26 December 2024

Political Violence and Terrorism in Cyberspace

Mariano Varesano

The digital revolution and the introduction of the World Wide Web are some of the most significant and impactful global phenomena of the past three decades. The consequences of increasing global networked connectivity branch out into every aspect of daily life and international politics at such a speed that they are often elusive, both for the policy analyst and the policymaker. One of the (relatively) less explored areas of the digital revolution concerns the relationship between cyberspace[1] and political violence, with particular reference to instances in which digital tools are not facilitators of violent action but are its very ends, as well as the means through which it is perpetrated. Understanding the theoretical and practical possibility of cyberterrorism is precisely the purpose of this paper. Is it possible to conceive of a properly terrorist action taking place entirely in a digital environment? Has an attack that could be called cyberterrorism ever occurred? What are the methodological and operational differences between such an attack and a physical one, and what are the interpretive and theoretical differences for the terrorism scholar? These are the main questions guiding the present paper.


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