“Panopticons and Chokepoints,” an interview with Richard Byrne

A new view of international relations puts global networks – and how they can be weaponized – at its center. What’s the future of regulation in this new landscape?

“The debate we see at the moment is never going to be about trade and open markets in the same kind of way anymore,” says Farrell. “Once the door has been opened to thinking about these things in terms of their consequences for security, different actors will enter into the scene and begin to gobble up this policy area that you think is defined in these terms, and start redefining in it in very different ways indeed…. We’re not going back to where we were – and once you’ve opened up the door to these kinds of concerns, they are going to metastasize through the entire system.

Access the full interview at the Wilson Quarterly

Other Writing:

Essay

Blogs and Bullets II: New Media and Conflict after the Arab Spring with Sean Aday, Marc Lynch, John Sides and Deen Freelon

Based on Twitter and Facebook data gathered during the 2011 Arab revolutions, the authors of this Peaceworks report find that new media informed international audiences and mainstream media reporting, but they find less evidence that it played a direct role in organizing protests or allowing local audiences to share self-generated news directly with one another. ...
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Essay

The Abundance Debate We’re Not Having

The best way to read Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book is to take the authors at their word. Abundance is what is usually called a “policy book,” but Klein and Thompson don’t quite offer a traditional policy agenda. Instead, the authors begin and end with a question that is also a concentrating lens. “Can we ...
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