The Research and Study of International Security in the Czech Republic:: An Analysis of Articles in the Journal Mezinárodní vztah

Abstract

The analysis surveys the evolution of security studies in the Czech Republic
after 1990. Firstly, the historical context and institutional development of
the discipline are analyzed; afterwards the intellectual tradition of Czech
security studies is introduced, and the theories used in the discipline in the
Czech Republic are mentioned. The central point of the analysis is the
character and content of the articles published in the journal Mezinárodní
vztahy. We conclude that the research of international security in the Czech
Republic is strongly interconnected with the country’s executive politics and
that Mezinárodní vztahy is the central platform for Czech security research.

Keywords

Security studies, theories, methodology, Czech Republic, evolution of the discipline

Author Biography

Oldřich Bureš

Oldřich Bureš, born in 1979, he is the Head of the Department of International Relations and European Studies and also the Head of the Center for Security Studies
at Metropolitan University Prague. He also lectures at the Department of
Security Studies at the Institute of Political Studies at Charles University in
Prague. In addition to his membership in the editorial boards of several
academic journals (e.g. International Relations [Mezinárodní vztahy], Defence
and Strategy [Obrana a strategie] and Military Perspectives [Vojenské rozhledy]),
he is a member of the permanent work group of the Accreditation
Commission for Social Sciences (since January 2013) and was a member of
the Evaluation Panel for Political and Legal Sciences of the Czech Grant
Agency (from April 2011 to April 2015). His research focuses primarily on
the issues of privatization of security, counter-terrorism and peacekeeping
operations.

Miroslav Mareš

Miroslav Mareš, born in 1974, he is a graduate of the Political Science and Law programme at Masaryk University in Brno. He is a researcher of the International
Institute of Political Science and a guarantor of the Security and Strategic
Studies programme at the Department of Political Science of the Faculty of
Social Studies at the same university. He works in the European Network of
Experts on Terrorism (in 2015-2016 as the head of a subgroup on right-wing extremist, left-wing extremist and separatist violence called EENeT). He also
participates in the European Radicalisation Awareness Network (in 2015-
2016 as a member of the editorial board of RAN). From 2012 to the present
he is the secretary of the research committee IPSA RC 44 "The Military Role
in Democratization." He focuses on research of extremism and terrorism in
Central Europe in his work.

Šárka Waisová

Šárka Waisová, born in 1978, she studied Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, the Department of Political
Science and European Studies at Palacky University in Olomouc and the
Universities of Marburg and Dresden. She works at the Department of
Political Science and International Relations of the Philosophical Faculty at
the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. She also teaches at Metropolitan
University Prague. She deals mainly with issues related to security and
conflict resolution in her research.