Paulina Polko

• Professor
• Professor (Associate) at WSB University

ABSTRACT The relations of border regions are influenced by many factors, any of which may be assessed completely differently by each of the subjects of these relations. The Polish-Czech dispute over the future of the coal mine in Turów (Poland) has shown that the participants not only have different assessments of the need to maintain or close the...

Much research confirms that the country of origin of migrants (refugees), as well as their religion, determines the approach of the destination country society to newcomers. It affects the conditions of receiving the acceptance of a legal stay and possible support. Double standards are the main results of this intersection. The study aimed to prese...

Citizen participation today needs to be understood as both an empowerment practice to create urban futures as well as the perpetuation of entrepreneurial and neoliberal modes of planning. The exponential progress of technologies and the digitalisation of everyday life have led to a surge of innovation. Since hybridity has become a key factor, citiz...

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a paradigm that empowers residents to directly decide how a portion of the public budget is spent. Specifically, residents deliberate over spending priorities and vote over how the budget should be allocated to different public projects. As such it is a mechanism of top-down transfer of decisions on the part of budge...

Urban spaces require increasing their attractiveness by exploring the social and spatial implications of new lifestyles. Broad civic knowledge is the basis for placemaking to shape user-centred and inclusive spaces of everyday life. Gathering information on the sense of the place is crucial to finding out and understanding the place-related identit...

Although the vast majority of public opinion regards the economy as a key issue in the American presidential campaign in 2024, migration is just behind. Related to many other aspects of public affairs such as the labor market situation, public spending , identity, etc. is also strongly associated with security, especially the unauthorized (illegal)...

Objectives Migration emerged as a security issue in the context of the geopolitical dislocation shaped by the end of the Cold War and by social and political shifts associated with globalization processes. As such, the migration-security nexus tends to present the understanding of migration and migrants as a threat to the destination or transit cou...

The purpose of this article is to analyze Turkish soft power towards Serbia in the 21st century. From a methodological point of view, this article is based on quantitative and qualitative research methods. In addition, the study uses content analysis, including newspaper articles, archival documents and other statements by individual politicians an...

Volatility is one of the most characteristic features of contemporary security. The level of threats increases or decreases, completely new phenomena appear and quickly disturb the global balance and threaten the durability of security systems. This dynamic nature of security verifies both the state and process, as well as their understanding by re...

Urban parks are widely recognized as extremely valuable areas for city dwellers thanks to providing green places for rest and leisure for different types of users. Among the limitations to their use, the literature often mentions safety concerns-a security perception among users depending on the time of day, weather, lighting, and park maintenance,...

Participatory Budgets as a placemaking tool involve residents in co-deciding on public expenditure. The growing number of applications for pro-environmental projects influences the creation of Green Budgets in many Polish cities. An example is Katowice where such an initiative has been operating since 2020 to support public tasks in the field of ec...

Migracje jako wyzwanie właściwe do rozpatrywania na poziomie Sojuszu Północnoatlantyckiego (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO) pojawiły się w Koncepcji Strategicznej Paktu dopiero w 2022 r. Niemniej w XXI w., a zwłaszcza od 2015 r., tematyka ta była podnoszona na wszystkich szczytach NATO i wyrażana w oczekiwaniach wobec Sojuszu zwłaszcza pr...

The National Map of Security Threats (NMST) implemented in Poland in 2016 is a GIS-based tool for digital crime and threat mapping involving citizens in the processes of shaping local security by reporting hazards in their neighbourhood (volunteered geographic information). The map-open for external users is a source of information about common thr...

Perceptions of personal security significantly affect human behaviour in geographical environments. The way public places are perceived determines their utilization and their attractiveness among urban residents. Various methods have been applied to study perceptions of security and the environmental factors associated with it. Urban environments c...

Urban green areas, ensuring relaxation, contact with nature and social integration, play a key role in the health and well-being of people aged 60+. Older adults are one of the target groups of the Warsaw Participatory Budget (WPB) – a program under which city residents submit and vote for projects that improve the functioning of urban spaces. The...

More and more advanced crime mapping methods have been used for several dozen years for imaging, analyzing, and, consequently, preventing, and combatting crime. Initially, they served only specialized task units in charge of the fight against crime. Subsequently, they became sources of public information on the level of security in particular locat...

Managing human resources (HRM) is one of the core challenges in each organization. Recruitment, training, motivating, executing performance of the entrusted tasks, career policy or ways of parting with employees, it all determines the quality of the organization's operation, its efficiency and to a significant degree impacts its successes and failu...

This chapter reflects on responsible science with an eye toward concrete research practice. To this end, we briefly introduce the RRI paradigm (Responsible Research and Innovation) and then highlight seven EU research projects in the context of a transnational COST Action project. This COST Action will investigate how placemaking activities, like p...

Abstrakt. Celem badań prezentowanych w niniejszym artykule była analiza procesu sekurytyzacji pandemii Sars-Cov-2 w 2020 i 2021 roku jako zabiegu czyniącego z niej zagrożenie egzystencjalne o globalnym zasięgu, wymagające implementacji nadzwyczajnych rozwiązań w celu jego likwidacji. Weryfikacji pod-dana została hipoteza, iż pandemia wirusa Sars-Co...

The objective of this study was to investigate how gender differentiates the perception of safety in urban parks. Gender was recognized in relation to selected, most important factors providing a sense of security classified into 6 groups: visibility, technical condition, cleanliness, external protection, other park users, and mobility facilities,...

The perception of urban greenery is determined by many aspects, including the personal security of different groups of city dwellers. The objective of this study was to investigate if there are differences between the sense of security of older adults and other groups of urban park users, and which factors play an important role in the evaluation o...

National Map of Security Threats (NMST), implemented in Poland in 2016, is a GIS-based tool for digital crime and threat mapping involving citizens in shaping local security by reporting neighborhood hazards. Among 26 categories of threats possible to report, 5 are directly related to greenery. The study aimed to identify the advantages and disadva...

Although somewhat unwillingly, practically all armies in the world use social media to (1) promote military service and recruitment, (2) establish the reputation and positive image of the organisation, and (3) maintain their relationship with already recruited, former or prospective soldiers. This article constitutes a qualitative and quantitative...

The European Green Deal (EGD) is a set of policy initiatives by the European Union with the overarching and ambitious aim of making Europe climate neutral in 2050. Being world's first 'climate-neutral bloc' and fulfilling other goals extending to many different sectors, including construction, biodiversity, energy, transport, food and others has al...

Personal security is one of the key aspects affected by the perception of urban greenery, which plays an important role for city dwellers. The survey conducted in Poland in 2020 (N=394) aimed to check how important for park users in context of perceived security are selected factors related to maintenance of different types of park infrastructure (...

Polish Armed Forces, as the menaces and forces established to secure Poland's interests and to defend the country, are an element of the defense system designed for the effective implementation of security policy. Despite this special status, as an institution, they are subject to human resource management processes similar to other organizations,...

Purpose: Due to pandemic Covid-19, health security has grown into a key sectoral security area, and the virus, itself, the threat it carries and the fight against it have been securitized. One of the threads that is securitized is the issue of Sars-CoV-2 vaccination. The research aims to present securitization process on that field using the case o...

Abstract: Personal security is one of the key aspects affecting the perception of urban greenery, and determines its attractiveness for city dwellers. The online survey conducted in 2020 in Poland aimed to check how important for park users are four factors related to natural elements in urban greenery: plants with leaves, plants without leaves, th...

Poland is regarded as a country relatively free from Islamic terrorist threat. According to official statements, the four-level terrorism threat scale assessed the terrorism threat in Poland as low (‘zero’). The Islamic minority living in Poland is small and very specific, connected with the historical background of the country and well integrated....

The geographical presentation of various data on the spatial functioning of society has been present in fields such as social policy and security for almost 200 years. New technologies, in particular computerization and the GIS tool, not only make the mapping of social problems or security threats more accurate, but also allow for the interactive c...

Protecting the sovereignty and state security is one of the key responsibilities of the president of Poland, emphasized in all constitutions from the moment of restoration of the office in 1989. Although all the politicians who held the state’s highest office used the competences granted to them in this area, they did it different extents and with...

Although safety is a basic personal and institutional need, its presence in programmes of Polish political parties is not impressive. We can observe a change in the second decade of the 21st century, but there is no certainty how constant is it. The article aims to present internal security issues in programmes of Polish political parties during th...