2020/11/13 by Jukka Ruohonen, Ruohonen, Jukka
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Computers and Society (cs.CY) #Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies #European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Information and Cyber Security
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2011.07212
openalex publication_date 2020/11/13 · openalex created_date 2022/10/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper explores a research question about whether defensive and offensive\ncyber security power and the capabilities to exercise the power influence the\nincentives of nation-states to participate in bilateral and multilateral\ncooperation (BMC) through formal and informal agreements, alliances, and norms.\nDrawing from international relations in general and structural realism in\nparticular, three hypotheses are presented for assessing the research question\nempirically: (i) increasing cyber capability lessens the incentives for BMC;\n(ii) actively demonstrating and exerting cyber power decreases the willingness\nfor BMC; and (iii) small states prefer BMC for cyber security and politics\nthereto. According to a cross-country dataset of 29 countries, all three\nhypotheses are rejected. Although presenting a "negative result" with respect\nto the research question, the accompanying discussion contributes to the\nstate-centric cyber security research in international relations and political\nscience.\n