Lecture
European Resilience in Cyberspace
- Date
- Tuesday 30 September 2025
- Time
- Address
-
Wijnhaven
Turfmarkt 99
2511 DP The Hague - Room
- 3.48
Lecture by Michiel Foulon, with an introduction by Jack Thompson (University of Amsterdam)
Abstract
At the heart of the EU’s cyber resilience strategy lies a paradox: despite that private firms own most of cyberspace’s underlying infrastructure, government strategies to manipulate it misalign with firms’ needs. The 2023 EU Chips Act alone aims to invest over €40 billion and strengthen the EU’s resilience and leadership in the industry of microchips–the critical technology underpinning cyberspace’s physical infrastructure. On the other hand, the EU has been widely criticised by scholars, policy analysts, and the private sector for ineffective policies that misalign with firms’ needs. This policy problem of government-firms misalignment in cyberspace requires addressing a critical theoretical question: how does cyberspace alter relations between states and technology firms? The conventional view in the science conceives cyberspace as a domain that actors manipulate, operate, and leverage against other actors. This research is starting to be challenged by scholars who suggests cyberspace does something different in terms of causation: cyberspace alters how actors interact in international affairs. Whilst this research is promising, it remains largely confined to the cyber research community and is blocked from breaking through in the social sciences. This project advances a paradigm shift that leverages shared language from the discipline of International Relations to introduce cyberspace as an independent system of rules and behaviours that alters how all actors interact.
The event will be followed by informal drinks nearby. If you are not a student or staff member of Leiden Univerity and wish to attend, please contact Andrew Gawthorpe directly on a.j.gawthorpe@hum.leidenuniv.nl