Emergent Technologies And Their Place In IR

Emerging technologies, especially of the information technology variety, of the past8years have already begun to make their mark on intentional relations. From cyber-attacks in Iran to social media in the Middle East, the these technologies have increasingly appeared in our news and changed the way states are approaching problems. This paper has three mains goals:1). To determine how and whether emergent technology matters in International relations;2). To show that states are reacting to these technological changes; and,3). To provide a framework for further research on the topic showing how technology has provided alternative actions for states and non-states to achieve their goal in the international system.Whether technology matters is not difficult to show in the history of international relations. From the cannon, to the airplane, and then to the nuclear bomb, there has been a clear shift and reshuffling in the international system with each invention. Taking cues from other researchers, I have identified the proper location for today’s emerging technologies as furthering the progression of greater state permeability, ie, an openness of vulnerability due to greater connectivity and dissolution of the importance of boundaries. The aforementioned military technologies largely removed geographical boundaries, and in that vein, modern technologies are removing boundaries in the areas of cyber-space and information sovereignty.The three main cases covered in this paper are:the US use of STUXNET in delaying Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, which stands as the first major case of a cyber-attack used to cause physical damage an exert state power through a virus; the use of social media in the Arab Spring and the role it played in overcoming the prisoner’s dilemma and its use as a tool for organization during protests and as a way of keeping dialogue with outside audiences; and lastly, Wikileaks and its use of mass information leaks in order to achieve its goals of greater state transparency as a non-state actor. In each of these cases it needs to be pointed out that each situation was largely unthinkable in the past without these technological innovations and progress and that states are responding to these changes in order to better secure their position in a changing international arena.To summarize my developed framework, technologies have provided alternative avenues for states and non-state actors to achieve their goals. In each case, states are taking alternative actions toward an actor in order to achieve a goal. In the case of cyber-attacks, the US avoided the traditional action of a military intervention and was able to use cyber-power instead to achieve similar aims. Social media is being further embraced as a means for the State Department to expand their aims of winning an Information War, and heavy investment in censorship circumvention technologies has followed in the wake of the Arab Spring. Lastly, Wikileaks, a non-state organization, which prior to these technological developments would not have been able to obtain such copious amounts of information, nor so effectively propagate it, has used information leaks to infringe of state information sovereignty. This framework, which is elaborated on in my thesis, can be used for future cases in showing how alternative avenues for action and increasing state permeability are being born out by the emergence of new technologies.In short, technologies do matter, emerging ones are part of a longer trend of increasing state permeability, and states are reacting and utilizing these technologies in novel ways in order to achieve their goals in a changing system.