Centre Visiting Research Fellow Paul Timmers' article on "The European Union’s Cybersecurity Industrial Policy" has been published in the Journal of Cyber Policy.

Abstract

In an era of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks with the potential to have crippling effects on all of our lives, it is wise to educate and train an adequate number of cybersecurity professionals who are able to fend off cyber-attacks. But iss there a worldwide cybersecurity skills shortage? What policies have governments put in place to mitigate it? Centre Research Affiliate Tommaso de Zan's report summarizes a year-long exploratory research on the cybersecurity skills shortage.

Centre Research Affiliate, Robert Gorwa, has published a new article in Information, Communication & Society on the political influence of social media organisations.

Abstract:

While the ‘critical citizens’ literature shows that publics often evaluate democracies negatively, much less is known about ‘critical parties’, especially mainstream ones. This article develops a model to explain empirical variation in parties’ evaluations of democratic institutions, based on two mechanisms: first, that parties’ regime access affects their regime support, which, secondly, is moderated by over-time habituation to democracy.

Does International Humanitarian Law (IHL) impose a duty of care on the attacker? From a moral point of view, should it? This article argues that the legal situation is contestable, and the moral value of a legal duty of care in attack is ambivalent. This is because a duty of care is both a condition for and an obstacle to the ‘individualization of war’. The individualization of war denotes an observable multi-dimensional norm shift in international relations.

Political earthquakes—both real and perceived—are trembling through Britain. In the 2015 general election, the Scottish National party and the UK Independence party mounted successful challenges from the periphery. In the 2016 referendum on EU membership, the Vote Leave campaign captured a surprising number of votes from both sides of the traditional political divide.