Datta, Ahana;
(2025)
A Political Economy of Digital Espionage. What are the dynamics of leverage in cyberspace, and who profits?
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
As an emerging multipolar international order advances strategic com- petition, cyberspace itself has transformed into a competition domain. To examine the dynamics of leverage in cyberspace, this thesis explores re- lationships of trust and power between public and private actors, such as nation-states, security researchers, technology platforms, and hacker groups. Using concepts from dynamic international political economy, the central conceptual framework captures the formation of trust-based relationships and how states use cooperation and coercive instruments, in particular, through digital espionage, to achieve strategic objectives and mobilise cyber power. The innovations in the framework outline a multi- level analysis of trust in technological, political, and economic information networks, where interdependence is weaponised as a result of both actor agency as well as constrained by the network structures in which they op- erate. In simulating dynamics proposed in the framework by means of a game- theoretic model, which captures long running relationships of collaboration and defection in networks, the thesis motivates a theory of cyber power based on dynamic power relations. Focusing on US-China strategic com- petition, with espionage taking a central role as a form of statecraft in cy- berspace, this thesis finds that great power cyber competition undermines trust in cyberspace. Drawing a link between volatile political behaviour and volatility in information networks, this thesis finds that a structurally volatile cyberspace, resulting from great power cooperative and coercive strategies, can undermine the ability to spy online.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | A Political Economy of Digital Espionage. What are the dynamics of leverage in cyberspace, and who profits? |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10207661 |
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