(iPoster) Decoding Norm Contestation: Computational Analysis of US-China Cyber Sovereignty

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy I

Abstract

The contestation over cyber sovereignty represents a deep ideological struggle over norms of global governance. Unlike in many other domains, China has positioned itself as a norm entrepreneur, while the US has adopted an anti-norm entrepreneur strategy. This paper explores the interplay between these normative forces through the lens of the World Internet Conference (WIC), a pivotal platform for China to promote cyber sovereignty. The research integrates the theoretical frameworks of norm entrepreneurship and anti-norm entrepreneurship to analyze how these competing visions of internet governance are constructed and contested.

The paper applies Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to analyze a rich corpus of text data, including Chinese official documents, media coverage of the WIC, and US media, think tank, and official discourse. NLP methods such as topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and temporal analysis reveal the mechanisms through which China advances its cyber sovereignty narrative and the US counters with oppositional framing. The findings highlight China's strategic use of normative alignment with the Global South, and the efforts of the United States to delegitimize cyber sovereignty in the context of global Internet governance.

This paper combines theoretical insights with computational methods to provide a novel approach to understanding norm contestation in international relations. It contributes to rethinking how norms are shaped, resisted, and redefined in the digital age and provides theoretical and methodological advancements for the study of global governance in times of crisis.

Author

• Grace X. Yang, Freie Universität Berlin