Security and Citizens in the 21st Century: Structure and Integration of Voluntary Civic Roles in Providing Security
Abstract
The dissertation focuses on a complex of voluntary citizen roles and activities in security provision. It is assumed that various security-related civic activities – usually defined and described quite disparately – include certain common features, and that they actually belong into a coherent framework when the security of our societies is conceived within the extended, comprehensive security concept, where the traditional resort-like external/internal and military/non-military cleavages became obsolete, and where the state-centric national security has no primacy over the people-centred human security.
Variety of activities and phenomena within these civic roles is explored and described, deploying a set of four distinctive spheres (defence / military; law & order / policing; fire fighting / rescue / emergency / humanitarian aid; and individual all-hazard preparedness). The voluntary citizen participation includes both practical performance in operational providing of security as a public service plus the education/training for the performance, and the citizen participation in public security sector policy and management.
Then a synthesizing model is designed, employing four spheres and a set of dimensions and modalities that enables to analyse the citizen voluntary participation in any national security system. The last part develops an integrating policy approach to these voluntary civic roles and activities for the security system of the Czech Republic.