https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4947-4771
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ABSTRACT
The article describes the process of norm localisation in the security sector by analysing the context, format and functions of national security strategies published by the Visegrád countries between 1990 and 2020. After the end of the cold war, the “Europeanisation” of the security policy of Central European took place, which included the publication of Western-style national security strategies. Nevertheless, due to national and regional particularities, such documents serve specific political and communication functions, signifying that Visegrád states localised the practice of issuing national security strategies instead of merely copying them. This process led to the diminishing practical value of such documents at the expense of their communication role in terms of belonging and hedging. The article tracks these developments through the three waves of Central European national security strategies between 1990 and 2020 through the analysis of their political context, aims and specific attributes based on various criteria. Results of the research indicate that the functions of national security strategies varied in different stages of the norm localisation process, which questions the traditional method of comparing explicit strategies through content analysis.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Officially published by the Czech and Slovak Republic.
2 Except maybe for Slovakia, where the first NSS preceded a final decision of foreign policy orientation. Therefore, the first NSS was criticised of being vague, chaotic, incoherent (Čižik Citation2021, pp. 23–25).
3 That being said, traditionally, the Hungarian experience has also been vaster than that of its neighbors (Dunay Citation2003, p. 305).
4 Besides the constitution of 1992 and 1997, the Law on Universal Military Service of 1996 and the Law of Armed Forces Abroad were among the most important steps.
5 Mostly by the Constitutional Act on the Security of the Czech Republic of 1998, the Act on Crisis Management, the Act on the Protection of the Economy, the Act on the Protection of Classified Information, as well as the Army reform of 2001 & 2003.
6 The process was the longest in the Slovak case, where due to domestic political developments, the most important pieces of legislation took place in or after 2001.
7 Through the Homeland Defense Act of 1993, the creation of Joint Forces Command in 1996 and its integration into the Ministry of Defense, 2001.
8 It is also telling that in parallel with the accession of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to NATO in 1999, the alliance adopted the Membership Action Plan for future candidates, which made strategy-making a more explicit requirement. According to the document, candidate countries “are expected to subscribe to Alliance strategy as set out in the Strategic Concept” and “to provide their views (… .), willingness and ability to comply with”, among others, the NATO Strategic Concept (NATO Citation1999).
9 Including Tálas and Csiki Citation2013, p. 171; Kříž Citation2021, pp. 42–45; Čižik Citation2021, p. 35.
10 Except for the NSS of Hungary adopted in 2020 by the Orbán-government. While there were elections taking place in 2014 and 2018 since the publication of the previous strategy (2012), the composition of the government as well as the Prime Minister remained to be the same.
11 Following only a temporal logic, the Polish strategy of 2003 and the Hungarian one of 2004 could be put in both the second or third wave. The reason why this study sees them as third wave strategies is that they were not adopted in the context of NATO or EU accession (as an already existing sufficient strategy was in place), but they referred to dynamic changes and emerging threats as the motive behind crafting them. Naturally, domestic political considerations also played a role in adopting them.
12 The 2020 strategy of Hungary is described as more complex and developed mostly in terms of the ways in which Hungary pursues its interests (Csiki and Tálas Citation2020).