The Effect of Domestic Politics on a Country’s Choice to Go “Cyber”

• In Event: Diffusion of Military Innovation: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

Public demand for protection from cyber threats motivates governments to implement observable cyber measures, in the form of institutional changes. Unable to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures due to the secrecy associated with national security issues and the public’s lack of understanding of cybersecurity, the public perceives this institutional change as a satisfactory sign of governmental work. However, nations with significant cyber capabilities, including a country’s adversaries, will be able to recognize this cheap talk and will continue attacking the nation fearing no retaliation. Using a pre-registered field experiment with survey outcomes, conducted on a sample of the Ukrainian population, I explore whether, in societies with low cyber capabilities like Ukraine, citizens view observable institutional changes as a satisfactory sign of cyber protection. This paper also studies the reaction of the Ukrainian elite to the population’s desires and how the elite evaluates the effectiveness of such observable measures in warding off the country’s adversaries. The paper concludes by showing the discrepancy between the desired and actual effects of observable cyber protection measures.

Author

• Nadiya Kostyuk, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor