A syllabus for the new global politics

Clashing information orders and what they mean

After four (!) posts last week, I’m taking a break this week, while writing up something on “varieties of state capacity liberalism” for publication in the future. So here, in lieu of a proper post, is the syllabus for the class I am teaching this fall at Johns Hopkins SAIS on “Clashing Information Orders,” describing conflict between the US, China and the EU over information networks, AI and semiconductors. I’ve always thought that syllabi can be one of the most useful things that academics can provide, not just for other academics, but for people with a broad interest in some topic or another, who aren’t quite sure where to start.

NB that this syllabus has quite a lot of my own work with co-authors on it. That is not a statement about how important I think that work to be: it’s more to provide a continuing thread for students who want to get some sense of why the professor has put together the topics and issues of the course in a particular way, and ideally, to take issue with it! So caveat lector …

Course Description

Until very recently, we thought we had a pretty good sense of how global information politics worked.  Global information networks, the Internet and social media would make the world more liberal and more democratic. They would spread liberal politics and open debate from democratic regimes to non-democratic ones. People agreed that non-democratic regimes had some ways to protect themselves from open information networks. But they faced hard choices. Either they cut themselves off from global information flows, forgoing crucial economic opportunities, or they stayed connected, and risked having their governments undermined. In contrast, liberal democracies didn’t seem to face such tradeoffs. Because open information flows seemed to make the world more liberal, open information flows would not hurt democracies, but instead strengthen them.

Now, geopolitics is disrupting these assumptions. Open information flows can hurt democracies as well as help them. Non-democracies like China, and “managed democracies” like Russia can use global information flows for their own purposes. We are leaving a world where we assumed that open information flows inevitably favored democracies, and entering one of conflict between the major jurisdictions, each with its own preferred way of organizing information.

These aren’t just technical disagreements. Fights over global information flows are spilling over into broader forms of conflict. The U.S. and China are engaged in effective economic warfare over the terms under which the global information economy will work. China has long banned companies like Google from its national territory unless they comply with its censorship requirements. Now the U.S. is blocking the export of advanced semiconductors to China. The European Union (E.U.) is threatening to block data flows from its territory unless third countries radically reform their information practices.

In short, we have moved with remarkable speed from a world where liberal values and information flows seemed to be working together to transform global politics, to one of geopolitical contention between clashing information orders. The U.S. has one understanding of how information flows ought to work, China quite another, while the E.U. and its member states pursue a different understanding again. We don’t really understand where these different information orders come from. We don’t understand how they interact with each other. And we don’t know much about the possible consequences of conflict.

That is what we are going to try to figure out in this class. First, we are going to get a sense of what is at stake. We will talk in broad terms about the clashing information orders and why this conflict is important. Then we will look at AI (or more precisely: machine learning), information networks and global supply chains. These are three key areas of conflict right now – but to understand the conflict, you need to have some sense of how they actually work. Then we will discuss the three major powers shaping the conflict over information – the U.S., the E.U., and China. For each power, we will spend one week talking about how its own information economy is organized, and how it looks to project power and influence globally. Finally, we will look at the conflicts over AI and supply chains, and the consequences that these conflicts have for how global conflict is organized.

Course Objectives

·      Provide a sound understanding of the politics of technologies such as machine learning, information networks and semiconductor production.

·      Explain the differences between the domestic “information orders” and coercive tools of great powers such as the US, China and European Union.

·      Provide a comprehensive understanding of how great power clashes over technology are transforming geopolitics.

Required Books

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Henry Holt, 2023). NB – I feel uncomfortable assigning one of my own books as a required reading, but it does provide a reasonably up-to-date account of the topics of the class, and is certainly the best available overview of the general prejudices and blind spots of the professor. I will be making a donation to Doctors Without Borders that will more than cover any royalties I receive from purchases made by students in this class. When you read this, or anything else I’ve written or co-written in the course of the semester, you should treat it exactly as you treat all other readings – as a source of information and argument that you are encouraged to disagree with, wherever it seems wrongheaded or incomplete.

Chris Miller, Chip War (Simon & Schuster, 2022).

You are not required to read optional readings. These are provided as a resource for students who would like to dive deeper.

Readings and discussion questions

August 26. Week 1 – How People Have Thought About Information Orders

Questions to think about as you do the readings.

What kinds of information flows make democracy more stable?

What kinds of information flows make autocracies more stable?

What are the differences between how democracies and autocracies use information?

How do technologies such as the Internet affect information flows?

How has policy makers’ understanding of the political consequences of information flows for democracy and autocracies changed?

Required:

Ludwig Siegele, “Can Technology Plan Economies and Destroy Democracy?,” The Economist (December 18, 2019).

Larry Diamond (2010), “Liberation Technology,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 69-83.

Joshua A. Tucker, Yannis Theocharis, Margaret E. Roberts and Pablo Barberá (2017), “From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media and Democracy,” Journal of Democracy Vol. 38, No.4, pp.46-57.

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security, Vol. 44, No.1:42-79, 2019.

Yuval Noah Harari, “Why Technology Favors Tyranny,” The Atlantic (October 2018).

Optional:

Yan Xuetong, “Bipolar Rivalry in the Early Digital Age,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol 3, No.3:313-341 (Autumn 2020).

September 9. Week 2 – Machine Learning

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

            What is AI capable of, and what is it not capable of?

            Which resources do you need to have to be at the cutting edge of AI?

            What is new about new kinds of AI such as Large Language Models?

            How might AI affect democratic politics?

            How might AI affect autocratic politics?

            How might AI affect the ways in which war is fought?

Required:

Julian Crockett, Alison Gopnik and Melanie Mitchell, “How to Raise Your Artificial Intelligence: A Conversation with Alison Gopnik and Melanie Mitchell,” LA Review of Books, May 31, 2024.

Jai Vipra and Sarah Meyers West, Computational Power and AI (AI Now Institute, 2024).

Bruce Schneier, The Coming AI Hackers (Belfer Center, 2021).

Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman and Jeremy Wallace, “Spirals of Delusion: How AI Distorts Decision-Making and Makes Dictators More Dangerous,” Foreign Affairs (September/October 2022).

Avi Goldfarb and Jon Lindsey, “Prediction and Judgment: Why Artificial Intelligence Increases the Importance of Humans in War,” International Security, 46,3:7-50.

Optional:

Sean Carroll and François Chollet, “Mindscape 280 | François Chollet on Deep Learning and the Meaning of Intelligence,” Mindscape, June 2024,

. NB this is the best popular discussion I’ve seen on how Large Language Models work and what their limitations are – if you want to dive in deeper on this topic, it is a great starting place.

Mar Hicks, “The Politics of Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic Bias,” March 22, 2023.

Tim G.J. Rudner and Helen Toner (2021), Key Concepts in AI Safety: Robustness and Adversarial Examples (Georgetown CSET).

Brian Christian, “Chapter One: Representation,” The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values, Norton 2020.

Timnit Gebru, “Machine Learning, Bias and Product Design (Interview),” DesignBetter (2018).

Ingvild Bode and Hendrik Huelss, “Artificial Intelligence, Weapons Systems and Human Control,” E-IR, February 2021.

Yann LeCun, “Towards Machines That Can Understand, Reason, & Plan,” Santa Fe Institute, April 24, 2023,

.

Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi, “Behold the AI Shoggoth,” The Economist, June 2023.

Murray Shanahan, “What Does ChatGPT Really Know?,” Many Minds Podcast, January 25, 2023.

September 16. Week 3 – Semiconductor Supply Chains

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

Why are semiconductors so important to the global economy?

How is semiconductor production organized?

How did the semiconductor industry become globalized?

What implications has that had for national security?

Required:

Listen to (or read the transcript of) Ezra Klein interviewing Chris Miller, April 4, 2023.

Chris Miller, Chip War, Part VI, “Offshoring Innovation.”

Read pp.38-44, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Henry Holt).

Kathrin Hille, “TSMC: how a Taiwanese Chipmaker Became a Linchpin of the Global Economy,” Financial Times, March 24, 2021.

Optional:

Jan-Peter Kleinhans & Dr. Nurzat Baisakova, The Global Semiconductor Value Chain: A Technology Primer for Policy Makers (Stiftung Neue Verantwortung 2020).

Semiconductor Industry Association, Beyond Borders: The Global Semiconductor Value Chain (2016).

Listen to Scott Tong interviewing Paul Triolo and Scott Kennedy, on Here and Now, August 3, 2022.

September 23. Week 4 - The Internet and Global Information Networks

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

How did the Internet become a civilian technology?

Why did people think about the Internet as a space that was immune to government control?

What are the ways in which the Internet is, in fact, vulnerable to geopolitics?

What consequences does that vulnerability have for the Internet’s functioning and global role?

            Required:

John Naughton, “The Evolution of the Internet: From Military Experiment to General Purpose Technology,” Journal of Cyber Policy Vol.1, No.1, pp.5-28.

Laura DeNardis, Internet Points of Control as Global Governance (CIGI Internet Governance Papers 2013).

Read pp.28-38, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman Underground Empire.

Natasha Tusikov, “Internet Platforms Weaponizing Chokepoints,” in Daniel Drezner, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman eds., The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence (Brookings 2021).

James Griffiths, “Chapter 19: Root and Stem: The Internet is More Vulnerable Than You Think,” The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet (Zed Books: 2019).

Optional:

Laura DeNardis, “Chapter 5: Governance at the Internet’s Core,” The Global War for Internet Governance (Yale University Press: 2014)

Eric Rosenbach and Katherine Mansted, The Geopolitics of Information, Harvard Belfer Center, May 2019.

Congressional Research Service (2019), Fifth-Generation (5G) Telecommunications Technologies: Issues for Congress.

September 30. Week 5 – The U.S. Information Economy

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

What role did the US government play in the original Silicon Valley/high tech model?

How has that role changed over time?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of a market-focused approach to technology?

How do platform companies work?

How has the globalization of semiconductor production affected the US economy and security?

Why has the US turned back to industrial policy in the last few years?

Required:

Margaret O’Mara, “The High-Tech Revolution and the Disruption of American Capitalism,” in Romain Huret, Nelson Lichtenstein, and Jean-Christian Vinel eds., Capitalism Contested (University of Pennsylvania Press 2020).

K. Sabeel Rahman and Kathleen Thelen, “The Rise of the Platform Business Model and the Transformation of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism,” Politics and Society, Vol. 47, No.2:177-204 (2019).

Susannah Glickman, “Semi-Politics,” Phenomenal World, June 24, 2023.

Amba Kak and Sarah Myers West, “A Modern Industrial Strategy for AI?: Interrogating the US Approach,” AI Now, 2024.

Karen Hao, “How Facebook Got Addicted to Spreading Misinformation,” MIT Technology Review, March 11, 2021.

Optional:

Todd Achilles, Erik Peinert and Daniel Rangel. Reshoring and Restoring: CHIPS Implementation for a Competitive Semiconductor Industry, American Economic Liberties Project, February 2024.

Gregory Allen and Elizabeth Kelly, “The U.S. Vision for AI Safety: A Conversation,” CSIS, July 31, 2024, https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-vision-ai-safety-conversation-elizabeth-kelly-director-us-ai-safety-institute.

Anu Bradford, “The American Market-Driven Regulatory Model,” Digital Empires.

Katherine Tai, “The White House’s Case for Industrial Policy,” Foreign Policy March 2, 2023.

National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (2021), Final Report, Chapter 13: Microelectronics, pp.211-221.

John VerWey, “Betting the House: Leveraging the CHIPS Act to Increase U.S. Microelectronics Supply Chain Resilience,” SemiLiterate, January 30, 2023.

Listen to (or read the transcript of) Ezra Klein interviewing Alondra Nelson on AI regulation, April 11, 2023.

Dan Wang (2018), “How Technology Grows,” danwang.co.

Vinod Aggarwal and Andrew Reddie (2018), Comparative Industrial Policy and Cybersecurity: the US Case,” Journal of Cyber Policy Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 445-466.

October 7. Week 6 – How the US Projects Power

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

How has the US used technology and information to project its values globally?

How has the US used technology and information to gather information and project power globally?

Are there tradeoffs between value projection and power?

Have these tradeoffs changed over time?

            Required:

Eva-Marie Eitzel et al., Strategic Economics: Options for Strategic Advantage, MITRE Corporation, 2024.

Chapter 2, “The STORMBREW Map,” Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire.

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “How the U.S. Stumbled Into Using Chips as a Weapon Against China,” Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2023.

Jake Sullivan, Remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the Special Competitive Studies Project Global Emerging Technologies Summit, September 16, 2022.

Karen Kornbluh and Julia Tréhu, The New American Foreign Policy of Technology: Promoting Innovation, National Security, and Democratic Values in a Digital World (German Marshall Fund 2023).

Optional:

Alex Palmer, “‘An Act of War’: Inside America’s Silicon Blockade Against China,” New York Times, July 12, 2023.

Matt Perault and Samm Sacks (2021), “A Sharper, Shrewder U.S. Policy for Chinese Tech Firms,” Foreign Affairs.

David H. McCormick, Charles E. Luftig, James M. Cunningham, “Economic Might, National Security, and the Future of American Statecraft,” Texas National Security Review, Vol. 3, No.3 (2020).

Chad Bown, How the United States Marched the Semiconductor Industry into its Trade War with China, Peterson Institute for International Economics Working Paper 20-16, 2020.

Aaron Friedberg, “The United States Needs to Reshape Global Supply Chains,” Foreign Policy, May 8, 2020.

Tarun Chhabra, The China Challenge, Democracy, and U.S. Grand Strategy, Brookings Institution, 2019.

October 14. Week 7 – China’s Information Economy

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

What is the basis of China’s success in information technology?

How does the relationship between the Chinese state and the private sector affect technological progress?

How has that relationship changed over time?

Does the Chinese state face tradeoffs between internal stability and technological innovation?

What are the fundamental information goals of the Chinese state?

            Required:

“Chapter Three: War Without Gunsmoke,” Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, Underground Empire.

Shazeda Ahmed (2019), “The Messy Truth About Social Credit,” Logic 7, May 1, 2019.

Josh Freedman, “Why Beijing is Bringing Big Technology to Heel,” Foreign Affairs Feb. 4, 2021.

Chris Miller, “Part VII: China’s Challenge,” Chip War.

Dan Wang, “China Notes, July 2023: On Technological Momentum,”Danwang.co.

Nicholas Welch, “Tech Policy at the Third Plenum,” ChinaTalk, August 4, 2024.

Optional:

Huw Roberts, Josh Cowls, Jessica Morley, Mariarosaria Taddeo, Vincent Wang, Luciano Floridi, “The Chinese Approach to Artificial Intelligence: An Analysis of Policy and Regulation,” AI & Society, Vol. 36: pp 59-77.

Chenxin Jiang (2019), “QR is King,” Logic 7, May 1, 2019.

John VerWey, Chinese Semiconductor Industrial Policy: Prospects for Future Success (US International Trade Commission 2019).

Anu Bradford, “The China State-Driven Regulatory Model,” Digital Empires.

John VerWey, Chinese Semiconductor Industrial Policy: Past and Present (US International Trade Commission 2019).

Lizhi Liu & Barry R. Weingast (2018), “Taobao, Federalism, and the Emergence of Law, Chinese Style,” Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 102, pp.1563-1590.

Kevin Werbach (2021), “Panopticon Reborn: Social Credit as Regulation for the Algorithmic Age,” https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3589804.

Will Hunt, Saif M. Khan and Dahlia Peterson (2020), China’s Progress in Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment Accelerants and Policy Implications (CSET-Georgetown).

Victor Shih, “Constructing a Chinese AI Global Supply Chain in the Shadow of “Great Power Competition,” 21st Century China Center Research Paper No. 2021-09.

October 21. Week 8 – How China Projects Power

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

What is the relationship between China’s information order and globalization?

How has China’s assessment of its international vulnerabilities changed over time?

What areas of strength does China possess when it thinks about power projection?

Is China’s information order attractive to other governments?

            Required:

Julian Gewirtz, “The Chinese Reassessment of Interdependence,” China Leadership Monitor, June 2020.

James Crabtree, “China’s Radical New Vision Of Globalization,” NOEMA, December 20, 2020.

Jing Chen and Jinghan Zhen 2023, “Shaping AI’s Future? China in Global AI Governance,” Journal of Contemporary China Vol. 32, No. 143, 794-810.

Tim Rühlig, 2022, “Chinese Influence Through Technical Standardization Power,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 32, No.139, 54-72.

Optional:

Elsa Kania, Samm Sacks, Paul Triolo, and Graham Webster, “China’s Strategic Thinking on Building Power in Cyberspace,” New America, September 2017.

Maya Wang, “China’s Techno-Authoritarianism Has Gone Global,” Foreign Affairs, April 8, 2021.

Lizhi Liu (2021), “The Rise of Data Politics: Digital China and the World,” Studies in Comparative International Development, Vol. 56, pp. 45-67.

Anu Bradford, “Exporting China’s Digital Authoritarianism through Infrastructure,” Digital Empires.

October 28. Week 9 – Europe’s Information Economy

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

Why is the EU less able to produce cutting edge technologies than its rivals?

Why is the EU so concerned with rights?

How does the balance of power between the EU and its member states affect policy?

What external information threats does the EU face, and how do these threats differ from the threats perceived by the U.S. and China?

            Required:

Abraham Newman (2020), “Digital Policy-Making in the European Union: Building the New Economy of an Information Society,” Hellen Wallace et al, Policy Making in the European Union, 8^th edition, Oxford University Press.

Anu Bradford, “The European Rights-Driven Regulatory Model,” Digital Empires.

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2023), “Chapter Four: Waking Into Winter,” Underground Empire.

Emmanuel Macron, “Speech at the Nexus Institute,” April 18, 2023, available at https://franceintheus.org/spip.php?article11269#1 (skim).

Guy Chazan, “Germany’s New Chip Factories: A Bet on the Future or a Waste of Money?,” Financial Times May 12, 2023.

Optional:

Margrethe Vestager, Washington Post interview, July 12, 2021. https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1lPJqXmDMlAGb

Sam Fleming, Peggy Hollinger and Ben Hall, “Semiconductors: Europe’s Expensive Plan to Reach the Top Tier of Chipmakers,” Financial Times, July 20, 2021.

Thibault Larger, Mark Scott, Laura Kayali and Nicholas Vinocur, “Inside the EU’s Divisions on How to Go After Big Tech,” Politico, December 14, 2020.

Nicholas Barrett, Julia Anderson and Guntram Wolff, “Podcast: The EU’s Plan to Catch Up on Artificial Intelligence,” Bruegel, February 14, 2020.

November 4. Week 10 – How Europe Projects Power

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

How does EU power depend on market regulation?

How has that changed in the last five years?

Is EU power growing or declining?

How does geopolitics affect the way in which the EU thinks about its information order?

            Required:

Charlotte Siegmann and Markus Anderljung, The Brussels Effect and Artificial Intelligence: How EU Regulation Will Impact the Global AI Market, Center for the Governance of AI, August 2022.

Ludwig Siegele, “Why the EU Will Not Remain the World’s Digital Uber-Regulator,” The Economist, September 21, 2023.

Zach Meyer, In Tech, the Death of the Brussels Effect Is Greatly Exaggerated, Center for European Reform, December 2023.

Fabry, E., Köhler-Suzuki, N., Lamy, P., Sibona, M. “Shields Up: How China, Europe, Japan and the United States Shape the World through Economic Security”, Policy Paper No. 297, Jacques Delors Institute, February 2024.

Watch Tobias Gehrke and Sabine Weyand, Economic Security 2.0: What is the EU’s next geoeconomics game plan?,

., European Council on Foreign Relations, July 2, 2024.

Optional:

Jonathan Hackenbroich With Filip Medunic and Pawel Zerka, “Tough Trade: The Hidden Costs of Economic Coercion,” European Council on Foreign Relations, February 2022.

Niclas Frederic Poitiers and Dennis Görlich, “Geopolitical Aspects of Digital Trade,” Report for the European Parliament (November 2020).

Thierry Breton, Speech by Commissioner Thierry Breton: Sovereignty, Self-Assurance and Solidarity: Europe in Today's Geopolitics, September 2022.

November 11. Week 11 – Clashes over AI

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

What exactly is an arms race?

Is there an arms race over AI? If so, what kind?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the US, China and EU when they disagree over AI?

How do these strengths and weaknesses intersect with each other?

Required:

Michael Asaro, ““What is an ‘Artificial Intelligence Arms Race’ Anyway?”, I/S, Vol. 15, 1-2, pp. 45-64.

Max van Thun, “To Innovate or to Regulate? The False Dichotomy at the Heart of Europe’s Industrial Approach,” Global Industrial Policy Approaches to AI, AI Now Institute, 2024.

Eric Schmidt, “Leveling the Playing Field: How to Counter the Chinese Communist Party's Economic Aggression,” Written Testimony of Dr. Eric Schmidt U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, May 17, 2023.

Eddie Yang and Margaret Roberts, “The Authoritarian Data Problem,” Journal of Democracy, October 2023.

Jacob Stokes and Alexander Sullivan with Noah Greene, “US-China Competition and Military AI,” Center for a New American Security, July 2023.

Optional:

Special Competitive Studies Project (2022), The Future of Conflict and the New Requirements of Defense.

Ulrike Franke, “Artificial Divide: How Europe and America Could Clash Over AI,” European Council on Foreign Relations, January 20, 2021.

Alex Engler, “The EU and U.S. Diverge on AI Regulation: A Transatlantic Comparison and Steps to Alignment,” Brookings Institution, April 2023.

Andrew McLaughlin interviews Kai-Fu Lee,

Christie Lawrence and Sean Cordey, The Case for Increased Transatlantic Cooperation on Artificial Intelligence (Belfer Center 2020).

Jason Furman, “Digital Economy in the Post-Pandemic Era: New Trends and New Opportunities,” China Finance 40 Forum, November 20, 2020.

Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, “China Won’t Win the Race for AI Dominance: Authoritarians Love Data, but Innovation Matters More,” Foreign Affairs, June 19, 2020.

November 18. Week 12 - Clashes over Semiconductors

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

Why has semiconductor production become so contentious?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the US, China and EU when they disagree over semiconductors?

How do these strengths and weaknesses intersect with each other?

Is there space for cooperative interaction over semiconductors?

            Required:

Nir Kshetri, “The Economics of Chip War: China’s Struggle to Develop the Semiconductor Industry,” IEEE Computer Society, June 2023.

Chris Miller, Chip War, Part VIII: The Chip Choke.

Gregory Allen and Emily Benson, “Clues to the U.S.-Dutch-Japanese Semiconductor Export Controls Deal Are Hiding in Plain Sight,” CSIS, March 1, 2023.

Paul Triolo, “A New Era for the Chinese Semiconductor Industry: Beijing Responds to Export Controls,” American Affairs, Spring 2024.

Optional:

Stephen Ezell, An Allied Approach to Semiconductor Leadership (International Technology and Innovation Foundation, 2020).

Saif Khan (2021), Securing Semiconductor Supply Chains (Georgetown CSET).

December 2. Week 13 – Clashes over the Internet

Questions to ask as you do the readings.

How have great powers’ understanding of the Internet changed over the last few years?

What consequences will increased contention over the Internet have for its function?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the US, China and EU when they disagree over global networks?

How do these strengths and weaknesses intersect with each other?

Should we look at the Internet as a global good or as a dangerous space?

            Required:

Jack Goldsmith and Stuart Russell (2018), “Strengths Become Vulnerabilities: How a Digital World Disadvantages the United States in Its International Relations,” Hoover Institution Aegis Paper No. 1806.

Stacie Hoffmann, Dominique Lazanski and Emily Taylor, “Standardising the Splinternet: How China’s Technical Standards Could Fragment the Internet,” Journal of Cyber Policy, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 239-264.

Clement Perarnaud and Julien Rossi, “The EU and Internet Standards – Beyond the Spin, a Strategic Turn?,” Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 31, No. 8, pp. 2175-2199.

Mischa Hansel, Jantje Silomon and Emilia Neuber, “Be Careful What You Wish For: Why More Fragmentation Might Hurt Global Cybersecurity,” Global Political Economy, forthcoming.

Paris Marx, “Embrace the Splinternet,” Disconnect, May 1, 2024.

Optional:

James Griffiths, Chapters 20-22, The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet (Zed Books: 2019).

Week 14

Readings to be assigned as appropriate (things move fast in this space and I want to keep one week free, either for new issues that come up or for some topic that we have not been able to cover sufficiently in previous weeks).