The debate about cyber-security in political science and international relations has been very visible among policy elites. Policy-makers and their advisers read Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. However, political and social scientists often do not appreciate the technical details of network breaches, or security setups in critical infrastructure and industrial plants.
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Most political scientists also lack the technical skills to call out poor- quality company reports or government documents. Instead, too many scholars seem happy to engage in self-referential theoretical debates of little relevance to anybody else – for instance, on the ‘securitisation’ of cyber-security.
Robert M. Lee and Thomas Rid. (2014). “OMG Cyber!: Thirteen Reasons Why Hype Makes for Bad Policy,” The RUSI Journal 169(5).
I cannot overstate how emphatically I agree with this general assessment of political science analyses of digital security issues.
Excited Pixels 