Conflicts, Crimes and Regulations in Cyberspace. Группа авторов

each asked to provide a clear definition of what they meant by cyberspace in their text. This is, of course, important since, in this field, diversity prevails; thus, in 2018, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCD COE) in Tallinn identified 29 definitions of cyberspace (Bigelow 2018). We have chosen to adopt the 2006 US definition from the National Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations since it seems neutral: “[...] an operational domain characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to create, store, modify and exchange information via networked information systems and associated physical infrastructures”⁵. The authors gathered here, whether jurists or political scientists, also adhere to the perspective of studying the cyberspace object as a sociotechnical system, that is to say, as a set of social units in dynamic interactions, organized around information and communication technologies, which orientates toward science and technology studies (STS)⁶.

Finally, this book is clearly part of an internationalist perspective⁷, since its authors believe that the study of cyberspace cannot be confined to the limits of a single country, due to the distributed nature of the system structuring cyberspace and the constant mobility of data. This observation does not, however, invalidate the possibility of studying public cyber policies (see Chapter 2). Adopting this international approach, we make it clear that we will not revisit the theoretical debate on whether cyberspace is a component of the international system or whether it constitutes its own autonomous system⁸. In the research paradigm that we have described, we here highlight international cyberspace issues (see Chapters 1 and 8) as well as two countries, the United States (see Chapters 1, 2, 6 and 9) and France (see Chapters 3, 5 and 8). The diversity of cyber actors – state, non-state and individual – is evoked in every chapter of the book, but the chosen approach highlights the first two.

Conflicts, Crimes and Regulations in Cyberspace focuses, on the one hand, on the actors of cyber states, also known as cyber bureaucracies, in Chapters 2, 8 and 9, and, on the other hand, on the tools of cyber states, namely, norms (national and international law), in Chapters 4, 5 and 7, as well as the strategic concepts used by the different actors (cybersecurity, cyberdefense and digital sovereignty⁹). Our approach here is therefore that of the “meso-” level, which is rare, as international approaches to cyber in the academic literature of the Anglosphere rather tend to take into account “macro-” entities (states, international organizations, etc.). Thus, this book intends to contribute to the global academic debate on cyber issues.

References

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      Bigelow, B. (2018). The topography of cyberspace and its consequences for operations. 10th International Conference on Cyber Conflict. NATO CCD COE Publications, Tallinn.

      Calvo, A. (2014). Cyberwar is war: A critique of “hacking can reduce real-world violence”. Small Wars Journal, June [Online]. Available at: www.smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/cyberwar-is-war [Accessed 18 June 2020].

      Cavelty, M.D. (2018). Cybersecurity research meets science and technology studies. Politics and Governance, 6(2), 22–30.

      Gartzke, E. (2013). The myth of cyberwar: Bringing war in cyberspace back down to earth. International Security, 38(2), 41–73.

      Gorwa, R. and Smeets, M. (2019). Cyber Conflict in Political Science: A Review of Methods and Literature. ISA, Toronto.

Kuehl, D.T. (2009). From cyberspace to cyberpower: Defining the problem. In Cyberpower and National Security, Kramer, F.D., Starr, S.H., Wentz, L. (eds). National Defense University Press, Washington.

      Laurent, S.-Y. (2021). Ce que le cyber (ne) fait (pas) aux relations internationales. Études Internationales.

      Loiseau, H. and Waldispuehl, E. (2017). Cyberespace et science politique, de la méthode au terrain, du virtuel au réel. Presses de l’Université de Québec, Quebec City.

      Loiseau, H., Ventre, D., Aden, H. (2021). Cybersecurity in Humanities and Social Sciences: A Research Methods Approach. ISTE Ltd, London, and Wiley, New York.

      Musso, R.P. (2010). Le Web : nouveau territoire et vieux concepts. Annales des Mines. Réalités industrielles, 4, 75–83.

      Reardon, R. and Choucri, N. (2012). The Role of Cyberspace in International Relations: A View of the Literature. ISA, San Diego.

      Türk, P. and Vallar, C. (2017). La Souveraineté numérique. Le concept, les enjeux. Mare & Martin, Paris.

      Valeriano, B. and Maness, R.C. (2018). How we stopped worrying about cyber doom and started collecting data. Politics and Governance, 6(5), 781–799.

      1 Introduction written by Sébastien-Yves LAURENT.

      2 1 See Musso (2010).

      3 2 This makes it all the more important to highlight the role of pioneers Loiseau and Waldispuehl (2017) and Loiseau et al. (2021).

      4 3 For context in the literature, see Gorwa and Smeets (2019).

      5 4 The coordinator also wishes to thank Michel Courty for his work in structuring the manuscript.

      6 5 Quoted by Kuehl (2009).

      7 6 See two particularly successful examples, Balzacq and Cavelty (2016) and Cavelty (2018).

      8 7 See Reardon and Choucri (2012).

      9 8 See Laurent (2021).

      10 9 See Turk and Vallar (2017).