Foto: NTB Scanpix

Digital sovereignty and autonomy (GAIA)

2019 - 2022 (Pågående) Prosjektnummer: 22520-1
Forskningsprosjekt
NUPI in collaboration with Simula Research Lab will map global data flows and their impact on national autonomy and sovereignty.

Cyberspace is increasingly distributed thanks to recent advances in cloud computing and higher network capacities. An online service is now a collection of macro-services that are hosted at diverse geographic locations that may be under different jurisdictions. A closer look reveals that services which most nations rely on are not contained within the respective national borders. Examples include services such as Facebook, Google, Whatsapp and PayPal, as well as infrastructures such as DNS, and authentication micro-services that are critical to national services including public services, health and online banking. As these digital services frequently cross boundaries and function globally, technological change undermine and challenge national autonomy and sovereignty. This is seen reflected at the political level, with an increasing number of states invoking the need for national autonomy to impose tighter controls on service placement and Internet connectivity. 

Extant research in social science is too heavily focused on the policy side, on strategies and securitization discourses, paying too little attention to the interplay with the technical facet of the Internet. Based on the mapping of digital pathways NUPI will examine how cyber infrastructure augments and undermines national capacity to act, and may challenge national autonomy. NUPI will compare the changing technological realities with existing political assumptions and initiatives through case studies of Norway, Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands. 

Furthermore, we will explore the implications of such recent digital developments on international governance. From the policy perspective, we will investigate whether the digitalized world order leads to more interdependence between states or whether it leads to a higher degree of mistrust in international politics. Our hypothesis is that it leads to both. More specifically, we will study cyber governance and the role of international organizations, NGOs and enterprises. The emergence of new arenas, informal networks, conferences, and multi-stakeholder initiatives, enterprises and NGOs indicates a reduced relevance of organizations like the UN and WTO. The rise of informal structures at the expense of the UN and international organizations is not confined to the digital domain (e.g. G20 ++) but represents a global trend towards power shift to informal arenas with more selective representations, fewer commitments, less legality and authority, but potentially more efficiency.

Program

Prosjektet er finansiert av Norges forskningsråd under forskningsprogrammet IKTPLUSS

Artikler

News

Cybersikkerhet – bør du bekymre deg?

May 31, 2019

Hva er det egentlig vi mener når vi snakker om cybersikkerhet?

News
Bildet viser SimulaMet-direktør Olav Lysne (t.v.), NUPI-forsker Karsten Friis og sikkerhetssjef i Huawei Norge, Tore Larsen Orderlykken

Podkast: Huawei - en risiko eller ikke?

March 7, 2019

NUPI og SimulaMet inviterte sikkerhetssjefen i Huawei Norge til debatt om cybersikkerhet.

News

Prestisjefylt prosjekt til NUPI – skal se på digitalisering og den moderne verdensorden

October 26, 2018

Et nytt banebrytende, tverrfaglig prosjekt skal se på hvilke sårbarheter som finnes på internett, og hva de politiske følgene er av disse nye utfordringene.

Publikasjoner

Publication : Academic article

Hacking democracy: managing influence campaigns and disinformation in the digital age

2020
How are states responding to the threat of using digital technologies to subvert democratic processes? Protecting political and democratic processes from ...
Publication : Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

The role of the UN Security Council in cybersecurity: international peace and security in the digital age

2020
At the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the UN Security Council is faced with difficult questions about its efficacy, relevance and legitimacy. ...
Publication

Critical communication infrastructures and Huawei

2019
Recently, there have been growing cyber-safety concerns over telecom equipment made by the Chinese vendor Huawei. This has led many countries to ban Huawei ...
Publication : NUPI Report

The Politics of Stability: Cement and Change in Cyber Affairs

2019
In November 2018, the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, inaugurated one year earlier ‘to develop proposals for norms and policies to enhance ...
Publication : NUPI Policy Brief

Forebygging av krig og konflikt i cyberdomenet

2019
Cyberdomenet representerer kanskje en av vår tids største trusler mot internasjonal fred og sikkerhet men er viet lite oppmerksomhet hva gjelder forebygging ...

Prosjektleder

Niels Nagelhus Schia

Seniorforsker, leder for Forskningsgruppen for sikkerhet og forsvar og leder for NUPIs senter for forskning på ny teknologi

 

Temaer
Cyber  Sikkerhetspolitikk  Styring  Internasjonale organisasjoner  Diplomati
Deltakere
Arrangementer
søn. 2 jun. 2019
Event
Time: 12:00 Europe/Oslo
Location: NUPI

Lunsjseminar: Krig, fred og alliansar i cyberspace

Kva er cyberoperasjoner? Korleis skilje konfliktar i cyberspace seg frå fysiske konfliktar? Og kva forskjellar og likskapar kan ein finne mellom cyberoperasjoner og informasjonskrigføring?

tor. 2 mai 2019
Event
Time: 09:00 Europe/Oslo
Location: NUPI

Frukostseminar: Kva skal vi gjere med cybertrusler?

Michael Sulmeyer, direktør for Belfer Center's Cyber Project, kjem til NUPI for å diskutere cybertryggleik og internasjonal politikk.

tir. 5 feb. 2019
Event
Time: 09:00 Europe/Oslo
Location: NUPI

Kinesisk cybertryggleik og konsekvensar for Europa

Kinesiske teknogigantar er i aukande grad synleg og etablerte på den europeiske marknaden. Er vi klare for alt det inneber?