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The essence of politics is not the struggle for power, the game of influence between parties, the art of governing (as in the “crato-centric” approach), but the conflicting interests, views and aspirations of large collectivities, social communities, the articulation and representation of interests, the pressure on political forces from the collectivities pushing their demands and expectations (this is the “sociocentric” approach). The rulers remain under constant and overwhelming pressure of various, especially widespread beliefs and demands in society, and their attempts to impose their will on the ruled, to enforce the decisions made, always cause – on one scale or another, in a certain intensity – resistance, on the part of the ruled, as well as in their own inner circle. Resistance in both organized groups and communities and resistance in spontaneously synchronized behavior, mass reactions. It has the hallmarks of social resistance if it is characterized by widespread outreach and significance for maintaining the social balance, confirming or changing the balance of power. All influence – as social or strictly political impact – is about exerting pressure, which in turn means overcoming resistance. This conclusion follows from the praxeological theory of human action. The article discusses the concepts of pressure and resistance, social pressure and resistance, and typical forms of this pressure and resistance.
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In her famous book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot describes not only scientific importance of using HeLa cells in biomedical research, but also the fact that the cells were obtained from Henrietta without her knowledge nor consent. Because the Lacks family was Black the case is repeatedly described as an example of ‘Medical Apartheid’ (Batelaan, 2021). 70 years after Lacks’ death the COVID-19 pandemic reveals that vaccine hesitancy among Black communities in the US may have political roots dating back to slavery. According to Quinn et al., only 40% of Black adults were ready to be vaccinated at the beginning of 2021 (Padamsee et al., 2022) and death rates from COVID-19 are still very high among these groups (Ajasa, 2021). As some scholars argue, the tendency may result from political distrust of Black groups towards official public health measures against the pandemic (Woko, Siegel, Hornik, 2020; Restrepo, Krouse, 2022). Therefore, public health response regarding vaccinations becomes an important field of non-institutional politics where social distrust towards this medical procedure mirrors political distrust of Black communities towards the government. The paper explores the main features of anti-vaccinal movement among Black population in the US and argues that during the COVID-19 pandemic the field of public health may be more politically-sensitive than it had ever been before.
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The article is devoted to the political circumstances that influenced certain decisions regarding the first two editions of the travel report of the Arab traveler Ibn Faḍlān from Baghdad to the Volga Bulgars (921–922). The now-famous text of the voyage account, known as the Mashhad manuscript, was discovered in 1923 by a Turkish orientalist of Bashkir origin, Ahmed Zeki Velidi Togan (1890–1970) and formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation defended at the University of Vienna in 1935. Due to various problems, the German translation (in book form) was only published in print in 1939. The same year saw the publication of a Russian translation of the voyage description by a Soviet Arabist – Andrei P. Kovalevskiy (1895–1969). Both scholars conflicted with the USSR authorities: Togan had fought with the Soviet Army in 1920–1923, while Kovalevskiy was sentenced to five years in the gulag in 1938 on (as it later turned out) a wrongful charge of counterrevolutionary activity. These circumstances unexpectedly influenced the scholarly study of Ibn Faḍlān’s medieval work, incorporating it into the USSR’s domestic and foreign policy at the time.
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The author analyzes the seizure of the SBU headquarters in Lugansk in 2014 by pro-Russian demonstrators. The author presents well-documented evidence that the Luhansk SBU was selected by the Russian secret services as a “trigger” of the uprising in the Donbas, due to the accumulation of a huge amount of ammunition, weapons and explosives, thanks to which the separatists could immediately start creating military structures after the attack. In the author’s opinion, the infiltration of the Ukrainian SBU and the Ministry of the Interior was facilitated by the existence of branched clientelist networks within them, enabling politicians hostile to the new prowestern government to steer state institutions in the name of the strategic interests of the Russian Federation.
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Polish maritime areas - both those forming part of the territory of the Republic of Poland and those located outside it - are covered by appropriate state jurisdiction ensuring that Polish interests in these waters are taken care of. The subject-matter diversity of legally protected values requires systemic action by competent entities. The security of Polish maritime areas in military (defence) as well as non-military (protection) terms at the national level is guaranteed by the naval forces of the Republic of Poland. The aim of this article is to present the role of the Maritime Border Guard Regional Unit (MOSG) - against the background of systemic solutions and existing threats - in counteracting non-military emergency situations in Polish maritime areas. As a result of the conducted research it should be assumed that the scope of statutory tasks and powers in combination with the personnel and equipment potential of the MOSG makes this unit of the Border Guard the main non-military component of the maritime forces of the Republic of Poland.
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The interwar period was a difficult one for the Polish state authorities. In parallel with the reconstruction of the Polish state and national identity, the foundations of Polish law were being laid. In a short interval, many significant organisational changes were taking place, which also included the State Police. During this period, the administrative apparatus in Poland was considerably streamlined, and efforts were also made to build its own model of internal organisation of the state. Between 1919 and 1939, the structures of the State Police were reorganised several times. Social, religious and nationality problems or cultural differences in the newly established statehood were among the indirect causes of crime. Accordingly, among other things, a criminal police force was established to combat it. The purpose of this article is to discuss its organisation and activities in the interwar period and to give the most important legal changes that took place for this formation. The author formulated the following research hypothesis: the reorganisation of the structures of the State Police was fundamental in terms of the organisation and activities of the criminal police. In the analysis, the dogmatic-legal method was used and, due to the time scope, also the historical-legal method.
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This review article is devoted to a methodological notebook published by Ukrainian polygraphers. They presented ready-to-use solutions that can be applied when investigating sabotage and espionage suspects. Among other things, the reviewed publication discusses techniques for conducting polygraph examinations and provides examples of question sets used during testing.
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The aim of this article is to present the situation of women in the caliphate and in the structures of ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ar. Ad-Dawla al-Islāmiyya fῑal-’Irāq wa aš-Šām) through the prism of Arabic-language media reports published on websites information services. In the article, the author presents the media image of women in ISIS showed by the Arabic and Western media. While some of them assign marginal roles to women as housewives, mothers and wives, and thus present their reality in this caliphate, there are also other media reports focusing on the active involvement of women in the organization’s activities. Most of the articles are from 2019. This is due to the fact that with the fall of the caliphate, many media began to make some kind of accounts and summaries of the activities of the terrorist organization ISIS.
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The conventional understanding of the church’s prophetic witness is that it is founded on the prophets portrayed in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. They communicated God’s message in relation to various issues such as religious practices and loyalty to God, but also, importantly, criticism and denunciation of political and social injustice. Satirical shows, in this study, refer to the satirical news components of TV late-night talk shows, as well as internet based satirical socio-political shows, where satirical commentary forms the common thread with prophetic witness, namely the indictment of political and social wrongdoing. Specific shows referred to in this study are The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Honest Government Ad, and Jonathan Pie. The angle of this paper differs from other studies in that it does not look at Christian/religious themes specifically, rather any issue warranting a prophetic voice, but which is often absent. The challenge addressed in this article is to see if a link between contemporary political satire and prophetic witness can be justified theologically. A cursory overview on satire in the book of Jonah as the most comprehensive representation of the genre within the prophets is done, as well as a discussion on possible prophetic themes and examples in a selection of political satire programmes. The study concludes that, while political satirists are not prophets, when interpreted in the context of God’s kingdom, they do at times speak prophetically.
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The article analyses the accounts most involved in initiating discussions about Russophobia in the Polish-language section of the Facebook social network in 2018 and in the period January-April 2022. The research process was carried out using quantitative trend analysis of the occurrence of a keyword related to discussion about Russophobia, network analysis and frame analysis. The author’s intention was an in-depth description of how this group of social media users reacted to the situational factor shaping the information environment, which was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The author sought to answer the question of how the observed phenomena affected the information security of the state. The study noted positive changes in the segment of the information environment concerning the discussion of Russophobia.
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The author analyzes the seizure of the SBU headquarters in Lugansk in 2014 by pro-Russian demonstrators. The author presents well-documented evidence that the Luhansk SBU was selected by the Russian secret services as a “trigger” of the uprising in the Donbas, due to the accumulation of a huge amount of ammunition, weapons and explosives, thanks to which the separatists could immediately start creating military structures after the attack. In the author’s opinion, the infiltration of the Ukrainian SBU and the Ministry of the Interior was facilitated by the existence of branched clientelist networks within them, enabling politicians hostile to the new prowestern government to steer state institutions in the name of the strategic interests of the Russian Federation.
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The article focuses on presenting the scope of activities and tasks of senior policy. The first part of the article presents the most important documents of an international nature that shaped senior policy on the world stage. Then discussed the two most important documents that shape the Polish senior policy. In the next part of the article, in order to illustrate specific solutions, the activities of the city of Opole in the context of active senior citizen policy were shown.
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The 2015 immigration crisis became a driving force for movements and parties that negate the current political order, including those that do not conceal their xenophobic slogans and ideas. In retrospect, there are more and more signs that the decision to accept the uncontrolled refugee influx was more an expression of wishful thinking than a rational decision, taking into account the actual political situation. Thus, Europe finds itself in a dangerous situation with far-right movements on the one hand, and radical Islam on the other. Each of these formations legitimizes its existence and methods of operation by the existence of the other side, trying to polarize society and create a situation that will somehow force citizens to opt for one of the two options. Paradoxically, Chancellor Merkel’s decision significantly increased the risk of such a scenario, hence the perception of Islamic and right-wing extremism by the German authorities as posing an equal threat to state security. However, it was only the recent terrorist attacks in October and November 2020 in France and Germany that changed the political narrative.
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The issues discussed in this article refer to the normative status of operational and investigative activities in the context of the Police Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Namely, an attempt was made to demonstrate the conditions that affect the legal nature of surveillance, and thus the effective use of operational material in a criminal trial. For this purpose, the covert activity of the Police has been characterized by listing acceptable operational methods and defining operational and reconnaissance activities in the light of the literature on the subject. Therefore, in order to fully illustrate the issues discussed, an analysis was conducted of the legal relationship between the illegal evidence referred to in Art. 168a of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the evidence from operational and reconnaissance activities, on the example of an ordered operational control. The practical dimension of these considerations is discussed from the point of view of evidence proceedings, taking into account the procedural roles and responsibilities of the prosecutor and the court.
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The 2015 immigration crisis became a driving force for movements and parties that negate the current political order, including those that do not conceal their xenophobic slogans and ideas. In retrospect, there are more and more signs that the decision to accept the uncontrolled refugee influx was more an expression of wishful thinking than a rational decision, taking into account the actual political situation. Thus, Europe finds itself in a dangerous situation with far-right movements on the one hand, and radical Islam on the other. Each of these formations legitimises its existence and methods of operation by the existence of the other side, trying to polarise society and create a situation that will somehow force citizens to opt for one of the two options. Paradoxically, Chancellor Merkel’s decision to admit immigrants significantly increased the risk of such a scenario, hence the perception of Islamic and right-wing extremism by the German authorities as posing an equal threat to state security. However, it was only the recent terrorist attacks in October and November 2020 in France and Germany that changed the political narrative.
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The article presents the evolution of the Russian idea of military operations as a form of implementing security policy. Significant changes in the concept of conducting hybrid operations were pointed out in relation to the way they were carried out in the process of the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and during the Russian intervention in Syria. It was shown that the concept of the reconstruction of the armed forces since 2018 has been aimed at both preparing them for the implementation of the so-called integrated operations, expanding the external defence zone, and performing antiaccess operations. This is to be achieved by adequately saturating the armed forces with the necessary means to conduct such a task and by practically implementing the active defence strategy, which assumes that Russia will take pre-emptive actions based on precise planning algorithms. The Russian strategy of active defence is complemented by a strategy of limited operations. According to Russian experts, this strategy should involve external actions to protect and promote Russian interests abroad. The analyses demonstrate that the Russians have decided that the basic form of contemporary and future political-military conflict will be a non-linear conflict with a dynamic course. That is why a key role has been assigned to both kinetic and non-kinetic instrumentation capabilities and special operations with a comprehensive scope. To implement these plans, a thorough reform of the armed forces was carried out in terms of restructuring the organization, reforming the training system and modernizing the armaments. The main phase of the reforms had been successfully implemented by December 2020, despite the sanctions. The experience of Syria and the Donbass influenced the transformation of the Russian military doctrine. Its most important assumption was to move away from the primacy of synchronized non-military actions within a non-kinetic destabilizing operation. The concept of coordinated use of military and non-military means with a decisive role of the armed forces has become the basic form of conducting operations of this type.
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The series of terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001 in the USA, the largest in the history of the world, was carried out by 19 people. Among them were 15 Saudis, two UAE nationals, a Lebanese and an Egyptian. Three of the four formed the Hamburg cell, which was the backbone of the entire plot. It was led by the Egyptian Muhammad Atta el-Sayed. He flew Boeing 767 aircraft American Airlines Flight 11, which first struck the North Tower of the WTC. Marwan al-Shehhi was the pilot of Boeing 767 aircraft United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the South Tower of the WTC. Hani Hanjour sat at the controls of the Boeing 757 aircraft American Airlines flight 77. It was the third machine to target the Pentagon. The pilot of the fourth plane - Boeing 757 aircraft United Airlines Flight 93 - Ziad Jarrah failed to reach his destination, possibly the Capitol, because the passengers decided to take over the control of the plane from the terrorists. The machine crashed in Pennsylvania. In the events of 9/11, a total of 2,996 people were killed, including 19 terrorists, and 6,291 were injured . Six Poles were among the fatalities. 343 firefighters died in the rescue operation.The attacks caused enormous material losses. Particularly high costs were incurred by insurance and reinsurance companies, airlines and aircraft manufacturers, as well as the tourism industry. The huge losses related to the destruction of the New York City World Trade Center and the disruption of the financial system had to be covered by insurance companies involved in the operations on the American market.The terrorist attack on the USA was the impetus for the largest reform of the American secret services since 1947. Washington made a decision regarding the need to create a system that would effectively counteract terrorist threats and effectively warn in the event of their occurrence. This was related to the strengthening of structures with operational and reconnaissance powers, increasing the scope of their tasks and improving their ability to coordinate. Most of the legal regulations were expressed in the document commonly known as the USA Patriot Act of 26 October 2001. The most critical, however, were the international repercussions. By the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, al-Qaeda influenced world politics by prompting Washington to declare a “war on terror”. Within its framework, American forces, supporting the so-called Northern Alliance led to the collapse of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, and then entered Iraq, which in the long run turned out to be one of the most spectacular and deadly strategic mistakes in the history of the military.At the same time the September 11 attacks sparked many conspiracy theories. Their propagation in the media, in documentaries, as well as in articles, contributed to undermining trust in the American government. An organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth which boasts 3.3 thousand architects and engineers from all over the United States, is still very active in researching the case of 7 WTC. Its mission is to establish the truth that the twin towers did not collapse due to the impact of terrorist-piloted planes, as well as the destruction of WTC 7 was not a result of the detachment of a fragment of the second plane. In the opinion of members of this organisation, the damage caused by the planes was far from sufficient to lead to such a catastrophe. They believe someone must have planted explosives.
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