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Despite the pervasiveness of the Internet and its importance to a wide range of state functions, we still have little understanding of its implications in the context of International Relations. Combining the Philosophy of Technology with IR theories of power, this study explores state power in the information age.
This book examines the internet as a form of power in global politics. Focusing on the United States' internet foreign policy, McCarthy combines analyses of global material culture and international relation theory, to reconsider how technology is understood as a form of social power.
Despite the pervasiveness of the Internet and its importance to a wide range of state functions, we still have little understanding of the implications of this technology for power in the context of International Relations. The Internet has led to a power paradox which forms the central 'puzzle' of this research project. President Obama has described as "the great irony of our Information Age" the fact that those states which have most successfully adopted and exploited the opportunities afforded by the Internet are also most vulnerable to the threats which accompany it. Power enhancing outcomes such as economic growth, and public diplomacy have to be balanced against the theft of intellectual property and attacks on critical infrastructure. No previous technology has been regarded concurrently as a source of power and vulnerability in quite the way that the Internet has. Existing International Relations theories of power, developed in the context of industrial technology, have struggled to incorporate the complexities of the Internet. For much of the 20th century, scholars of International Relations have regarded technology as a constitutive and material element of state power. An understanding of technology as an exogenous factor which impacts upon power and produces universal effects regardless of political context is a conception which misses as much as it reveals in the analysis of power in the information age. This thesis combines the Philosophy of Technology with theories about power from International Relations in order to build a conceptual framework for the study of state power in the information age. It utilises this framework for the study of how conceptions of US power have shaped and influenced three aspects of Internet technology; cyber security, Internet governance and network neutrality. In doing so, the study produces a set of findings which contribute some forward momentum to the stalled debates in International Relations about whether the Internet enhances state power more than it undermines it. The thesis clearly demonstrates that political decisions about technology have directly and profoundly influenced the way the Internet has developed that they have ongoing implications for how the power to control information is distributed. In addition, it was found that US politicians engage with multiple conceptions of power when they debate Internet technology. These conceptions of power can lead to contradictory policy implications and when they do, the decisions that politicians make about whether to privilege material power or social power lead to insights about how they expect US power to function in the information age. Finally, authority and legitimacy were found to be important factors in the exercise of power in this context but significantly, a sense of political authority was often absent in debates about Internet technology policy. These findings underscore the arguments running through this thesis. First, that the implications of the Internet for state power cannot be understood without deeply engaging in the political context in which they are situated and second, that the relationship between power and information technology differs qualitatively from the relationship between power and industrial technology.
This thesis examines the place of information communications technology (ICT) as a form of power in International Relations (IR) theory. Through an examination of the dominant approaches to ICTs in IR I outline the need to introduce a concept of technological power which can account for agency and culture in the process of technological design and development. Turning towards the critical theory of technology of Andrew Feenberg, the thesis argues that conceptualizing technology as biased but ambivalent provides the space within which agency may be considered alongside the structuring characteristics of technology to provide a more theoretically balanced and analytically productive account of the politics of technology. Building upon this foundation, the thesis outlines ICTs as a form of institutional power in international politics, acting upon agents at a distance in both space and time. This form of power is enmeshed in, and supported by, structural power relations and the interrelated discursive and ideological forms of power which maintain these structures. I examine the utility of these concepts through an extending empirical illustration of the role of the Internet in American Foreign Policy. This analysis argues that the Internet, as a product of American technological development, expresses a bias towards liberal capitalist values which forces other states to either alter their social practices or enact costly filtering regimes. The open networks of the Internet thereby facilitate the pursuit of an Open Door foreign policy by the United States government. Accounting for the technologically embedded cultural norms of the Internet casts a different light upon the nature of power in international relations, and requires that we take the constitution of an global material culture into account in our theories of international relations.
This book examines the internet as a form of power in global politics. Focusing on the United States' internet foreign policy, McCarthy combines analyses of global material culture and international relation theory, to reconsider how technology is understood as a form of social power.
One of the most brilliant and influential international relations scholars of his generation, Joseph S. Nye Jr. is one of the few academics to have served at the very highest levels of US government. This volume collects together many of his key writings for the first time as well as new material, and an important concluding essay which examines the relevance of international relations in practical policymaking. This book addresses: * America's post-Cold War role in international affairs * the ethics of foreign policy * the information revolution * terrorism.
An examination of the ways cyberspace is changing both the theory and the practice of international relations.
A foundational analysis of the co-evolution of the internet and international relations, examining resultant challenges for individuals, organizations, firms, and states. In our increasingly digital world, data flows define the international landscape as much as the flow of materials and people. How is cyberspace shaping international relations, and how are international relations shaping cyberspace? In this book, Nazli Choucri and David D. Clark offer a foundational analysis of the co-evolution of cyberspace (with the internet as its core) and international relations, examining resultant challenges for individuals, organizations, and states. The authors examine the pervasiveness of power and politics in the digital realm, finding that the internet is evolving much faster than the tools for regulating it. This creates a “co-evolution dilemma”—a new reality in which digital interactions have enabled weaker actors to influence or threaten stronger actors, including the traditional state powers. Choucri and Clark develop a new method for addressing control in the internet age, “control point analysis,” and apply it to a variety of situations, including major actors in the international and digital realms: the United States, China, and Google. In doing so they lay the groundwork for a new international relations theory that reflects the reality in which we live—one in which the international and digital realms are inextricably linked and evolving together.
Power and Authority in Internet Governance investigates the hotly contested role of the state in today's digital society. The book asks: Is the state "back" in internet regulation? If so, what forms are state involvement taking, and with what consequences for the future? The volume includes case studies from across the world and addresses a wide range of issues regarding internet infrastructure, data and content. The book pushes the debate beyond a simplistic dichotomy between liberalism and authoritarianism in order to consider also greater state involvement based on values of democracy and human rights. Seeing internet governance as a complex arena where power is contested among diverse non-state and state actors across local, national, regional and global scales, the book offers a critical and nuanced discussion of how the internet is governed – and how it should be governed. Power and Authority in Internet Governance provides an important resource for researchers across international relations, global governance, science and technology studies and law as well as policymakers and analysts concerned with regulating the global internet.
Exploring how changes in advanced technology deeply affect international politics, this book theoretically engages with the overriding relevance of investments in technological research, and the ways in which they directly foster a country’s economic and military standing. Scholars and practitioners present important insights on the technical and social issues at the core of technology competition.