scholarly journals Russian Cyber Information Warfare: International Distribution and Domestic Control

MCU Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-127
Author(s):  
Lev Topor ◽  
Alexander Tabachnik
Keyword(s):  
Information Warfare ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Informational Influence ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Foreign Influence ◽  
International Distribution ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Hearts And Minds

Cyber information warfare (IW) is a double-edged sword. States use IW to shape the hearts and minds of foreign societies and policy makers. However, states are also prone to foreign influence through IW. This assumption applies mainly to liberal democratic societies. The question examined in this article is how Russia uses IW on other countries but protects itself from the same activities. The authors’ main argument is that while Russia executes influence operations and IW in cyberspace, it strives for uncompromising control over its domestic cyberspace, thus restricting undesirable informational influence over its population.

Deterrence and Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falkenrath
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Global War ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
The Given

This chapter examines strategy and deterrence and traces the shift from deterrence by ‘punishment’ to deterrence by ‘denial’ in Washington’s conduct of the Global War on Terror. The former rested on an assumption that the consequences of an action would serve as deterrents. The latter may carry messages of possible consequences, but these are delivered by taking action that removes the capabilities available to opponents – in the given context, the Islamist terrorists challenging the US. Both approaches rest on credibility, but are more complex in the realm of counter-terrorism, where the US authorities have no obvious ‘return to sender’ address and threats to punish have questionable credibility. In this context, denial offers a more realistic way of preventing terrorist attacks. Yet, the advanced means available to the US are deeply ethically problematic in liberal democratic societies. However, there would likely be even bigger questions if governments failed to act.

scholarly journals Security and democratic equality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Milstein
Keyword(s):  
Civil Liberty ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Democratic Community ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic Equality ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Fear Mongering ◽  
American Cities

Abstract After a recent spate of terrorist attacks in European and American cities, liberal democracies are reintroducing emergency securitarian measures (ESMs) that curtail rights and/or expand police powers. Political theorists who study ESMs are familiar with how such measures become instruments of discrimination and abuse, but the fundamental conflict ESMs pose for not just civil liberty but also democratic equality still remains insufficiently explored. Such phenomena are usually explained as a function of public panic or fear-mongering in times of crisis, but I show that the tension between security and equality is in fact much deeper and more general. It follows a different logic than the more familiar tension between security and liberty, and it concerns not just the rule of law in protecting liberty but also the role of law in integrating new or previously subjected groups into a democratic community. As liberal-democratic societies become increasingly diverse and multicultural in the present era of mass immigration and global interconnectedness, this tension between security and equality is likely to become more pronounced.

Liberalism, Terrorism and the Politics of Fear

Politics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 200-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Sparks
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Politics Of Fear ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Political Health ◽  
The Impact

This article considers the impact of terror and fear on the political health of liberal democratic societies. It examines the strategic use of terror to produce a politics of fear through an exploration of current Western reactions to terrorism. The argument is developed through a presentation of a three-part map of the politics of fear constituted by the instigation of fear, the (attempted) eradication of fear and the management of fear. Central to this presentation is an analysis of the destabilising effects the introduction of terror has on civil society and government, and of the effective ways of responding to it. Running through the presentation is an analysis of the constitution of terror and fear, their relationship to each other and to the general insecurities which beset liberal democracies.

Introduction: Civil Society and Egypt’s Arab Spring

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Herrold
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Philanthropic Organizations

The introduction presents the book’s main argument: that civil society organizations operating in autocratic states can take advantage of a political opening to promote democracy and that their efforts can offer lessons to US policy makers about how to better structure and implement democracy aid. The chapter begins by laying out how Egyptian NGOs and philanthropic organizations understood the aims of Egypt’s 2011 uprisings and worked to promote democracy in their aftermath. It then situates these organizations’ efforts in existing literature on civil society in authoritarian contexts and studies of US democracy aid, demonstrates the book’s contributions, and outlines the book’s structure.

Mobility of Human Beings in Europe: An Unpredictable Phenomenon

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Rosa María Martínez de Codes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Democratic Societies ◽  
Direct Threat

The global refugee crisis has reignited long-standing debates about how to successfully integrate religious minorities into liberal democratic societies. In the United States, security fears, particularly connected with terrorism, are preponderant. In Western Europe cultural fears seem to dominate, with many misunderstanding Islam as a direct threat to the norms and values that bind their societies together.

Burkean “Descriptions” and Political Representation: A Reappraisal

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa S. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Political Representation ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Theoretical Literature ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Status ◽  
Irish Catholics ◽  
Democratic Societies

AbstractThe theoretical literature on representation tends to read the work of Edmund Burke as a defence of a functional-corporatist conception of society, in which the groups relevant for political representation are stable and objective economic “interests” whose cooperation in and contribution to the life of nation and empire are essential for the status of Britain as a pre-eminent commercial power. This article presents an alternative, contractarian Burke that emerges out of his defence of the interests of non-economic “descriptions” of citizens such as Irish Catholics, a Burke who offers us an illuminating perspective from which to assess the claims of historically marginalized groups in contemporary liberal democratic societies.

Discursive Psychological Approaches to Intergroup Communication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Augoustinos ◽  
Simon Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Coherent System ◽  
Intergroup Communication ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Majority Group ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Democratic Societies

The recent emergence of discursive psychological approaches has challenged the dominance of cognitive and structural models of language that theorize it as an abstract and coherent system of meanings. Epistemologically informed by social constructionism, discursive psychological approaches examine how language is actually used in everyday formal and informal talk or discourse. Discourse (both written text and talk) is treated as a social practice that is both central to understanding and constructing social reality and oriented to the practical concerns of everyday life. Discursive psychological approaches to intergroup communication have produced a large body of research examining everyday informal talk and institutional discourse on intergroup relations in liberal democratic societies. This work has focused primarily on the text and talk of majority group members and powerful elites about matters pertaining to race, immigration, ethnicity, and gender. How speakers attend to and account for group differences in discourse is perceived to be intimately related to the reproduction and legitimation of social inequalities in liberal democratic societies. This body of research has identified common and pervasive patterns of talk by majority group members that are seen as contributing to the continued marginalization and social exclusion of minorities. These discursive patterns include: positive self and negative other presentation, denials of prejudice, discursive deracialization, and using liberal arguments to justify and legitimate inequality.

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