Institute of Security and Global Affairs

(𝐍𝐨𝐭) 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐠𝐞? 𝐔𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧’𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 Eva Michaels and Monika Sus on European Strategic Autonomy: https://lnkd.in/d_Kd58Z4 Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine brought back the debate about the European Union’s strategic autonomy ambitions in security and defence. The notion had slipped off the EU’s radar following the post-2016 thematic shift in strategic autonomy discussions to global economic interdependencies. Our article contributes to an appraisal of the strategic autonomy debate in security and defence since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine, while also tracing the emergence and revival of the concept over the past 25 years. By unpacking the EU’s quest for strategic autonomy as a process of maturation since the late 1990s, we examine the extent to which the EU has grown into an autonomous security and defence actor. We further discuss the implications of maturation for EU security and defence policy. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews with policymakers and foreign policy experts in seven member states, our study brings the underexplored aspect of national acceptability of EU external action to the fore. We show that significant progress has been made regarding both ideational and material aspects of EU security and defence policy. Yet, prevailing differences in underlying national beliefs, perceptions and goals about security and defence continue to hamper the Union’s further maturation.

Once again, we had the privilege to present the progress of our project “Cyber Security by Integrated Design” (C-SIDE) at the ONE Conference. The key insights from our research are: 1️⃣ Security by design should be a mechanism through which we relieve end-users of the responsibility for managing cybersecurity. 2️⃣ Governments should play a crucial role in providing support, oversight, and enforcement to ensure the security of digital technologies. 3️⃣ We are focused on enhancing the manufacturers' toolkit by exploring automatic vulnerability detection methods and developing improved metrics to assess the security of software systems. Many thanks to my co-speakers, Els De Busser and Olga Gadyatskaya, and to the dedicated researchers on this project from the Institute of Security and Global Affairs –Jasmijn Boeken, Parto Mirzaei, and Bibi van den Berg– and the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) –Arina Kudriavtseva, Jafar Akhoundali. Without your hard work, our presentation would have been full of empty slides. Next year, we hope to share the project's final results. Lastly, I extend my gratitude to the organizers of the ONE Conference, the Nationaal Cyber Security Centrum (NCSC-NL), the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the Municipality of The Hague, for fostering an environment where cybersecurity professionals from all backgrounds can come together, exchange knowledge, and feel truly welcome. Until next year! #OneConference2024 #WeAreAllConnected #cybersecurityconference #securitybydesign

𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐬: 𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭? In this article, Jarosław Kantorowicz describes the impact of strategic climate change litigation on public attitudes towards climate policy, using a UK-based experiment to explore the effects and limitations of legal cues on policy preferences: https://lnkd.in/evkbF3Wt Strategic climate change litigation is a rising phenomenon that has attracted considerable academic interest. Still, limited understanding exists of the effects of strategic litigation cases outside the courtroom – more specifically, on whether strategic litigation can influence public attitudes on climate change policy. The authors explore the impact of strategic climate change litigation (SCCL) on public preferences for climate policy. Using a pre-registered vignette experiment with a representative sample of UK citizens, they assess whether information about SCCL influences policy attitudes. The findings reveal no direct effect of SCCL on changes in public attitudes, suggesting that legal cues might impact policy preferences in a more indirect and cumulative way.

𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬: 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃-19 𝐝𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧, 𝐂𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧, 𝐃𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐡, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (2020-2021) The occurrence of a new crisis can inspire a re-evaluation of responses to older or other contemporary crises. The aim of this research is to understand how such processes operate for the combination of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic within 4 countries, write Thijs van Dooremalen, Marija Sniečkutė, Inga Gaižauskaitė and Anne Lachance: https://lnkd.in/e_i5vB9F This article introduces the concept of 'linking crises' which enables capturing the direct connections that are drawn between the COVID-19 crisis and the crisis of climate change. The researchers studied these crisis link-ages for four national elections that took place within North America and Europe at various time points of the heydays of the COVID-19 pandemic: Lithuania, the United States, the Netherlands, and Canada. From literature on the meaning-making of social and political life four relevant dimensions of crises linking are derived.

Following up my recent post about a new project on Multistakeholder Global Governance: Capacity, Effectiveness, Legitimacy, we now invite applications for two four-year fully funded PhD positions on the research team: https://lnkd.in/e9usEWX6. The deadline is 25 October 2024.

💡nieuw onderzoeksrapport 📖 Een kritische houding richting instituties is niet verkeerd en geloven in complottheorieën is niet per se een probleem. Dit verandert natuurlijk als het gepaard gaat met bedreiging of intimidatie. Politici, ambtenaren, journalisten en wetenschappers hebben hier de laatste jaren steeds vaker mee te maken. Het lectoraat Maatschappelijke Veiligheid (onderzoekslijn Digitaal Samenleven) van Hogeschool Saxion heeft een verkennend onderzoek uitgevoerd naar een lokale preventieve aanpak van bedreiging en intimidatie als gevolg van complotdenken. Het onderzoek voerden we uit in opdracht van het Institute of Security and Global Affairs (onderzoeksproject Bewaken en Beveiligen) van de Universiteit Leiden. Het lokale niveau kan bijdragen aan het verkleinen van de voedingsbodem voor anti-institutionele sentimenten. Een benaderbare en rechtvaardige lokale overheid is daarbij van belang. Het lokale niveau heeft ook een rol bij de aanpak van gevaarlijke individuele complotdenkers, onder andere door vroegtijdige signalering kunnen ernstige situaties worden voorkomen. Het verkennende onderzoek heeft zich gericht op de regio Oost-Nederland, maar de opgedane inzichten zijn ook nuttig voor andere regio’s in Nederland. Renze Tjoelker, Annemarijn Walberg, Remco Spithoven, Elmira Land

De tweedaagse in Den Haag voor de studenten Vrede & Veiligheid van de University of Groningen, georganiseerd door Sipke De Hoop, zit erop! Tijdens deze cursus van 14 weken leren ze het volledige veiligheidsdomein in Nederland kennen. Met sprekers vanuit Defensie, Buitenlandse Zaken en TNO, hebben de studenten heel wat mogen leren over de huidige veiligheidsdreigingen, ontwikkelingen en de nexus klimaat-veiligheid. Dank aan Tom Buitelaar en het Institute of Security and Global Affairs voor het warme welkom aan onze studenten!

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐈𝐀 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐄𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 In this article, Simon Willmetts provides evidence for the first time of a systematic policy of direct collusion between the Time Inc. media empire and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): https://lnkd.in/es7dNgNQ This article provides evidence for the first time of a systematic policy of direct collusion between the Time Inc. media empire and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). For the first two decades of the Cold War, both Time and Life magazines established policies that provided the CIA with access to their foreign correspondents, their dispatches and research files, and their vast photographic archive that the magazines had accumulated to accompany their stories. These were significant resources for a fledgling intelligence agency. Photographs of foreign dignitaries, rebel groups, protestors, and topography were vital pieces of intelligence, helping the Agency to map and visualize its targets. Depending upon the story, direct access to dispatches returned by foreign correspondents might provide the Agency with important clues to local political, social, and economic conditions, as well as insights into the intentions and capabilities of ruling elites in countries of concern. Likewise, access to those foreign correspondents upon their return to the United States, whose whereabouts staff from Time Inc.—the parent company of the two magazines—routinely provided to the CIA, would allow the Agency to benefit from their insight and unique access to foreign lands, peoples, and leaders.

𝐄𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐞𝐬: 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥, 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 This edited volume by Lise H. Andersen, Dennis Broeders and Raluca Csernatoni, PhD brings together papers prepared for the conference Closing the Gap 2023, Emerging and Disruptive Digital Technologies: Regional Perspectives, which took place on 6 and 7 December 2023 in The Hague, the Netherlands. The conference was organised by Leiden University, as part of the EU Cyber Direct – EU Cyber Diplomacy Initiative project, and brought together authors and representatives from numerous institutions around the world: https://lnkd.in/eueKRyX6 The aim of the conference was to explore the diversity of interpretations regarding the challenges and opportunities associated with various digital emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs), de-centre approaches to their study (which have so far been largely Western or Europe-centric in nature) as well as enrich the state of the art. The chapters in this volume are divided into three sections focusing respectively on ‘national perspectives: policy meets technology’; ‘interstate and diplomatic arenas: navigating critical emerging technologies’; and ‘harnessing quantum technologies nationally and internationally’. In each of the chapters, authors address different geographical locations — be it cities, countries or blocks of countries — in relation to the application or consideration of a range of digital EDTs in different contexts. With contributions by Chee Hae Chung, Vagisha Srivastava, Hesam Nourooz pour, Duan Xiaolin, Esha Banerji 艾莎, Mayuri (Mukherjee) Pascar, Hyunsu Kim, Chenghao Sun and Yuqi Zhao, Uchenna Jerome Orji, LLM, PhD, Jakob Bund, Walter Britto Gaspar, Giovanni Tricco and Yug Desai.

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞? 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐄𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐈𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧, 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 In this article, Martina Abisso, examines how Southern European member states' newspapers portray European irregular migration governance. It highlights that blame games and the securitisation of migration to Europe are inextricably linked: https://lnkd.in/eD8SHDP4 While scholars have investigated how media frame human mobility and securitize irregular border crossings, little research has been dedicated to how European Union (EU) actors are portrayed in media coverage of migration across the Mediterranean. By integrating framing into narrative analysis through the Narrative Policy Framework, our article fills this gap. Specifically, we provide a content analysis of Italian, Maltese, and Spanish newspapers and identify the key narratives underlying the portrayal of specific EU actors. We show that, overall, lack of EU solidarity is the prevalent issue in Italian, Maltese, and Spanish newspapers alike, followed by the alleged inefficiency of EU actors. Accordingly, the EU and its key actors are regularly narrated as either villains, responsible for the crisis and deserting member states in need of solidarity, or as weaklings unable to take effective action. These narratives appear remarkably consistent across countries, over time, and newspapers with different ideological orientation.