Cyber Governance and Policy Center

In 2021-2022, Cyber Governance and Policy Center Director Mark Raymond continued to play an active role in the university’s research intensification efforts in the area of international security policy. He presented papers at several academic conferences, including the annual meetings of the International Studies Association and American Political Science Association. In July 2021, he was an invited speaker in the Cato Institute’s Restraint and Emerging Technology series, as well as a panelist for an event on cyber diplomacy sponsored by the Canadian International Council (CIC). The CIC event included the chair of the Canadian Senate’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, as well as the German Ambassador to Canada. Later in the year, Raymond was an invited participant in workshops on cyber strategy, sponsored by the Cato Institute, and on geopolitical narratives concerning information technologies, sponsored by the University of Bath.

The center also welcomed John Emery, a new tenure-track assistant professor of international security. Emery’s work focuses on the international security implications of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. In spring 2022, Emery became the center’s associate director. He presented his research on ethics and nuclear wargaming at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, MIT’s Wargaming Society, and Claremont McKenna College. Furthermore, he appeared on the "My Nuclear Life" podcast, "Horns of a Dilemma" — Texas National Security Review podcast, and CSPAN-2 American History.

In 2021, the center began two significant new research projects. The first, in collaboration with Wania Yad of the University of Delaware and OU MAIS program student Ayazhan Muratbek, investigates the effects of adopting cyber technologies on the form and functions of sovereign states. Draft versions of the paper were presented at the west and northeast regional conferences of the International Studies Association, and a further draft has been accepted for an American Political Science Association-funded research workshop at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

The second project involves preparation for a research grant application to the National Science Foundation’s Security and Preparedness program. The project investigates the ways that great powers seek to shape domestic, global and private regulatory processes for digital technologies, as part of broader national strategies of great power competition. It conceptualizes these efforts as examples of regulatory statecraft and will seek to catalog and explain cross-national variation in great powers’ use of such strategies, as well as to explore the implications of these efforts for the future of rule-based global order.

Photo: CGPC Director Mark Raymond, Wick Cary Associate Professor of International Security