On March 6 the second online session in the series “Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe” was held. The project is organized by Collegium Civitas and SRAS (USA) and promotes our study abroad and summer school courses. 20 students from American universities participated in the seminar.
In the session we looked at the region from the perspective of security. Starting with a historical broader picture the session ventured into examining the current threats and challenges present in today’s Europe: hybrid threats, cybersecurity issues and migration. These security issues in times of globalization radiate the whole world and can serve as a lesson learned for other regions.
The topics “The Historical Role of Defense and Security in Central Europe” and “New Threats in Cyberspace” were presented by Dr. Paulina Piasecka, Collegium Civitas lecturer and Deputy Director of the Terrorism Research Center. Dr. Katarzyna Maniszewska, lecturer and expert in security focused in her presentation on terrorism in Europe – giving an overview about the development of terrorism from the 70’s till today. Dr. Monika Nowicka, sociologist and lecturer at Collegium Civitas spoke about the challenges of migration presenting her own research conducted in Poland. The lectures were followed by Q &A session.
Next session in the series “Perspectives on CEE” will be held on Saturday, April 3 and will be devoted to the state of democracy in Central & Eastern Europe. Can we look for the reasons of current backsliding of democracies in the history of the 20th century? What are the main challenges and how they can be addressed with help of international organizations and what is the role of civil society in this context? We will define the main threats to democracy and stability, incl. the rise of extremisms – in particular we will focus on right wing extremisms as an ideology with very dynamic growth in numbers of sympathizers in the last 5 years. Finally, from a practical angle we will take a look at de-radicalization policies and programs – what works and what doesn’t?
Each session meets one Saturday for four lectures. More information on the program & enrollment: https://sras.heiapply.com/course.php?id=7893