CYBER SPACE
Cyberspace
is a fact of daily life. Because of its ubiquitous nature and vast scale and
scope, cyberspace including the Internet and the hundreds of millions of
computers the Internet connects, the institutions that enable it, and the experiences
it enables has become a fundamental feature of the world we live in and has
created a new reality for almost everyone in the developed world and for
rapidly growing numbers of people in the developing world.
Until recently, cyberspace was considered
largely a matter of low politics a term used to denote background conditions
and routine decisions and processes. By contrast, the matters of interest in
high politics have to do with national security, core institutions, and
decision systems critical to the state, its interests, and its underlying
values.
Nationalism,
Political participation, political
contentions, conflict, violence, and war are among the common concerns of high
politics. But low politics do not always remain below the surface. If the
cumulative effects of normal activities shift the established dynamics of
interaction, then the seemingly routine can move to the forefront of political
attention.
When this
happens, it can propel the submerged features into the political limelight.
In recent
years, issues connected to cyberspace and its uses have vaulted into the
highest realm of high politics. We now appreciate that cyberspace capabilities
are also a source of vulnerability, posing a potential threat to national
security and a disturbance of the familiar international order.
The
global,
Often non
transparent interconnections afforded by cyberspace have challenged the
traditional understanding of leverage and influence, international relations
and power politics, national security, borders, and boundaries as well as a
host of other concepts and their corresponding realities.
Many features of cyberspace are reshaping
contemporary international relations theory, policy, and practice. Those
related to time, space, permeation, fluidity, participation, attribution,
accountability, and ubiquity are the most serious variance with our common
understanding of social reality and with contemporary understandings of
international relations. Jointly, they signal a powerful disconnect.
Cyber
politics,
A
recently coined term, refers to the conjunction of two processes or realities
those pertaining to human interactions (politics) surrounding the determination
of who gets what, when, and how and those enabled by the uses of a virtual
space (cyber) as a new arena of contention with its own modalities and
realities. Despite differences in perspectives worldwide, there is a general
scholarly understanding of the meaning of “politics.” It is the complexity
attending the prefix cyber that distinguishes this newly constructed semantic.
This
enables to ask several questions. How can we take explicit account of
cyberspace in the analysis of international relations and world politics? What
are the notable patterns of cyber access and participation worldwide? What new
types of international conflicts and contentions arise from activities in
cyberspace? What are the new modes of international collaboration? What are
alternative cyber futures? In sum, how do we address the new imperatives for
international relations theory that emerge from the construction of cyberspace?
Historically,
the social sciences were formed into disciplines by first separating humans
from nature and then separating various aspects of human activities for
knowledge development. This strategy allowed detailed and focused inquiry into
one sphere of human activity while ignoring others, a practice that contributed
to the rapid advance of knowledge. Empirical evidence subsequently compelled us
to expand beyond discrete areas to appreciate society-nature connections. In
recent years, we have also become increasingly cognizant of the importance of
multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.
BY
JOHN CAFRENE
BAPRM 42567
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