|
|
Criminal pandemic: A critical assessment of the impact of Covid-19 on Italian Organized Crime Groups (OCGs)
Vertemati, Lorenzo ; Dowd, Caitriona (vedoucí práce) ; Glouftsios, Georgios (oponent)
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a number of overarching effects on many aspects of our daily lives. The health emergency greatly contributed to the economic, political, and social crises that rocked our entrance in the third decade of the 21st century. In this context of fear, many countries found themselves vulnerable to a long-time, internal enemy: organized crime groups. This is particularly true for what concerns Italy, a nation that, apart from being heavily hit by the virus, boasts a long tradition of mafia presence. The terror was fuelled by media organizations, politicians, and a number of additinoal stakeholders that wished to capitalize on the chaos. Interestingly though, the same views were shared by a number of academic researchers. This study thus set out to identify the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Italian organized crime groups and understand whether they had an actual impact. Taking inspiration from the literature, we employ a mixed-method approach based on a critical, historical analysis of primary and secondary sources from governmental and non-governmental reports and datasets, academic books and studies, and news stories and articles. It was found that, out of 11 variables considered, Italian organized crime groups were actually able to expand and increase their profits in...
|
|
|
Currency warfare in civil war: The impact of the weaponisation and targeting of currencies in the Biafran war
Confidence, Jennifer Ezi-Nwa ; Dowd, Caitriona (vedoucí práce) ; Ludvík, Jan (oponent)
Currency warfare is an actor's use of monetary or military force against an enemy's monetary power. This could manifest in the form of counterfeiting, and currency change, among others. Currency warfare is used as part of a military campaign, either prior to a military conflict or implemented side by side with a military conflict. This kind of warfare plays a crucial role in cutting off the war financing capability of an enemy. Despite its strategic usefulness in military campaigns, our knowledge of currency warfare is poor, even more in internal conflict, because most of the available research focuses on international conflict. For this research, the focus is on civil war to identify how the currency changes by both the government and rebel group (Biafrans) helped to increase or decrease the duration and severity of the conflict. This study on the Biafran war case developed a currency warfare theory for lack of available theory to guide the research. The theory established certain strategic functions; bankruptcy, arms shortage, loss of territory, limited access to foreign currency, hunger and famine, and static conflict zone, as the themes that determine currency warfare's impact on severity and duration. Relying on this, findings indicate that the currency change by Nigeria helped shorten the...
|
|
|
The Influence of National Cultures on Cybersecurity Strategies: A Comparative Case Studies analysis of the UK and Italy's Cybersecurity Postures
Viscardi, Valerio ; Butler, Eamonn (vedoucí práce) ; Špelda, Petr (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
The Influence of National Cultures on Cybersecurity Strategies: A Comparative Case Studies analysis of the UK and Italy's Cybersecurity Postures Abstract This thesis explores the influence that national cultures have on the countries' approaches to cybersecurity. The main idea is that cultural characteristics inform different strategic policy developments. For this purpose, it was selected a comparative case studies approach with the UK's and Italy's as the selected case studies. Through a thematic analysis of those countries' cybersecurity strategic documents, it was possible to identify and compare the main elements where national cultures informed different policy choices. From the analysis, it emerged that the Italian and the UK's national cultures shaped the ways the two countries have developed their national cybersecurity strategies over time. Consequently, to gain a better understanding of how a country could behave when facing new security challenges, researchers should not underestimate the role of culture.
|
|
|
Joining The Space Club: The Impact Of India's ASAT On The Country's Relations With The Big Three
Neacsu, Laura Manuela ; Doboš, Bohumil (vedoucí práce) ; Prina, Federica (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
March 27, 2019, marked a distinct moment in South Asian history: India successfully conducted a direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test and destroyed its own satellite, deliberately placed in orbit for this purpose. In doing so, India became just the fourth country to demonstrate this capability, after the United States, Russia and China. Similar to India, these countries are becoming increasingly dependent on satellites for a plethora of civilian and military applications. In theory, India's newly acquired kinetic interception capability can potentially hold the satellite constellations of these powers at risk. This raises a natural question: how does India's development of an operational direct-ascent anti-satellite system impact the country's relations with the other three ASAT-capable powers? With this in mind, this research project seeks to examine the effects of kinetic ASAT systems - which have typically remained on the periphery of conventional public discourse on weapons - on the geopolitical relations between India and the few countries which similarly possess these capabilities. While this may be surprising, the results of the analysis clearly demonstrate that New Delhi's development of a kinetic interception capability will not have a dramatic effect on its relations with...
|
|
|
Quantum Technology and Its Influence in Global Power Politics
Padilla Cruz, Andrea Marzeth ; Tesař, Jakub (vedoucí práce) ; Butler, Eamonn (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
The interpretation of technology as a form of power in global politics has played a crucial role in the shaping of the structure of the international system throughout history. Despite the relevance of technology in power politics, relatively little systematic attention has been given to the role of new and emerging technologies, especially in terms of the influence of their spread and effects on the dynamics of the international system and the strategic balance of power. This dissertation studies the influence of Quantum Technology (QT) in global power politics. It empirically explores and evaluates the relationship between QTs and three major global powers: China, the United States, and the European Union, in order to assess how future trajectories in this technology can influence the dynamics of the international system and the strategic balance of power. Building on a theory on military innovation and technological change, i.e. Horowitz's Adoption-Capacity (AC) theory, the study focuses on deepening the understanding of the spread of QTs by analysing the incentives and constraints behind major global power's decision to adopt and develop such technology. Furthermore, it evaluates the implications of this technology for the balance of power, the structure of international competition, and future...
|
|
|
Innovative Peacekeeping: The Potential of Digital Technologies in CSDP Operations
Lazar, Alexandru ; Butler, Eamonn (vedoucí práce) ; Hynek, Nikola (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
In the past two decades, digital technologies have changed how international organisations respond to conflicts. With contemporary armed struggles gaining new dimensions and becoming more complex, a challenge remains to comprehend the potential of both militarised and unconventional digital capabilities, and to determine which of them are the best devices and systems for peacekeeping operations. Nevertheless, the potential of such innovative digital technologies in EU's CSDP operations remains unclear. Along those lines, this study aims to firstly assess the practicality and functionality of these innovative capabilities, in terms of their impact on the actors, intelligence gathering and analysis process, and the opportunity for advocacy that such technologies offer to local communities. Secondly, it identifies and deconstructs the narratives and initiatives dealing with digital technologies in EU external action, in order to understand the growing emphasis placed on these tools and the direction in which the Union is going with regard to these innovative capabilities. Thirdly, in its quest to answer the research question, this study examines the potential benefits and shortcomings posed by both existing and more novel digital capabilities to CSDP operations. This dissertation proposes and defines...
|
|
|
Cyberspatialities of Russia and the United-States: The Challenging Governance of a "Consensual Hallucination"
Plattner, Simon Antonin ; Butler, Eamonn (vedoucí práce) ; Špelda, Petr (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
Cyberspatialities of Russia and the United-States : The challenging governance of a "consensual hallucination" This research proposes to appreciate the U.S. and Russia's current cyberspatialities as a the consequence of Cold War inherited and rivalling cybercultures and as the cause of Moscow's "pyromaniac fire-fighter" cyberstrategy. Indeed, the cybercultural analysis reveals that each of the two former superpowers engaged at the end of the second World War in a cybernetic race that fuelled their rivalry well beyond the collapse of Soviet Union. Despite the particularly passionate adoption of the new field by the Soviets, their formal techno-socialist utopia, incarnated by the OGAS system, failed to come into being. However, the largely underestimated formal cyberculture developed throughout this kiber adventure by the Soviet Union deeply influenced its American rivals. As analysed throughout part 5.1.1, the overbidding rational urged by the realist dogmas of hegemonic Cold-War geopolitics nurtured a constant and dynamic interplays of cybercultures. As it is often the case in cultural transfers, this merging of cybercultures was initiated underground and occurred within the framework of the popular cyberpunk literature. Exemplified by the international adoption of the cyberpunk term cyberspace,...
|
|
|
Threat Assessments and Intelligence Sharing: Toward Desecuritisation of School Shootings in the United States
Roth, Caitlyn Regan ; Anceschi, Luca (vedoucí práce) ; Hynek, Nikola (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
'The first step in developing effective assessment approaches and appropriate policy is to identify clearly the types of behavior or outcomes that one is trying to prevent' (Chavez, 1999; Furlong & Morrison, 2000 quoted in Reddy et al, 2001, 158-59). This dissertation answers the question of why a skewed perception of risk exists for the threat of school shootings in the United States. It further seeks to propose the creation of an intelligence database to inform threat assessment teams in schools to increase knowledge of threat communications and behaviours of potential shooters. This assessment is significant to understanding how the skewed assessment of risk negatively impacts the implementation of prevention policies, resulting in a failure to prevent school shootings and lasting detrimental consequences on the learning environment. By applying the Copenhagen School's securitisation theory to US policy responses, discursive language will be analyzed to support the claim that school shootings are perceived as an existential threat to the United States, marking a successful securitisation. A within case analysis of unfavorable policies will inform the selection of a policy recognized in the research as a positive step toward achieving desecuritisation. The policy, behavioural threat assessment,...
|
|
|
The 'Uploading' and 'Downloading' of the European Union's Counterterrorism 'Prevent' Policy 2005-2016: A British Case Study
Templeton, Ellie Grace ; Bureš, Oldřich (vedoucí práce) ; Butler, Eamonn (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
The 2004 Madrid bombings marked the deadliest Islamic terrorist attack to take place in European history, and followed by the London bombings in 2005, constituted a significant turning point for the European Union (EU) with both the materialisation of a 'distinctive, separate and multi-dimensional' counterterrorism policy domain and the collective recognition for the need to internally prevent radicalisation and terrorism. However, operating within a multilevel European security field marked by national sovereignty, it has questioned to what extent the EU has subsequently impacted and shaped member states' counterterrorism policy. Moreover, with a mutual reaction to the 2004/2005 attacks, the analogous adoption of 'Prevent' strategy, and as a leading member state in advanced counterterrorism practice, the United Kingdom (UK) has further questioned not only the extent to which national policy has been impacted by, but has impacted, EU-level policy. By employing Britain as a longitudinal case study, this thesis thereby examines to what extent the UK and EU have 'uploaded' and 'downloaded' counterterrorism 'Prevent' policy to the respective European and national level, with the aim to provide new insight into the processes and levels of Europeanisation within the EU's post-2005 counterterrorism policy...
|
|
|
Hybrid Governance in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Voloskyi, Glib Artemovich ; Berg, Julie (vedoucí práce) ; Kazharski, Aliaksei (oponent) ; Dowd, Caitriona (oponent)
The hybrid governance theory has facilitated the shift beyond the state-centric perspective on security governance. Yet the theory has never been tested under the conditions absent from an active or recent military conflict. It tends to neglect the relations between the state and non- state security actors and superfluously praises non-state and hybrid security orders. The paper elaborates on these academic gaps. Based on secondary data, it investigates hybrid security governance in South Africa. The paper demonstrates that hybrid security governance can exist in a non-conflict setting. It discusses the patterns of the emergence of non-state security actors, their relations with the population and the state. The findings are found to be consistent with the hybrid governance theory, though there are a number of peculiar features. Additional studies on hybrid governance in a non-conflict setting will help to distinguish the features of South African hybrid security from the general logic of hybrid security governance in a non-conflict setting.
|
host ::
RSS.