BEZPIECZEŃSTWO DEMOGRAFICZNE A POTĘGA PAŃSTW
DEMOGRAPHIC SECURITY AND POLITICAL POWER

Summary/Abstract: Along with the aging of the Europe's population, the sphere of influences of the European powers is becoming more and more reduced. The expected decline in population size and population aging suggest that the marginalisation of the influence of Europe on the world affairs may continue, and the unevenness of demographic change among European countries may lead to the new balance of power. The goal of the article is to identify the relevance of population size and structure to the power of a country. The article provides overview on demographic history of Europe over the last two thousand years, especially focusing on uniqueness of the last two centuries from the perspective of the theory of demographic transition. The article evaluates a range of lists of factors impacting power and to do that introduces categorisation of factors based on a perspective of their dependence on demographic variables. Based on that the article identifies potential vulnerability of power to changes in size of total population and working age population. This perspective leads to a conclusion that the primary factors, influencing many other factors are geography, quality of leadership and population size. Population size may thus be perceived as essential for power, hence providing demographic security belongs to the primary policy goals. Finally the article provides definition of demographic security: in a general sense it is lack of threats caused by demographical factors, in a detailed sense it exists, when size and structure of the population enable survival, stability and development of a political entity.

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