st century. Social security relates to a wide range of activities carried out by the public administration, NGOs and the local communities to guarantee decent living conditions. All of this constitutes a special kind of security, the lack of which directly interferes with the foundations of a nation’s existence. The aim of the study was to present issues related to the depopulation process affecting Poland and the demographically unfavourable changes taking place in modern families. The article presents the situation prior to the emergence of the COVID-19 epidemic. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 epidemic will significantly affect social security, also in the demographic dimension. However, the overall impact of the epidemic can only be estimated after it has completely ceased. Conclusions included in the article were formulated on the basis of the analysis of statistical data of the Central Statistical Office. In addition, the author points out the consequences resulting from a long-term demographic collapse in the country.

The goal of the paper is to summarize the results of the authors’ questionnaire survey focused on identification and comparison of possible differences in study motivation and job expectations of students of one private and one public university in the Czech Republic to find out potential sources of students’ dissatisfaction and to propose appropriate measures to improve the teaching process in order to achieve the sustainable development of the professional competencies of university students. The questionnaire survey was conducted by authors from February to April 2017. The respondents were full-time and combined bachelor’s students of the College of Regional Development in Prague (private) and the Masaryk Institute of Advanced Studies of the Czech Technical University in Prague (public). The relevant data were obtained from 758 students. The data analysis was based on the calculation of relative frequencies (as a share from the total number of respondents) and the evaluation of the dependence of responses on the type of university (students of the private college and students of the public institute) using contingency tables and chi-square tests of independence. The results support the assumption that the current generation of university students studies to succeed in the future, but it has relatively high expectations about work and career that may reduce its employability if it does not have the appropriate work experience and social habits.

Presented paper suggests an instrumental approach to soft security and aims to reveal capacity of soft security instruments in terms of contribution to both security and sustainable development in the region which is addressed by Eastern Dimension of European Neighbourhood Policy and which includes Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Russian Federation (which is neither part of EaP nor among 16 EU partners addressed by the European Neighbourhood Policy) is also included in the overview as an important factor of influence in respect of regional security and relations between EaP states and EU. Referring to the main ideas of researchers and policy makers using different approaches to soft security as a phenomenon, the authors of the paper define soft security instruments as purposely organised social practices which rely mainly on sharing, congruence and development of values and competences of initiators and participants of security governance. Focus on the effectiveness of sharing, congruence and development of values and competences of initiators and participants of the EU policies and related joint projects as well as relevant combinations of soft instruments with economic and normative hard means is seen as a possibility to gradually increase level of regional security and transfer elements leading to sustainable development in this region.

The article highlights the importance of the development of the society, as well as the measurement of this development, in the context of security, sustainability and competitiveness and goes much further by guiding to further research focus on the introduced new conception of “Secure and sustainable competitiveness” in the context of globalisation. The definition of “Sustainable competitiveness” was broadened by including new aspect of security. The development of the society was introduced as common output of the globalization which goes hand-in-hand with competitiveness, sustainability and security. The interrelation of certain facets between security, competitiveness and sustainability lead to the proposal to create the new index of “Secure and sustainable competitiveness” with possibility to evaluate the progress by looking back and provide prospects by looking forward. The research findings are in line with policy context and the development of the new index of “Secure and sustainable competitiveness” could be an important research contribution to the European Union Strategy Europe 2020 for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth (2010).

Security and sustainability conception analysis is being provided in the paper. The conceptions of security and sustainability have been selected due to their significance for contemporary globalized world’s issues. Initially, the perceptions encompassing even ancient times are being elaborated. Onward, with an intention to get a more sophisticated view of above mentioned expressions, relevant scientific literature has been critically reviewed accentuating to the dimensions of those two phenomena. The following common dimensions could be proposed: social, economic, environmental. The implication could be stated - security conception provides not only those three dimensions some other important dimensions could be distinguished as well. One more important finding composes the perception of dimensions interactions to analyzed conceptions. Some important implications are being provided in the paper, which elevate the significance of security to sustainability for today’s globalized society - security can be proposed as expression with ponderable value, while sustainability gains this power only with “sustainable development” phenomenon.