Cyberpolitics in International Relations

By Nazli Choucri

Overview

Cyberspace is widely acknowledged as a fundamental fact of daily life in today’s world. Until recently, its political impact was thought to be a matter of low politics—background conditions and routine processes and decisions. Now, however, experts have begun to recognize its effect on high politics—national security, core institutions, and critical decision processes. In this book, Nazli Choucri investigates the implications of this new cyberpolitical reality for international relations theory, policy, and practice.

The ubiquity, fluidity, and anonymity of cyberspace have already challenged such concepts as leverage and influence, national security and diplomacy, and borders and boundaries in the traditionally state-centric arena of international relations. Choucri grapples with fundamental questions of how we can take explicit account of cyberspace in the analysis of world politics and how we can integrate the traditional international system with its cyber venues. 

After establishing the theoretical and empirical terrain, Choucri examines modes of cyber conflict and cyber cooperation in international relations; the potential for the gradual convergence of cyberspace and sustainability, in both substantive and policy terms; and the emergent synergy of cyberspace and international efforts toward sustainable development. Choucri’s discussion is theoretically driven and empirically grounded, drawing on recent data and analyzing the dynamics of cyberpolitics at individual, state, international, and global levels.

About the Author

Nazli Choucri is Professor of Political Science at MIT, and Associate Director of MIT’s Technology and Development Program, and Director of GSSD (Global System for Sustainable Development). She is the author or editor of many books, including Global Accord: Environmental Challenges and International Responses (MIT Press, 1993) and Mapping Sustainability: Knowledge e-Networking and the Value Chain.

Endorsements

“In 1990, only a quarter of a million people used the Internet; today a third of the world population is connected and the growth is exponential. Our understanding of the implications for international relations struggles to keep up. In this original work, Nazli Choucri uses her lateral pressure theory to shed light on this dramatic change.”
—Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University; author of The Future of Power

“This book is an imaginative, skillful integration of the key concerns of international relations and the burgeoning scholarship on new communication technologies. Nazli Choucri argues convincingly that understanding international politics must now take into account the great changes in global communication of the past two decades. A timely and refreshing book, and one that reveals how digital media are reconfiguring many of the classic themes of international relations theory.”
—Andrew Chadwick, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the New Political Communication Unit in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London

“The global communications system is becoming more complex and of more strategic importance for international politics. Cyber security issues have vaulted to the top of the international security agenda. Now more than ever it is important for scholars of world politics to address the international relations implications of cyberspace. Cyberpolitics in International Relations is an important contribution to that pressing need, and should be widely read by scholars of world politics.”
—Ronald Deibert, Director of the Citizen Lab and Canada Centre for Global Security Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto

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