Sweden has a substantially long tradition of conducting an image policy using both public diplomacy and nation branding. The refugee crisis is a significant challenge for maintaining a strong nation brand and positive perceptions of this country, mostly owing to contradictions between the declared values of Sweden’s image and nation brand and the real steps undertaken by the government to limit refugee immigration. The aim of this article is to discover potential correlation between the refugee crisis and changes within Sweden’s image and the strategy for promoting the country abroad, as well as Sweden’s methods and forms of international communication.

In the history of the European Union, there are three main crises: financial crisis, the so-called refugee crisis, and the recent coronavirus pandemic. Since the financial crisis, the process of modern democracies taking over the characteristics of non-democratic regimes has become noticeable, and subsequent crises are only exacerbating it. A useful theoretical category for explaining this phenomenon is the category of militant democracy, which was first used by Karl Loewenstein, who applied it to the Weimar Republic. The article aims to present in general how successive crises have contributed to accelerating the militant process by the EU Member States.

The European debate on the refugee crisis and the related actions of the European Union has been an important part of the political communication undertaken by policy-makers in the EU countries. Thus, it seems essential to ask the question about the opinions of the most important Polish politicians regarding the causes and ways of managing the refugee crisis, but also about their stance regarding refugees coming from other cultures, and consequently whether they were in agreement on accepting refugees. Also, whether the opinions they expressed were likely to influence Polish society, and whether the problem of the refugee crisis was used for ad hoc political purposes, including in the election campaign.

The European refugee crisis of 2015 had a profound impact not only policies, but also narratives related to migration. The article is aimed to analyse how the European refugee crisis was narrated in Polish textbooks on geography and civics – two subjects that cover contemporary socio-political events within their curricula. It looks at the textbooks not only as a source of information but also as a political and pedagogical mirror that reflects the ongoing discussions in society. The article builds on the vast scholarship on how the refugee crisis was narrated in Poland and investigates whether and to what extent the same patterns are reflected in the textbooks. Mixed methodology is used in the article to identify the main narratives and themes in the samples of Polish textbook. According to the study the narrations are less extreme and explicit than in the public discourse, they are also often incoherent and inconsistent, and hardly human-centred. While they are not explicitly politicized, they often replicate the main narrative frames from the media discourse.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to the largest refugee movement in Europe since World War II (Bathke, 2023). It is estimated that around a third of Ukraine’s population has either fled the country or was displaced internally (UNHCR). However, contrary to the other significant humanitarian crisis in Europe, the refugee crisis in 2015, the literature for the current one is still under development (Näre, Abdelhady, Irastorza, 2022). Its implications are massive and yet to fully grasp. Directions of research also differ: whilst for the 2015 crisis, many papers underlined its racialized treatment, the underdoing crisis is particularly explored in relation to the role of the civic society in its management. Taking this into account, we aim to draw a comparison between the reception of the Ukrainian refugees in Poland and Romania, with a particular focus on the role(s) undertook by NGOs to support the activities taken by the state. This is especially important for illustrating the significant – and crucial role of NGOs in providing aid to the victims of this armed conflict.