Managing Interdependence in the Digital Age

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The global information age promised to bring together states and people across borders to create an open system with the rapid and inexpensive exchange of information and ideas. Over the past twenty years, information communications technologies have enabled trillions of dollars in economic activity and brought millions out of poverty. At the same time, the internet has become a battlefield where states attempt to coerce one another and their citizens, and malicious actors seek to profit from illicit activity. The digital infrastructure interacts with the international system as data moves across national borders. States have begun to assert themselves by placing barriers to exchange, develop capacity and diffuse norms, and reassess whether the internet is the liberalizing force it once was. How has digital interdependence created political and cooperation challenges, and what implications do those have for foreign policy, the global economy, international relations?

This panel brings together four papers that significantly advance our understanding of international relations in the digital age. Simmons and Hulvey address whether borders, which have been a fundamental part of state sovereignty and international affairs since the beginning of the state system, continue to make sense as digital infrastructures link countries. Their liberal theory of cyber borders shows how territorial thinking translates over to digital ecosystems. Kerr builds on the recent authoritarian turn in internet censorship to examine the future of democracy promotion through an open internet. Competition between political actors has resulted in changes to America’s role as an internet promoter. Oppenheimer demonstrates how increasing digital interdependence leads to incentives to capacity build in developing states. He shows how capacity building both policy adoption and influences institutions in developing states, increasing autonomy for technical bureaucracies. Finally, Sun investigates the impact of cross-border data restrictions on economic activity, rather than digital repression, showing how these restrictions create winners and losers in the global economy.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Cosponsor

• Division 40: Information Technology, & Politics

Individual Presentations

• A Liberal Theory of Cyber Borders - Beth A. Simmons, University of Pennsylvania; Rachel A Hulvey, University of Pennsylvania

• The Internet Freedom Agenda and Complex Interdependence in Cyberspace - Jaclyn Kerr, Harvard University

• Developing Digital Capacity: How and Why Foreign Assistance Shapes Institutions - Harry Oppenheimer, Harvard University

• Information Flow Restrictions as Unintended Industrial Policy: Evidence from China - Meicen Sun, MIT

Chair

• Beth A. Simmons University of Pennsylvania

Discussants

• Daniel W. Drezner Tufts University

• Daniel H. Nexon Georgetown University