Global Cybersecurity Problematisation : Tracking relations of power within cybersecurity practices

Egbobamwonyi-Bedaux, Jasper and Follis, Luca and Yar, Majid (2024) Global Cybersecurity Problematisation : Tracking relations of power within cybersecurity practices. PhD thesis, Law School.

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Abstract

Focusing on the constitution of cybersecurity as a problem space, this study applies empirical data to test social and political theories against cybersecurity discourses and practices. In particular, those of developed states security apparatuses. It employs data to analyse the relationship between poorer developing states and their wealthier developed counterparts in the context of development (digital divide, capacity building and other efforts designed to respond to such divide), and the challenges of cybersecurity. To do this, the problematisation of cybersecurity is explored through an examination of the role of the United Kingdom (UK) and other Western states and institutions. This role is interrogated within projects delivered through initiatives such as the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiatives (CCI), and other similar initiatives, delivered by such bodies as the Commonwealth Telecommunication Union (CTU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), amongst others. The delivery of such projects in three developing Commonwealth states of Ghana, Botswana and Trinidad and Tobago are case studied. Data is collected and analysed against theoretical concepts of modernisation, dependency and governmentality, to understand the relationship between security, law, language or discourse and development. The aim is to provide new insights into forms of ‘governing’ that exist through such practices, and their impact on the development of social, political and legal frameworks in such weaker economies. Thus, the study synthesises the question of how these security discourses and practices shape the formation of certain knowledge as “truth”, and allow continued dependence of the less resourced developing states on such knowledge. In doing so, it tracks the objectives and effects of power to reveal certain knowledges, techniques or strategies which render cybersecurity intelligible, and normalises its perception as a legitimate problem for global policy and legal concern.