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The essence and elements of the Ukraine's national security political and legal support process are researched in the paper. It has been proved that the democratic transition process in Ukraine leaded up to a change in approaches of understanding the essence of national security and practice of its support. Nowadays, a value-oriented approach plays a significant role in scientific thought and at the legislative level. It is deduced that democratic changes in the security and defense sector have not been completed and finally implemented in the process of implementing national security policy. Problems of economic and ideological nature, the unwillingness of society to systemic transformation, the polarization of political actors as for domestic and foreign policy priorities is often the obstacle to democratic transition in the field of national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the conditions in which the governments of Argentina and Brazil founded security institutions in the early 1990s, while they were democratizing. It advances the hypothesis that international cooperation in the security field is often linked to the evolution of civil-military relations. Civilian leaders in both countries established institutions and sought international participation deliberately to achieve civilian control and gain leverage over the military establishment, which they sorely distrusted. The need to stabilize civil-military relations at home was therefore the prime motivating force behind the emergence of security institutions in the Southern Cone. Three mechanisms were at work: omnibalancing, policy handling, and managing uncertainty. These mechanisms are derived from three different schools of thought: realism, organizational-bureaucratic models, and theories of domestic political institutions. Besides explaining the sources of nuclear bilateral cooperation, this argument also serves as a critique of two prominent theories in international relations that attempt to explain cooperation and peaceful relations among democracies: neoliberal institutionalism and democratic peace theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failed states pose one of the deepest challenges to American national security and international peace and stability. Finding a comprehensive and effective solution to the challenges of terrorism, human rights violations, or poverty and economic development requires some understanding of how to restore failed states. The response of the United Slates and its allies has remained the same: to rebuild the institutions of state control, and, ~f lucky, to plant a working democracy and a market economy within existing stale borders. But many international law scholars remain openly dubious about the ability of states to rebuild-the problem is not failed states but the nation-state as the primary actor in international relations. This paper argues that both American and United Nations policy on the one hand, and the conventional academic wisdom on the other hand, are mistaken. Building a normal nation-state with full sovereignty on every territory in the world, without changing any borders, fails to understand why some states are failing in the first place. Viable states simply do not align with the borders recognized by the United Nations or created during the period of rapid decolonization in the decades after World War II. Academics who see in failed states the rise of alternatives to the nation-state have no practical solutions that do not depend on the political, economic, and military resources of strong nation-states. Without them, supranational governments, trusteeships, or nongovernmental organizations have shown little ability to fix failed states. This Article argues that powerful nations can help by performing the more modest role of promoting and guaranteeing power-sharing agreements between competing groups within failed states. It concludes by illustrating the thesis with the outcome of the surge in Iraq. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author substantiates the advantages of an interdisciplinary dialogue between political science, philosophy and jurisprudence. Philosophy is seen as a methodology of "understanding." It has defined such concepts as "rule of law" and "democracy." It has been substantiated that the official language of international politics is law and culture. The advantages of the hermeneutic method in the context of the philosophy of law are analyzed and substantiated. It has been substantiated that understanding the philosophy of law is impossible without a historical and philosophical component that restores the connection between the continuity of ideas and concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ongoing debate concerning whether democracies can carry out effective national security policy, the role of transparency costs has received little attention. I argue for a more nuanced understanding of how some democracies that possess specific investigative institutions, such as national security-relevant freedom of information laws, legislative oversight powers, and press freedoms, are able to avoid the problems of which democracy skeptics warn. Using a new dataset on national security accountability institutions in democracies within a Bradley-Terry framework, I find that national security oversight mechanisms raise the probability that a democracy wins international disputes as well as increasing the expected number of enemy casualties, as compared to democracies that lack effective oversight. Contra previous theories of foreign policy efficacy, I find that the chances for democratic foreign policy success are maximized when competitive elections are linked to institutions that increase the retrospective revelation of previously classified information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federalism in various forms has long been associated with certain values of peace, security, liberty, democracy, innovation, efficiency, and equity—all of which have assumed heightened importance in the contemporary era. However, the institutionalization of such values under the power-sharing requirements of a federal arrangement often have proved difficult not only because of empirical conditions but also because of normative tradeoffs needed to balance competing values as well as contrary consequences of value choices. Simpler solutions might be available in principle, but under conditions of human diversity, federal solutions may be necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of the same NORC poll relied on by Hyman and Sheatsley and a 1994 poll for the Times Mirror Center for The People & The Press show that sizable portions of the U.S. public were "know-nothings" on both occasions. OLS regressions on both polls show that, although there are slight differences, essentially the same factors affect knowledge of international politics in 1946 and 1994. At bottom, Americans tend to be uninformed about foreign affairs because they are inattentive to events abroad. If it is true, as some students of U.S. foreign policy claim, that public opinion has an important and growing impact on national security policy, widespread public ignorance recalls Lippmann's concern about the "democratic malady." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]