VOLUME 14, NUMBER 1, JANUARY 2021 RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION THREAT: COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY OF CZECH AND SLOVAK APPROACHES Marek RECHTIK and Miroslav MAREŠ THE EMERGENCE OF THE EUROPEANIZED PARTY SYSTEMS IN ECE: THE TURNING POINT AT THE 2019 EP ELECTIONS IN HUNGARY Attila ÁGH THE QUALITY OF FREEDOMS ACROSS THE AFRICAN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES Victoria GRAHAM and Suzanne GRAHAM INTERCULTURAL ISSUES IN BORDER REGIONS: THE CASE OF AUSTRIA AND SLOVAKIA Michaela ČIEFOVÁ and Katarína SERESOVÁ EUROPEAN ENERGY POLICY AND THE EU-AZERBAIJAN ENERGY COOPERATION Aliyar AZIMOV THE EU CONDITIONALITY AND EUROPEANIZATION OF POLICY CO-ORDINATION MECHANISMS IN THE WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES Ivo ROLLIS JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 2 EDITORIAL TEAM Editor-in-Chief General Editor Miro Haček Peter Csányi ................................................................. ................................................................ University of Ljubljana University of Economics in Bratislava Faculty of social sciences, CAAPPI Faculty of International Relations Kardeljeva ploščad 5 Dolnozemská 1, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 852 35 Bratislava 5, Slovakia [email protected] [email protected] General Editor General Editor Jurij Toplak Simona Kukovič .................................................................. .................................................................. Alma Mater Europa ea University of Ljubljana European Center Maribor (AMEU-ECM) Faculty of social sciences, CAAPPI Gosposka ulica 1 Kardeljeva ploščad 5 2000 Maribor, Slovenia 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia [email protected] [email protected] ...................................................................................... Articles appearing in JCP, are abstracted and indexed in following bibliographical databases: Scopus (SNIP IF=0.55/2018), Web of Science ESCI, ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, International Political Science Abstracts, ProQuest Political Science, International Bibliography of Social Sciences (IBSS), JournalSeek, UlrichsWeb, I2OR Database and Universal Impact Factor. EDITORIAL BOARD Marjan BREZOVŠEK, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Ladislav CABADA, Metropolitan University Prague, Czech Republic Fernando CASAL BERTOA, University of Nottingham, UK Đorđe GARDAŠEVIĆ, University of Zagreb, Croatia ViCtoria GRAHAM, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Pavol HRIVIK, Alexander Dubcek University of Trenčin, Slovakia Lars JOHANNSEN, Aarhus University, Denmark Kenneth KA-LOK CHAN, Hong Kong Baptist University, China Damir KAPIDŽIĆ, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina Rudolf KUCHARČÍK, University of Economics Bratislava, Slovakia Lisa MCINTOSH SUNDSTROM, University of British Columbia, Canada RiCCardo PELIZZO, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan EriC PHÉLIPPEAU, University Paris Nanterre, France Meredith REDLIN, South Dakota State University, USA Andrius ŠUMINAS, Vilnius University, Lithuania MiChael TKACIK, Stephen F. Austin State University, USA Taro TSUKIMURA, Doshisha University Kyoto, Japan Pablo VIDAL, Catholic University of Valencia, Spain Nebojša VLADISLAVLJEVIĆ, University of Belgrade, Serbia Werner WEIDENFELD, University of Munich, Germany Reuben WONG, National University of Singapore, Singapore George Vital ZAMMIT, University of Malta, Malta Mattia ZULIANELLO, University of Birmingham, UK CO-PUBLISHERS Faculty of International Relations University of Economics in Bratislava Dolnozemská 1, 852 35 Bratislava 5, Slovakia Centre for analysis of administrative-political processes and institutions (CAAPPI) University of Ljubljana, Faculty of social sciences Kardeljeva ploščad 5, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Alma Mater Europaea - European Center Maribor (AMEU-ECM) Gosposka ulica 1, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia DESIGN CAAPPI, Ljubljana. Journal of Comparative Politics is published twice a year, in January and July. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION THREAT: COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY OF CZECH AND SLOVAK APPROACHES Marek RECHTIK and Miroslav MAREŠ ............................................................................................................................................................................ 20 THE EMERGENCE OF THE EUROPEANIZED PARTY SYSTEMS IN ECE: THE TURNING POINT AT THE 2019 EP ELECTIONS IN HUNGARY Attila ÁGH ............................................................................................................................................................................ 42 THE QUALITY OF FREEDOMS ACROSS THE AFRICAN SMALL ISLAND DEVELOPING STATES Victoria GRAHAM and Suzanne GRAHAM ............................................................................................................................................................................ 60 INTERCULTURAL ISSUES IN BORDER REGIONS: THE CASE OF AUSTRIA AND SLOVAKIA Michaela ČIEFOVÁ and Katarína SERESOVÁ ............................................................................................................................................................................ 71 EUROPEAN ENERGY POLICY AND THE EU- AZERBAIJAN ENERGY COOPERATION Aliyar AZIMOV ............................................................................................................................................................................ 91 THE EU CONDITIONALITY AND EUROPEANIZATION OF POLICY CO- ORDINATION MECHANISMS IN THE WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES Ivo ROLLIS ............................................................................................................................................................................ PARTICIPATE For further information on submissions, please consult the guidelines at http://www.jofcp.org. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS ◎ vol. 14 ◎ no. 1 ◎ 2021 4 RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION THREAT: COMPARATIVE CASE STUDY OF CZECH AND SLOVAK APPROACHES1 Marek RECHTIK and Miroslav MAREŠ2 ……………………………………………………………………….…………………………………… This comparative case analysis focuses on the approaches of the Czech and Slovak governments to Russian disinformation activities, with particular attention to the securitization of the threat. The paper argues that the extent of energy relations with Russia plays an important role in the securitization of the threat posed by the said state. It employs a rational model of policy-making to better understand the rationale for the decisions of the actors leading to the different approaches taken by the governments of the examined states. The analysis shows that while the Czech approach seems to be driven mostly by security interests, in Slovakia, the economic goals are of primary importance, with the primary factor being the importance of energy relations with Russia. The Czech approach is considered as an appropriate one in this paper, as it allows for more objective threat assessment and consequently better preparedness and resilience, whereas a rather pragmatic approach of Slovakia leads to increasing vulnerability of disinformation activities. Key words: disinformation; Russian Federation; securitization; energy relations; rational model. 1 INTRODUCTION In 2014, after the armed intervention of the Russian forces, a referendum and the subsequent declaration of independence, the Russian Federation officially annexed Crimea (Grant 2015). This unprecedented aggression from Russia marked a significant turning point in the post-Cold war European security order (Averre 2016). A fundamental change came also with the new form of the Russian hybrid warfare during the intervention which employed cyber, kinetic and information operations dimension (Giles 2016). Since Russia’s illegal annexation 1 This article was written at Masaryk University with the support of a Specific University Research Grant provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. 2 Marek RECHTIK is a student of the follow-up Master's degree programme in Security and Strategic Studies at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic). Contact: [email protected]. Miroslav MAREŠ is professor at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University. Contact: [email protected]. JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE POLITICS 5 of Crimea, there has been a significant increase in disinformation aimed at Western as well as other European states and Russian hybrid warfare activities have been described as “one of the main threats to the security of Europe as well as NATO since the end of the Cold War” (Oğuz 2016, 171). At the Wales summit, NATO condemned Russia’s aggression and decided to respond to the threat of hybrid activities leading in development of the Readiness Action Plan and a strategy for combating hybrid threats (NATO 2019). European Union’s response was no different from NATO’s, as the European Parliament accused Russia of waging an undeclared hybrid war against Ukraine (including information warfare) and called for a strategy to counter the Russian propaganda campaign directed towards the EU and its eastern neighbours (European Parliament 2015). Both NATO and EU almost immediately began to securitize the Russian disinformation campaigns. At national level, however, member states’ responses were more diverse. The article will therefore try to answer the following research question: Why have two both NATO and EU member states adopted different approaches to the Russian federation? To better understand the motives behind these differences, this paper will examine the issue through the lens of a rational policy-making