Cyber security meets security politics: Complex technology, fragmented politics, and networked science

Abstract

In the last decade, cyber incidents have become more expensive, more disruptive, and in many cases more political, with a new body of theoretically informed research emerging in parallel. This article provides the intellectual history to situate this literature in its broader evolutionary context. After identifying and discussing six drivers from the fields of technology, politics, and science that have been influential in the evolution of cyber security politics and how it is studied, the authors describe three historically contingent clusters of research. Using the same driving factors to look into the future of research on cyber security politics, they conclude that it is a vibrant and diverse biotope that is benefitting from its interdisciplinarity, its relevance for policy, and its cognizance of the interplay between technological possibilities and political choices of state actors.