Cybersecurity and International Relations: developing thinking tools for digital world politics
In their latest article, our researcher Linda Monsees and her colleague Tobias Liebetrau highlight the importance of cybersecurity as a core aspect of international relations (IR), rather than merely a niche field. The article critiques current cybersecurity research for its biases towards the state, the military, and power as domination, which limit its broader relevance. The special section seeks to propose new directions for cybersecurity studies and to explore how digital technology is reshaping IR and security studies. It emphasises the need to view cybersecurity and IR as deeply interconnected.
Processes of digital transformation alter global politics. This is an issue not only for specialists in cybersecurity, but for all scholars of international relations. This introduction to a special section outlines an agenda for cybersecurity research in international relations research and practice. We argue that cybersecurity is not only a specialized subfield of International Relations (IR), but also an intellectual space in which crucial questions concerning international politics, security and digital technology can be examined. Nevertheless, we identify three biases in current cybersecurity research—a focus toward the state, the military and power as domination—that limit the field and hamper broader engagement with IR and critical security scholarship. We argue that cybersecurity and digital technology are neither optional additions to the theory and practice of international relations nor issues that can neatly be isolated from other world affairs. The goal of the special section is hence twofold. First, to provide new directions and foundations for cybersecurity studies. Second, to explore the opportunities and challenges raised by cybersecurity and digital technological phenomena in conversation with IR and critical security studies. Taken together, the special section demonstrates the need to understand cybersecurity through international relations and to understand international relations through cybersecurity.
Find the full article under the link below.
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