Virtually inconceivable: Geopolitics, capacity, and sovereignty claims in the digital domain

Thesis

Once virtually inconceivable, cyberspace has emerged as a new arena for global geostrategic competition. With its complex territoriality and evolving technological features, this domain has challenged traditional theories of geopolitics and sovereignty in international relations (IR). Dominant accounts of ‘cyber-geopolitics’ have struggled to explain the European Union’s (EU) striking emergence as an explicitly ‘geopolitical actor’ in search of ‘digital sovereignty’ in and through cyberspace. More broadly, IR literature has undertheorized the relationship between geostrategic behaviour, ontological security, and the capacity to project power in and through cyberspace. As a consequence, the overlapping developments of geostrategic competition in cyberspace and the EU’s emergence as a geopolitical actor remain poorly understood.

This integrated thesis examines the emergence, drivers, and characteristics of the EU’s geostrategic behaviour in and through cyberspace within the broader context of global competition. Departing from a critical ontological approach, this dissertation analyzes over 150 primary source documents between 2009-2024 and two dozen elite interviews conducted by the author. Empirically, the three articles examine the overlooked geostrategic dimension to American, Chinese, and EU-funded capacity building initiatives in Africa; the opaque relationship between European digital sovereignty objectives and significant EU cybersecurity policy changes; and how ontological security drives have underpinned the EU’s geostrategic approach to cyberspace. Altogether, this thesis constitutes one of the first studies to integrate EU external action towards digital sovereignty, cyber capacity building, and ontological security in cyber geopolitics.

Contributing to IR scholarship on (cyber)security studies, the dissertation reveals how contemporary geostrategic competition has been characterized by actors’ efforts to build greater capacity in and through cyberspace by deploying a variety of hard (infrastructural) and soft (regulatory) tools. Counter to dominant accounts, I argue that this behaviour, particularly in the EU context, has been mediated by actors’ ontological security drives, not only material security concerns. In our rapidly evolving, digitalizing, and unstable international order, understanding these foundations of contemporary geostrategic behaviour is of critical importance for IR.

Authors: Carver, J

• Alternative title: Virtually inconceivable? The relationship between geopolitics, cyber capacity building, and sovereigntist claims in cyberspace and the digital domain
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-eoxdjojqo
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: European integration; international relations; European union; digital transformation; cybersecurity studies; foreign and security policy; emerging technologies; geostrategies; cyber power; digital sovereignty; infrastructural power; state capacity; geopolitics; technological change; sovereignty; ontological security; strategic competition; digital development
• Subjects: Technology and international relations; Political geography; European Union; Security, International