In the SAIS Review: Challenges & Opportunities of a Networked World
The current (summer-fall) issue of the SAIS Review focuses on the impact of technological innovation on international affairs, with a number of great authors and thinkers looking at the issue from a variety of angles. From the issue's forward:
This issue was first conceived as an examination of the impact of technological innovation on international affairs. In the wake of the Iranian "Twitter Revolution" and the creation of a U.S. Cyber Command, it became clear that innovations in network technology were significant enough to be our sole focus. The substance of international relations-the manifold daily interactions, some cooperative, some conflictive among societies and states-are increasingly played out in a connected cyberspace. This development increasingly holds the potential to alter the dynamic of power within and among states.
It also presents policymakers with a host of new and complex challenges. On one level, individual societies are still grappling with the question of how to accommodate networks in their national lives. At the same time, how any individual society approaches the Internet has immediate foreign policy implications given the interconnectedness of today's world. In short, the rapid advance of technological innovation in the cyber realm has created a demand for equal innovation in the policy realm. This issue explores the policy implications of this remarkable technological milieu, shedding light on both the threats and opportunities of international relations in cyberspace.
Now, there is a certain irony in such content being placed behind a paywall, but such is the state of academic publishing. Perhaps you can get the student in your life to lend you their university login information.
It's worth it, with articles from Alec Ross on State's approach to internet freedom, Min Jiang on China's "internet sovereignty," Bruce Etling, Rob Faris, and John Palfrey on the "promise and fragility of online organizing," Patrick Meier and Rob Munro on the "potential of the Internet to facilitate political resistance and disaster response," Maja Andjelkovic on the potential for innovation-- particularly on mobile devices-- to drive growth in the developing world, and my friend Neil Shenai writing with Teryn Norris on the "long-term innovation potential of the Chinese and U.S. economies." Among others.
Lots of interesting stuff. Looking forward to diving into it all myself, and perhaps commenting here on Global Mobile.
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