Torun International Studies

7

Authors: Piotr Pacek, Olaf Truszczyński

The article deals with war, as experienced by human beings. The authors agree that war is materially and psychosocially costly. They present experts’ opinions who professionally examined emotions and attention issues as well as dealt with the problems related to the psychological aspects of war. The main conclusion is that it is impossible to take part in a real war without experiencing strong emotions and incurring high psychological costs associated with participation in war operations. Death, injury, sexual violence, malnutrition, illness and disability are examples of the most dramatic physical consequences, and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety are some of the effects of emotional disorders. War also contributes to disrupting the normal course of family and social life, causing suffering to people, which is very characteristic of the course of hostilities. This paper shows how people, who experienced war, respond to traumas and it presents different views on possible reactions. It also lists the consequences of psychological nature caused by hybrid warfare.

10

Authors: Tomas Skripkiūnas, Valentinas Navickas

The aim of this research is to establish a methodological background for understating the real estate macro dynamics and the role played by architecture in explaining the real estate market value fluctuations. Although various models of the housing market fluctuations have been developed, the fundamental question of what drives the real estate market value is still peculiarly neglected. Housing market value fluctuations can be largely explained by macroeconomic fundamentals, housing market indicators as well as the social, political and cultural situation. After assessing these fundamentals of the real estate market value, other factors may be added such as short-term dynamics and irrational factors, contributing to an instantaneous unpredictability of the real estate market. Nowadays there is a belief in society that housing is an investment opportunity. An assumption can be made about the speculative and irrational nature of the housing market, having impact on the real estate market value. Comparing the housing market to the stock market, the housing market has much higher cost of carry and complicated administration to it; and therefore, the real estate market is highly inefficient. Because of the irrational nature of human behavior, similarly to stock prices, the housing market is driven by expectations. The originality of this research lies in the fact that irrationality of human behavior suggests looking at other sciences, with architecture being a tool to bring those irrationalities into the real estate market. Given that behavioral economics accounts for a significant part of irrationality of market behavior, the hypothesis can be ventured that architecture, as a human interaction in the process, can have its own causal role in fixing real estate market value.

11

Authors: Roman Stakanov, Anna Ukhova

Today a lot of research is devoted to migration issues, primarily because of its scale. Previously, this problem attracted economists, sociologists, lawyers, today it is a focus of attention of political scientists and researchers of international relations. Modern globalization processes are affecting the international labor market, creating free space for the movement of labor around the world. The steadily increasing trend of labor migration is accounts for the need to study it in its social, economic and political aspects. Virtual migration refers to a new form of transnational economic integration that does not require workers to literally move in physical space. The main purposes of the article are to analyze the reasons and background of virtual of highly skilled workers. The positive and negative aspects of robotization on employment of highly qualified persons in the conditions of globalized world are determined. The aim of the study is also to find the opportunities that the globalized information space offers today to attract labor to international exchange and to justify on this basis the expediency of new migration orientations and new types of migration. Considering the global problems of labor migration, we note that the process of migration is the so-called indicator of the population's response to changes in the life of any society that happen almost every day.

13

Authors: Denys Ivanov

This paper presents the comparative analysis of the specifics of the U.S. and U.K. strategies in the Balkans and the post-Soviet area with the definition and explanation of the differences in the political agenda of these two states. The political decisions of the U.S. and U.K. governments were supposed to create a global Euro-Atlantic security system by the enlargement of NATO and the management of the local conflicts. The transition from unipolar moment to multipolar international system determined U.S. withdrawal from liberal internationalism of the 1990s and its return to the containment strategy of political realism after the annexation of Crimea. The Russian geopolitical position was also analysed as important for understanding the current situation in international relations. The paper consists of five parts which include introduction, an analysis of U.S. and U.K. approaches towards the Balkan wars and Russia, escalation of tensions between the West and Russia caused by these events followed by some conclusion.

15

Authors: Ireneusz Ciosek

According to vast evidence material, Russia actively tries to influence the situation in Western societies by creating and aggravating uncertainty with the usage of weaponized information. It can be treated as an important part of Russian application of sharp power in the West. The purpose of the article is to explore the selected exemplifications of Russian activities and create a map of disruptive operations against the Western “hearts and minds”. The main scientific methods used in the study are desk research and content analysis. The employment of these methods is crucial to conduct the study of official Russian documents and identified cases of anti-Western information operations.

18

Authors: Dilan Prasad Harsha Senanayake

The regional security complex theory scrutinizes the security complexes including the security complex of South Asia grounded on security interdependency among states situated in a geographically coherent group which could be penetrated by the external powers. The formation of the regional security complex of South Asia was shaped by two major factors: 1. The rivalry between India and Pakistan; 2. The dependency of small nations over the regional hegemony of India. However, the massive plan of economic growth and connectivity- BRI introduced by China have changed these dynamics of the complex. The BRI changed the traditional understanding of the regional security complex of South Asia and forced to contemplate China as an internal member of the complex rather considering China as external power. The purpose of the study is to capture these changes and alter the theory to understand the South Asian security complex sophisticatedly by considering the smaller states of South Asia (Sri Lanka and Nepal). The case study method has been employed to derive influences from the BRI, and it is based on a wide range of sources, both primary and secondary. BRI has changed the traditional patterns of security interdependency of the smaller states of South Asia vis-à-vis big brother India while elevating the Chinese ability to redefine, reorganize, reshape, and reconstruct the security patterns of South Asia and establishing Chinese military supremacy in Indian backyard. The traditional security complex theory did not capture these changes and yet, the paper argues that the regional security complex can be understood comprehensively by transporting external powers into a given complex based on the criteria, to be qualified as an internal actor. To validate this claim, the paper will consider the case study of Chinese led BRI projects and the regional complex of South Asia.