Cyber security meets security politics: Complex technology, fragmented politics, and networked science
Over the last decade, cyber incidents have become more expensive, more disruptive and more political. This article by Myriam Dunn Cavelty and Prof. Andreas Wenger introduces a special issue of Contemporary Security Policy on cyber security politics, providing a historical overview of this topic and the academic literature that developed with it.
The authors outline that technological possibilities, political choices and scientific practices have shaped cybersecurity politics and related research. They also identify empirical trends and thematic clusters in academic literature on the topic before discussing what the future holds. With regard to politics, the authors emphasize that cybersecurity will grow in importance as the provision essential services becomes more dependent on the uninterrupted operation of digital technologies. Artificial intelligence will also become an essential element of cybersecurity, with profound implications for the speed, scale, duration, autonomy and complexity of cyber-operations.
Other papers of the special issue in Contemporary Security Policy include:
- Florian J. Egloff (2019), external pageContested public attributions of cyber incidents and the role of academia, Contemporary Security Policy
- Clare Stevens (2019), external pageAssembling cybersecurity: The politics and materiality of technical malware reports and the case of Stuxnet, Contemporary Security Policy
- Ilina Georgieva (2019), external pageThe unexpected norm-setters: Intelligence agencies in cyberspace, Contemporary Security Policy
- Leonie Maria Tanczer (2019), external page50 shades of hacking: How IT and cybersecurity industry actors perceive good, bad, and former hackers, Contemporary Security Policy
- James Shires (2019), external pageCyber-noir: Cybersecurity and popular culture, Contemporary Security Policy