Arrangement

The Norwegian Institute of International Affairs has the pleasure of inviting you to the theory seminar:

Theorizing cybersecurity

Myriam Dunn Cavelty, lecturer and senior research fellow, Center for Security Studies (CSS)

This article shows how key concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) can serve as a heuristic for understanding the multifaceted political expressions and effects of cyber-security. We suggest that cyber-security is a derivative of mediators that are put into circulation: computer malware. What makes malware analytically noteworthy is that they are not co-extensive with one single space (the network) as cyber-security analysts often assume. Instead, malware manifests itself within, and at the same time performs, different overlapping topologies (regions, networks, and fluids). This finding implies that policy circles need to pay more attention to the multiple characters of cyberspaces, which can trigger different kinds of interventions.

Cavelty's research focuses on the politics of risk and uncertainty in security politics and changing conceptions of (inter-)national security due to cyber issues (cyber-security, cyber-war, critical infrastructure protection) in specific. [More]

Program 09:30–11:00:

Myriam Dunn Cavelty: Theorizing cybersecurity

Q&A