Event Date: November 26, 2018 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
Location: Social Science Building , 120 University Private, FSS 4006
Presented by CIPS and the International Theory Network
The protection of intellectual property rights is a centralpillar of the United States national cybersecurity policies. US policy stresses the need to protect intellectual property rights in order to ensure America’s continued global economic and military predominance. Innovation, in this account, underpins high rates of economic growth and enables the development of cutting edge military technologies. This aspect of US policy suggests that the classic view of innovation as articulated in security studies is correct: technological innovation is driven by inter-state competition, serving as the foundation of economic and military power. However, a closer examination of American cybersecurity policy reveals that technological innovation is not merely a means to the end of US national security. Instead, the security of technological innovation is central to the security of the American way of life. Securing innovation secures high economic growth rates, democratic stability, and, ultimately, the socio-technical foundations of American national identity.
Daniel R. McCarthy is a Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne. His research focuses on technology as a form of power in global politics, with a specific interest in information technology and American foreign policy, and on the politics of transparency in international relations. He is the editor of Technology and World Politics: An Introduction (Routledge 2017) and author of Power, Information Technology, and International Relations Theory: The power and politics of American foreign policy and the Internet (Palgrave 2015).