Visegrad Countries and Africa

Security, Resilience, and Cultural Diplomacy in a Changing World

Authors

  • Barbara Lucini Senior Researcher at the Italian Team for Security Terroristic issues and Managing Emergencies – ITSTIME

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59569/jceeas.2022.2.3.146

Keywords:

Visegrad countries, Africa, security, resilience, cultural diplomacy

Abstract

The scenario of great international uncertainty and insecurity reconfigures a new and necessary focus on the dynamics between the Visegrad countries and Africa.

Through an evolutionary historical perspective and a focus on the complex and delicate contemporary situation, this contribution aims to explore and deepen the type of relations that have been established over the years between the Visegrad countries and Africa. Specifically, the paper considers the policies developed by Visegrad countries with particular attention to three issues: security, resilience, cultural diplomacy, and cooperation. In accordance with these issues, security is a common ground for both Visegrad countries and Africa as the latter geopolitical reality is in different ways affected by political and economic instability that could be adapted through actions of social resilience and support to the communities involved. The aim of this paper is therefore to understand how the issue of resilience is and has been addressed in the relationship between the Visegrad countries and Africa. In this complex framework influenced by the major events of the Covid-19 pandemic and the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the instruments of cooperation and cultural diplomacy will be considered to better understand the relationship between the Visegrad countries and Africa.

Author Biography

Barbara Lucini, Senior Researcher at the Italian Team for Security Terroristic issues and Managing Emergencies – ITSTIME

Barbara Lucini (phd in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research) is Senior Researcher at the Italian Team for Security Terroristic issues and Managing Emergencies – ITSTIME. She is Deputy WP2 Leader - H2020 EU Counter Project https://counter-project.eu/ She is adjunct professor of risk management and crisis communication at the Catholic University. She is currently the working group leader of Converge – Covid – 19 Working Group, Itstime Working Group: COVID-19 and Viral Violence (https://www.itstime.it/w/converge/). Converge is a National Science Foundation-funded initiative headquartered at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has been involved in the scientific coordination of several research projects (European and others) focused on crisis management, risk communication, risk perception, security, resilience, radicalisation and extremisms. Her research interests are oriented to sociology of disaster, disaster resilience, disaster management, extremisms and radicalisation. Further, the issue of the relation between terrorism and resilience as well as political extremism have been studied. She is the author of several publications and Disaster Resilience from a Sociological Perspective Exploring Three Italian Earthquakes as Models for Disaster Resilience Planning, Springer International Publishing, 2014; The Other Side of Resilience to Terrorism A Portrait of a Resilient-Healthy City, Springer International Publishing, 2017.

Downloads

Published

2023-02-15 — Updated on 2023-12-20

Versions

How to Cite

Lucini, B. (2023). Visegrad Countries and Africa : Security, Resilience, and Cultural Diplomacy in a Changing World . Journal of Central and Eastern European African Studies, 2(3). https://doi.org/10.59569/jceeas.2022.2.3.146 (Original work published February 15, 2023)