The Cyberspace and IR – Conceptual and Theoretical Considerations

Abstract

Although the emergence and ever increasing diffusion of the cyberspace have most obviously significant implications for international politics, global economic activity and transnational social relations, there is still a cloudy spot in research in terms of addressing these implications on a conceptual and theoretical level. Therefore, this panel is designed, to bring together contributions that present their considerations on how to conceptually and theoretically explain the relationship of the cyberspace and international relations, to foster the academic debate in this regard. This goal will be achieved by bringing together papers that present approaches and frameworks that either deal with the general relation of IR and the cyberspace, or develop theoretical approaches to explain the dynamics of this relation in specific fields of activity (like cyber security, cyber warfare, diffusion of information and knowledge through the cyberspace, interconnectedness of economic and social activities through the cyberspace and so forth). Hence this panel aims at bringing together conceptual and theoretical papers on the relation of the cyberspace and IR (in terms of actors, spaces, fields of activity etc.), to foster and boost our understanding of the consequences and implications of the process of “cyberization” for states’ security, power positioning, interest achievement, diplomatic activity, commercial relations etc., as well as for economic and civil actors that are also affected by the “cyberization“ of IR. Here, “cyberization” of IR refers to the ongoing penetration of all different fields of activity of international relations by different mediums of the cyberspace on the one hand, and the growing dependence of actors in IR on infrastructure, instruments, and means offered by the cyberspace on the other hand.

Title	Details
Phreak the Speak: The Flawed Communications within Cyber Intelligentsia	View Paper Details
Hierarchies in Networks – Emerging Hybrids of Networks and Hierarchies for Producing Internet Security	View Paper Details
The Original Battletrolls: Why and How States Frame the Internet as a Violent Place	View Paper Details