Assembling Publics : Microsoft, Cybersecurity, and Public‐Private Relations

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F48546054%3A_____%2F23%3AN0000035" target="_blank" >RIV/48546054:_____/23:N0000035 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/6771" target="_blank" >https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/6771</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i3.6771" target="_blank" >10.17645/pag.v11i3.6771</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Assembling Publics : Microsoft, Cybersecurity, and Public‐Private Relations

Original language description

In this article, we advance the literature on publics in international politics by exploring the nexus between publicness and big tech companies. This nexus finds a significant expression in the increasing impact of big tech companies to mediate disputes over societal problems, deliver social goods and rearticulate public-private relationships. We develop an analytical framework by combining recent scholarship on assemblage theory and publics, allowing us to understand publicness as enacted in practices which revolve around issues and rearticulate relations of authority and legitimacy. To demonstrate the value of the framework, we show how Microsoft is involved in assembling publicness around cybersecurity. Microsoft does so by problematising and countering state-led cybersecurity activities, questioning the state as a protector of its citizens and proposing governance measures to establish the tech sector as authoritative, and legitimate “first responders.” With this rearticulating of public-private relations, we see the emergence of a political subject for whom security is not solely the right of a citizen secured by the state but also a customer service provided as per a service agreement. The study hence offers important insights into the connection between publicness and cybersecurity, state and big tech relations, and the formation of authority and legitimacy in international politics.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2023

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Politics and Governance

ISSN

2183-2463

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

11

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

PT - PORTUGAL

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

157-167

UT code for WoS article

001064475900007

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85170106001