Cyberdiplomacy

The world has been sleep-walking into cyber chaos. The spread of misinformation via social media and the theft of data and intellectual property, along with regular cyberattacks, threaten the fabric of modern societies. All the while, the Internet of Things increases the vulnerability of computer systems, including those controlling critical infrastructure. What can be done to tackle these problems? Does diplomacy offer ways of managing security and containing conflict online? In this provocative book, Shaun Riordan shows how traditional diplomatic skills and mindsets can be combined with new technologies to bring order and enhance international cooperation. He explains what cyberdiplomacy means for diplomats, foreign services and corporations and explores how it can be applied to issues such as internet governance, cybersecurity, cybercrime and information warfare. Cyberspace, he argues, is too important to leave to technicians. Using the vital tools offered by cyberdiplomacy, we can reduce the escalation and proliferation of cyberconflicts by proactively promoting negotiation and collaboration online.

This book explores collaborations between the European Union (EU) and the CELAC ( Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) in science diplomacy, as well as the related areas of cyberdiplomacy and techplomacy. It focuses on how interregional collaboration could strengthen societal resilience in both LAC and EU member countries and contribute to realising the SDGs and Agenda 2030 objectives. The book explores the history of EU relations with LAC, and provides a conceptual basis for science diplomacy, including cyberdiplomacy and techplomacy in the context of international relations and diplomacy studies. It highlights how COVID-19 has accelerated pre-existing trends in diplomacy in EU and LAC, forcing diplomats online and making them confront scientific and technical issues as core parts of foreign policy agendas and future pandemic preparedness. The book also examines the role of science diplomacy between these regions in relation to the climate change debate and reflects on whether the EU-LAC collaboration in science and R&D can be taken to a policy level. It provides suggestions on ways in which the CELAC and the EU could collaborate, both in promoting a ruled-based cyberspace and in strengthening digital resilience, and situates this collaboration in the broader geopolitical, scientific and technological environments. Authored by experts in this field, this highly topical book is of interest to a wide readership interested in diplomacy studies, public policy, international relations, regionalism, and S&T studies.

The world has been sleep-walking into cyber chaos. The spread of misinformation via social media and the theft of data and intellectual property, along with regular cyberattacks, threaten the fabric of modern societies. All the while, the Internet of Things increases the vulnerability of computer systems, including those controlling critical infrastructure. What can be done to tackle these problems? Does diplomacy offer ways of managing security and containing conflict online? In this provocative book, Shaun Riordan shows how traditional diplomatic skills and mindsets can be combined with new technologies to bring order and enhance international cooperation. He explains what cyberdiplomacy means for diplomats, foreign services and corporations and explores how it can be applied to issues such as internet governance, cybersecurity, cybercrime and information warfare. Cyberspace, he argues, is too important to leave to technicians. Using the vital tools offered by cyberdiplomacy, we can reduce the escalation and proliferation of cyberconflicts by proactively promoting negotiation and collaboration online.

Mass communications and advances in communications technology pose fundamental challenges to the traditional conduct of diplomacy by reducing hierarchy, promoting transparency, crowding out secrecy, mobilizing global social movements, and increasing the importance of public diplomacy in international relations. But the primary source of change, the force that acts as a common denominator and accelerates other changes, is communications and information technology (CIT). Where nations were once connected through foreign ministries and traders, they are now linked to millions of individuals by fibre optics, satellite, wireless, and cable in a complex network without central control. These trends have resulted in considerable speculation about the future of diplomacy. Contributors include Andrew F. Cooper (University of Waterloo), Ronald J. Deibert (University of Toronto), Eytan Gilboa (Holon Institute of Technology and Bar-Ilan University, Israel), Steven Livingston (George Washington University), Evan H. Potter (Universty of Ottawa), Gordon Smith (University of Victoria), Peter J. Smith (Athabasca University), Elizabeth Smythe (Concordia University College of Alberta), and Allen Sutherland (Government of Canada).

Potter (communications, U. of Ottawa), formerly a senior strategist in the Communications Bureau at the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), argues that advances in information technology will act as catalysts for forces of fragmentation and integration in the current international system. He presents seven contributions that explore the theoretical implications of the growth of information technologies and test their ideas on how the processes have manifested and the DFAIT. Also discussed are the ability of NGOs and social movements to use communication technologies to resist multilateral trade agreements, the impact of CNN and other global television phenomena, and the possibilities that governments can use information technologies to enhance their public diplomacy and their "soft power." Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The governance of the internet has gained a central role in global politics. International cooperation is increasingly mobilized to ensure that the expansion of connectivity infrastructure, digital services and their usages also safeguards security, human rights, and economic benefits. The field is truly transnational, including a vibrant stakeholder community that plays an active role in building sustainable ‘digital sovereignty’. Over the past decade, novel diplomatic practices have been adopted in negotiating technical standards, norms, regulations, and policies in the intersection of national and global priorities. This book defines this novel tool for diplomatic dialogue as Internet Diplomacy, a concept that entails the broad range of emerging international practices clustered around digital environments, including cybersecurity and internet governance. In broadening our view of diplomacy in the digital age, the book includes a comprehensive collection of contributions and cases addressing Internet Diplomacy. Collectively, it expands our understanding of transformations in international diplomacy and transnational digital governance, their drivers and their nature, their capacity to challenge power relations, and, ultimately, the values they carry and channel onto the global scene.

In 2017, retail e-commerce increased by nearly 25 percent while total retail sales-e-commerce and brick-and-mortar combined-grew just 6.3 percent. The trend and its message have been clear for years now. Those consumer retailers who want to survive, let alone prosper, are converting to digital sales as their customers give up the tedious drive to the local mall and instead reach for an iPad or smartphone and connect to retailers everywhere in the world. "The smart brick-and-mortar players," Forbes observed way back in 2012, "are adapting to the new realities. Take Macy's: The 154-year-old retail chain saw online sales rise 40% in 2011 while same-store sales grew just 5.3%. The company is transforming nearly 300 of its stores into distribution centers to speed up shipping for online consumers." And today more and more governments have taken a digital leaf from the e-commerce e book and have made earnest efforts to engage their citizens online. A few governments, such as that of Estonia-popularly known as "e-Stonia," because of its early embrace of the Internet- have been way ahead of the curve. That country votes online, its legislative bodies meet online, and most routine government business is conducted online. Other governments, like that of the United States, have experienced notable failures to use the Internet effectively. Think of the disastrous rollout Affordable Care Act back in 2013. Still others-uhh, Russia comes to mind- have weaponized social media for the purposes of disseminating disinformation and (mis)shaping elections in the United States and other Western democracies. This has profoundly redefined the meaning of "public diplomacy." That national governments, will, like "the smart brick-and-mortar" merchants, have no choice but to conduct more and more of their activities in cyberspace is hardly a prognostication worthy of Nostradamus. For better and for worse, it is happening now. The bolder and far more consequential move from physical space to cyberspace will come not on the national level but in the international arena. The Internet has made all borders, all boundaries, permeable. Additionally, it has tended to transform hierarchical and centralized power structures into networks of peer-to-peer interactivity. What has already taken place as the transformation of brick-and-mortar commerce into cyberspace as e-commerce is both preview of and prelude to an era in which traditional diplomacy be will supplanted by cyberdiplomacy. The Folded Paper is about the transformation, with all its promise and threat. It is a vision, a plan, and a call to action. It is about becoming a "smart player" on the global stage and catching up to a technology already proliferating. It is about mastering that technology technically, politically, and morally to reinvent diplomacy for a hyperconnected world. It is about cyberdiplomacy.

This encyclopedia provides an authoritative guide intended for students of all levels of studies, offering multidisciplinary insight and analysis of over 500 headwords covering the main concepts of Security and Non-traditional Security, and their relation to other scholarly fields and aspects of real-world issues in the contemporary geopolitical world.