Mapping the Cybersecurity Governance Network: Network Control, Agendasetting, and Access of Transnational Actors

Cybersecurity governance is characterized by fragmentation, polycentricity, and decentralization. Within this networked configuration, transnational actors, alongside states and international organizations, play a central role in providing critical infrastructure, technical expertise, and normative standards. At the same time, rising geopolitical tensions and the complexity of negotiations have led to an increase in informal and bilateral formats of exchange, including multistakeholder initiatives, ambassadors’ retreats, capacity-building programs, and ad hoc bilateral meetings. As a result, key deliberations increasingly occur outside formal diplomatic venues. Thus, this paper asks how the structure of the cybersecurity governance network shapes the distribution of power and governance outcomes. Drawing on network research and network-theoretical approaches, this paper argues that informality does not flatten governance but instead reproduces hierarchical network structures, in which a small set of transnational actors occupy structural positions of disproportionate influence by controlling the network, setting the agenda, and accessing exclusive spheres. Using social network analysis, the paper maps the cybersecurity governance network based on 72 multistakeholder initiatives central to current cybersecurity governance, and identifies patterns of centrality, clustering, and connectivity. The findings show that powerful private-sector entities, which are also embedded in formal cybersecurity governance, consistently hold core network positions. At the same time, civil society actors from the Global South are confined mainly to the periphery. Moreover, the network structure reflects geopolitical fissures, amplifying divisions between dominant ‘like-minded’ and ‘other-minded’ state groupings and connected transnational actors. This paper contributes to the scholarship on transnational actors in cybersecurity governance by highlighting aspects of informality, power distribution, stratification, and broader geopolitics.