In recent decades, political party systems across Europe have fragmented and electoral volatility has increased. The number of parties represented in parliaments across the continent has grown and the formerly dominant mainstream parties have seen their support base collapse, forcing parties into often uncomfortable and unstable coalitions.

From the United Kingdom to Germany, politicians and commentators talk of such scenarios in often apocalyptic terms and associate it with political instability and policy paralysis.

They shouldn’t. Instead they should focus their energy on making these increasingly competitive political markets work.

The Netherlands is frequently held up as a prime example of this process, which is therefore sometimes referred to as ‘Dutchification’. Its highly proportional political system has created the opportunity for new parties and specific interest groups to win parliamentary representation, ranging from an animal rights party and a party catering specifically to the interests of the elderly.

This has been accompanied by increased electoral volatility. In the 1970s, less than 15% of seats in the Dutch parliament would change party at any election, but in the last election in 2017, this was just over a quarter. The system also created space for the relatively early rise of populist far-right parties, though it was not the cause of their rise.

Nevertheless, despite the regularly difficult coalition politics, it remains one of the most well-governed countries in the world.

A short history of fragmentation

Looking at the effective number of parties represented in parliaments, the number of parties, corrected for their size, provides a good measure of the extent of fragmentation. In the Netherlands this steadily increased from around four in the 1980s to over eight following the election in 2017. Even the populist far-right vote has fragmented, with two parties partly competing for the same electorate. In other countries it has been a more recent phenomenon. Spain remained a de facto two-party system until the financial crisis. Dissatisfaction with both mainstream parties has seen challenger parties on both the left and the right attract significant support, making it harder to form stable coalitions. Political fragmentation decreased slightly in Italy in recent years, but that was from a high base as it shot up in the early 1990s when the post-war political settlement crumbled.

German politics, long a hallmark of stability, is struggling with the decrease in support for the parties that dominated its political scene in the post-war period. The Christian Democrats and Social Democrats only barely managed to win a majority together in the election in 2017, at 53.4% of the vote compared with the 81.3% achieved 30 years earlier. The latest polls suggest they would only get to 40% together if an election were held today.

A similar trend is visible within the European Parliament. Whereas the two largest groups in the European Parliament, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, together won 66% of the vote in the election in 1999, they did not even manage to win a majority together in 2019, taking just 39.5% of the vote.

No crisis of democracy

If electoral volatility and political fragmentation does indeed constitute some sort of crisis of democracy, we should expect to see voters become unhappy about how their national democracy functions. Largely, the opposite seems to be the case.

In the Netherlands, satisfaction with its democracy went up at the same time as Dutchification did its work. Similar trends are visible in other highly fragmented European political systems, often those with very proportional systems. Despite regular minority governments, satisfaction with democracy is above 90% in Denmark and at 80% in Sweden, according to the latest Eurobarometer data.

In comparison, it stood at 52% in the United Kingdom and 53% in France, where the electoral system has, at least on the surface, prevented the kind of fragmentation supposedly plaguing proportional systems.

Satisfaction with democracy seems to be affected by a number of factors. This includes the state of the economy, particularly in countries that were hit the hardest by the global financial and euro zone crises. Nevertheless, the data suggests that, even if we can’t say that Dutchification by definition leads to more satisfaction with democracy, it is clearly not associated with falling faith in the system.

A competitive political market

Dutchification should be seen as accompanying a more competitive political marketplace. A more emancipated, demanding and politically engaged electorate than in the post-war decades is willing to shop around instead of merely vote according to socioeconomic class or other dividing lines, such as religious ones. The fragmented parliaments that emerge as a result provide better representation of different groups within European societies.

This makes life harder for Europe’s political parties and politicians, as they juggle large coalitions, or changing coalitions under minority governments, but provides voters with more choice and democratic renewal. If handled correctly this would also allow more responsiveness to shifts in public opinion.

Such democratic creative destruction in competitive political markets is to be celebrated in a well-functioning democracy. Just as companies prefer to operate in an oligopoly, political parties prefer the stability of limited political competition. But wishing for this kind of stability comes perilously close to preferring stability over proper representation.

Worrying about Dutchification risks confusing a crisis of the traditional mainstream parties with a crisis of democracy. For some countries, particularly those like the Netherlands and Denmark which have longer histories of consensus-based politics and coalition building, this is an easier adjustment. But this should not be an excuse to not attempt to make politics work better as they were forced to go through, arguably still ongoing, adjustment processes too.

Instead of investing in futile attempts to get back to how things were in the old days, or hoping this will somehow magically happen, political leaders and parties across Europe need to reassess how they deal with the new reality of Dutchification.

This will be done through examining transatlantic approaches and responses to China through the lens for four key themes (digital technology; trade and investment; governance of global commons; and climate change and the environment) that have been identified as crucial to developing effective policy responses and fostering collaboration.

The project will strengthen national, regional and international responses to the risks and opportunities posed by China’s changing role within the global economy and international rules-based order.

Whether feared or longed for, Brexit day has arrived. It is positive for all sides that the process is thus far managed and ordered, with debts paid, rights guaranteed and borders still invisible on the island of Ireland. But in a difficult new phase of negotiations, as the UK and EU try to hammer out the terms of their relationship after 2020, Britain is at risk of repeating many of its mistakes from the withdrawal talks.

First, the government, through the negotiation timeline, has reduced its own room for manoeuvre. The failure of the initial withdrawal agreement and subsequent turbulent politics have reduced a planned 21-month transition to an 11-month one. Even though half the original negotiation time has been lost, 31 December 2020 remains in place and indeed has been written into UK law as the date the transition arrangement ends. Boris Johnson has followed Theresa May in investing symbolism and significance in an arbitrary date.

By promising not to extend negotiations, the UK is boxing itself in, creating domestic political barriers where it may well need flexibility. The familiar face of Michel Barnier, who proved adept in leading the withdrawal negotiations for the EU side, will be back in phase two to tell Britain the clock is ticking. This new timeline is intended to focus minds but more likely it will limit ambitions. 

Second, this government has continued the pattern of its predecessor in making no effort to manage public expectations about the consequences of Brexit. It is naïve to have followed the last years of British politics and expect an outbreak of sobriety and levelheadedness. The entrenched positions of each side have offered little political space or electoral incentive for realism.

During the 2020 transition period, the UK will lose the political rights of EU membership but it will retain the benefits and obligations. Most citizens and business will not be able to tell the difference. But a reckoning is inevitable. There will come a moment when the effects of this slow-motion political revolution – particularly in the hard form envisioned by Boris Johnson – become real, when the trade-offs and compromises, especially for business and the economy, will bite. The public deserve some realism about the price of sovereignty.

Third, there is a risk that government remains underprepared. While its headline goals are clear – at least in terms of what it does not want – the UK government will need thorough, realistic and coherent proposals on what it wants in every area of negotiations, and crucially develop a process by which to make political trade-offs between the demands of different sectors and issues. The government must also then prepare for their implementation in every area. This would be a huge challenge even if the final destination was already known, which it is not. 

Fourth, the continued uncertainty in the process means businesses and civil servants will again be left with little time to adapt to what will face them in January 2021 and must prepare for multiple outcomes.

‘Transition’ has always been a misleading term, since it implies clarity about the destination to which the UK–EU relationship will be transitioning. The government’s red lines for that future relationship provide a sketch: outside of the single market and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, with an independent trade policy and free movement ended.

But businesses and civil servants are not likely to know until very late in the process if the basis for future trade with the EU will be in the form of a free trade agreement, to be negotiated and implemented by the end of the year, or no trade deal at all. This last outcome is a realistic prospect.

During withdrawal negotiations, the extensions were both unlimited in number and required decisions only at the last moment. In this phase, the talks may only be extended once, and that decision must be taken six months from the final deadline. It is difficult to see circumstances in which Boris Johnson agrees to break a political promise and manifesto pledge when he still has six more months to achieve his desired outcome.

The UK, it is often noted, is already fully compliant with EU law and this shared starting point is often cited as a reason this negotiation will be simple, since the parties begin in alignment. But this novel negotiation will create new trade barriers in goods and services rather than remove them. Trade deals are often politically difficult since they create winners and losers. The Brexit negotiations, in terms of UK–EU trade at least, will generally create only different levels of losers, on both sides of the Channel.

That means difficult politics, challenging negotiations and hard compromises, another reason to expect some ugly politics along the way and accept that failure is a plausible outcome.

We do not yet know how Brexit will change Britain in the long term, whether a settled majority will ever come to view it as political folly or liberation, choice or inevitability. If its politically fragile union can withstand the pressures of the next few years, the UK may yet find a new stable position on the EU’s periphery and, after a period of economic adjustment, begin to address the many pressing domestic challenges which have suffered from neglect amid the all-consuming Brexit saga.

But whatever happens in this next chapter, the EU can no longer be an excuse for national problems. As the UK takes back control it also returns accountability. In the future, there will be no one else to credit or to blame.

There are two well-established ideas in trade. Individually, they are correct. Combined, they can lead to a conclusion that is unfortunately wrong.

The first idea is that, across a range of economic sectors, the EU and the US have been engaged in a battle to have their model of regulation accepted as the global one, and that the EU is generally winning.

The second is that governments can use their regulatory power to extend strategic and foreign policy influence.

The conclusion would seem to be that the EU, which has for decades tried to develop a foreign policy, should be able to use its superpower status in regulation and trade to project its interests and its values abroad.

That’s the theory. It’s a proposition much welcomed by EU policymakers, who know they are highly unlikely any time soon to acquire any of the tools usually required to run an effective foreign policy.

The EU doesn’t have an army it can send into a shooting war, enough military or political aid to prop up or dispense of governments abroad, or a centralized intelligence service. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has declared her outfit to be a ‘geopolitical commission’, and is casting about for any means of making that real.

Through the ‘Brussels effect’ whereby European rules and standards are exported via both companies and governments, the EU has indeed won many regulatory battles with the US.

Its cars, chemicals and product safety regulations are more widely adopted round the world than their American counterparts. In the absence of any coherent US offering, bar some varied state-level systems, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the closest thing the world has to a single model for data privacy, and variants of it are being adopted by dozens of countries.

The problem is this. Those parts of global economic governance where the US is dominant – particularly the dollar payments system – are highly conducive to projecting US power abroad. The extraterritorial reach of secondary sanctions, plus the widespread reliance of banks and companies worldwide on dollar funding – and hence the American financial system – means that the US can precisely target its influence.

The EU can enforce trade sanctions, but not in such a powerful and discriminatory way, and it will always be outgunned by the US. Donald Trump could in effect force European companies to join in his sanctions on Iran when he pulled out of the nuclear deal, despite EU legislation designed to prevent their businesses being bullied. He can go after the chief financial officer of Huawei for allegedly breaching those sanctions.

By contrast, the widespread adoption of GDPR or data protection regimes inspired by it may give the EU a warm glow of satisfaction, but it cannot be turned into a geopolitical tool in the same way.

Nor, necessarily, does it particularly benefit the EU economy. Europe’s undersized tech sector seems unlikely to unduly benefit from the fact that data protection rules were written in the EU. Indeed, one common criticism of the regulations is that they entrench the power of incumbent tech giants like Google.

There is a similar pattern at work in the adoption of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. In that field, the EU and its member states are also facing determined competition from China, which has been pushing its technologies and standards through forums such as the International Telecommunication Union.

The EU has been attempting to write international rules for the use of AI which it hopes to be widely adopted. But again, these are a constraint on the use of new technologies largely developed by others, not the control of innovation.

By contrast, China has created a vast domestic market in technologies like facial recognition and unleashed its own companies on it. The resulting surveillance kit can then be marketed to emerging market governments as part of China’s enduring foreign policy campaign to build up supporters in the developing world.

If it genuinely wants to turn its economic power into geopolitical influence – and it’s not entirely clear what it would do with it if it did – the EU needs to recognize that not all forms of regulatory and trading dominance are the same.

Providing public goods to the world economy is all very well. But unless they are so particular in nature that they project uniquely European values and interests, that makes the EU a supplier of useful plumbing but not a global architect of power.

On the other hand, it could content itself with its position for the moment. It could recognize that not until enough hard power – guns, intelligence, money – is transferred from the member states to the centre, or until the member states start acting collectively, will the EU genuinely become a geopolitical force. Speaking loudly and carrying a stick of foam rubber is rarely a way to gain credibility in international relations.

This article is part of a series of publications and roundtable discussions in the Chatham House Global Trade Policy Forum.

Since the 2018 economic crisis, when the value of the lira plummeted and borrowing costs soared, Turkey’s economy has achieved a miraculous ‘V-shaped’ economic recovery from a recession lasting three quarters to a return back to quarterly growth above 1 per cent in the first three months of 2019.

But this quick turnaround has been built on vast amounts of cheap credit used to re-stimulate a consumption and construction boom. This so-called ‘triple C’ economy generated a rapid growth spurt akin to a modestly able professional sprinter injected with steroids.

This has made the currency vulnerable. The lira has steadily depreciated by 11 per cent against the US dollar since the beginning of 2019 and crossed the rate of 6 lira versus the US dollar on 7 February. And there are further warning signs on the horizon.

Credit bonanza

Statistics reveal that Turkish domestic credit grew by around 13 per cent on average throughout 2019.  The credit bonanza is still ongoing. Mortgage-backed home sales jumped by a record high of 600 per cent last December alone and the 2019 budget deficit catapulted by 70 per cent due to higher government spending.

Turkey’s central bank fuelled this credit expansion by cutting interest rates aggressively to below inflation and, since the start of this year, purchasing lira-denominated bonds equivalent to around one-third of total acquisitions last year to push yields lower.

Equally, it has linked bank lending to reserve requirements – the money that banks have to keep at the central bank – to boost borrowings via state and private banks. Banks with a ‘real’ loan growth (including inflation) of between 5 and 15 per cent enjoy a 2 per cent reserve ratio on most lira deposits, which authorities adjusted from an earlier band of 10-20 per cent that did not consider double-digit inflation.

Cumulatively, bond purchases (effectively quantitative easing) and reserve management policies have also contributed to eased credit conditions.

Commercial banks have also reduced deposit rates on lira accounts to less than inflation to encourage consumption over saving. Together with low lending rates, the boost to the economy has flowed via mortgages, credit card loans, vehicle leasing transactions and general business borrowings.

Accordingly, stimulus is at the forefront of the government’s economic approach, as it was in 2017 and 2018. It does not seem to be implementing structural change to re-orient growth away from consumption towards productivity. 

In addition, governance is, again, a central issue. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s near total monopolization of policymaking means he guides all domestic and external policies. He forced out the previous central bank governor, Murat Cetinkaya, in July 2019 because he did not share the president’s desire for an accelerated pace of interest rate reductions.

New challenges

Despite the similarities, the expected future financial turbulence will be materially different from its 2018 predecessor in four crucial respects. 

Firstly, foreign investors will only be marginally involved. Turkey has shut out foreign investors since 2018 from lira-denominated assets by restricting lira swap arrangements. Unsurprisingly, the non-resident holdings of lira bonds has plummeted from 20 per cent in 2018 to less than 10 per cent today.

Secondly, the Turkish government has recently introduced indirect domestic capital controls by constraining most commercial transactions to the lira rather than to the US dollar or euro to reduce foreign currency demand in light of short-term external debt obligations of $191 billion.

Thirdly, the Turkish state banks are intervening quite regularly to soften Lira volatility, thereby transitioning from a ‘free float’ to a ‘managed float’. So far, they have spent over $37 billion over the last two years in a futile effort to buttress the lira. This level of involvement in currency markets cannot be maintained.

Fourthly, the Turkish state is being far more interventionist in the Turkish stock exchange and bond markets to keep asset prices elevated. Government-controlled local funds have participated in the Borsa Istanbul and state banks in sovereign debt to sustain rallies or reverse a bear market.  

All these measures have one running idea: exclude foreign investors and no crisis will recur. Yet, when the credit boom heads to a downturn sooner or later, Turks will probably escalate lira conversions to US dollars; 51 per cent of all Turkish bank deposits are already dollar-denominated and the figure is still rising.

If Turkey’s limited foreign reserves cannot satisfy the domestic dollar demand, the government may have to impose comprehensive capital controls and allow for a double digit depreciation in the value of the lira to from its current level, with significant repercussions on Turkey’s political stability and economic climate.

To avoid this scenario, it needs to restore fiscal and monetary prudence, deal the with the foreign debt overhang in the private sector and focus on productivity-improving economic and institutional reforms to gain the confidence of global financial markets and Turks alike.

Summary

• There is a widespread sense that liberal democracy is in crisis, but little consensus exists on the specific nature and causes of the crisis. In particular, there are three prisms through which the crisis is usually seen: the rise of ‘populism’, ‘democratic deconsolidation’, and a ‘hollowing out’ of democracy. Each reflects normative assumptions about democracy.
• The exact role of digital technology in the crisis is disputed. Despite the widely held perception that social media is undermining democracy, the evidence for this is limited. Over the longer term, the further development of digital technology could undermine the fundamental preconditions for democracy – though the pace and breadth of technological change make predictions about its future impact difficult.
• Democracy functions in different ways in different European countries, with political systems on the continent ranging from ‘majoritarian democracies’ such as the UK to ‘consensual democracies’ such as Belgium and Switzerland. However, no type seems to be immune from the crisis. The political systems of EU member states also interact in diverse ways with the EU’s own structure, which is problematic for representative democracy as conventionally understood, but difficult to reform.
• Political parties, central to the model of representative democracy that emerged in the late 18th century, have long seemed to be in decline. Recently there have been some signs of a reversal of this trend, with the emergence of parties that have used digital technology in innovative ways to reconnect with citizens. Traditional parties can learn from these new ‘digital parties’.
• Recent years have also seen a proliferation of experiments in direct and deliberative democracy. There is a need for more experimentation in these alternative forms of democracy, and for further evaluation of how they can be integrated into the existing institutions and processes of representative democracy at the local, regional, national and EU levels.
• We should not think of democracy in a static way – that is, as a system that can be perfected once and for all and then simply maintained and defended against threats. Democracy has continually evolved and now needs to evolve further. The solution to the crisis will not be to attempt to limit democracy in response to pressure from ‘populism’ but to deepen it further as part of a ‘democratization of democracy’.

This week the UK will start negotiating its future relationship with the European Union. The government is trying to convince the EU that it is serious about its red lines and is prepared to walk away from negotiations if the UK’s ‘regulatory freedom’ is not accepted – a no-deal scenario that would result in tariffs between the EU and the UK. Yet at the same time the story it is telling the world is that Britain is ‘re-emerging after decades of hibernation as a campaigner for global free trade’, as Boris Johnson put it in his speech in Greenwich a few weeks ago.

The EU is understandably confused. It’s a bit odd to claim to be campaigning for free trade at the exact moment you are creating new barriers to trade. If Britain were so committed to frictionless trade, it wouldn’t have left the EU in the first place – and having decided to leave, it would have sought to maintain a close economic relationship with the EU, like that of Norway, rather than seek a basic trade deal like Canada’s. 

As well as creating confusion, the narrative also absurdly idealizes free trade. Johnson invoked Richard Cobden and the idea that free trade is ‘God’s diplomacy – the only certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace since the more freely goods cross borders the less likely it is that troops will ever cross borders’. But the idea that free trade prevents war was shattered by the outbreak of the First World War, which brought to an end the first era of globalization.

We also know that the domestic effects of free trade are more complex and problematic than Johnson suggested. Economic liberalization increases efficiency by removing friction but also creates disruption and has huge distributional consequences – that is, it creates winners and losers. In a democracy, these consequences need to be mitigated.

In any case, the world today is not the same as the one in which Cobden lived. Tariffs are at a historically low level – and many non-tariff barriers have also been removed. In other words, most of the possible gains from trade liberalization have already been realized. Johnson talked about the dangers of a new wave of protectionism. But as the economist Dani Rodrik has argued, the big problem in the global economy is no longer a lack of openness, it is a lack of democratic legitimacy.

The UK should therefore abandon this confusing and misleading narrative and own the way it is actually creating new barriers to trade – and do a better job of explaining the legitimate reasons for doing so. Instead of simplistically talking up free trade, we should be talking about the need to balance openness and economic efficiency with democracy and a sense of control, which is ultimately what Brexit was all about. Instead of claiming to be a ‘catalyst for free trade’, as Johnson put it, the UK should be talking about how it is trying to recalibrate globalization and, in doing so, make it sustainable.

In the three decades after the end of the Cold War, globalization got out of control as barriers to the movement of capital and goods were progressively removed – what Rodrik called ‘hyper-globalization’ to distinguish it from the earlier, more moderate phase of globalization. This kind of deep integration necessitated the development of a system of rules, which have constrained the ability of states to pursue the kind of economic policy, particularly industrial policy, they want, and therefore undermined democracy.

Hyper-globalization created a sense that ‘the nation state has fundamentally lost control of its destiny, surrendering to anonymous global forces’, as the economist Barry Eichengreen put it. Throughout the West, countries are all struggling with the same dilemma – how to reconcile openness and deep integration on the one hand, and democracy, sovereignty and a sense of control on the other.

Within the EU, however, economic integration and the abolition of barriers to the movement of capital and goods went further than in the rest of the world – and the evolution of the principle of freedom of movement after the Maastricht Treaty meant that barriers to the internal movement of people were also eliminated as the EU was enlarged. What happened within the EU might be thought of as ‘hyper-regionalization’ – an extreme example, in a regional context, of a global trend.

EU member states have lost control to an even greater extent than other nation states – albeit to anonymous regional rather than global forces – and this loss of control was felt intensely within the EU. It is therefore logical that this led to an increase in Euroscepticism. Whereas the left wants to restore some barriers to the movement of capital and goods, the right wants to restore barriers to the movement of people.

However, having left the EU, the UK is uniquely well placed to find a new equilibrium. The UK has an ideological commitment to free trade that goes back to the movement to abolish the Corn Laws in the 1840s – which Johnson’s speech expressed. It is difficult to imagine the UK becoming protectionist in any meaningful sense. But at the same time, it has a well-developed sense of national and popular sovereignty, and the sense that the two go together – which is why it was so sensitive to the erosion of them through the EU. This means that Britain is unlikely to go to one extreme or the other.

In other words, the UK may be the ideal country to find a new balance between openness and integration on the one hand, and a sense of control on the other. If it can find this balance – if it can make Brexit work – the UK could be a model for a wider recalibration of sustainable globalization. That, rather than fetishizing free trade, is the real contribution the UK can make.

A version of this article was originally published in the Observer.

What role does the EU want to play in a world characterised increasingly by power politics? The new European Commission has explicitly stated its ambition for the EU to become a stronger geopolitical actor. Is it capable of becoming a third pole in an enduring US-China stand-off?

From climate change to trade policy and security, the next 5 years may prove decisive in proving the EU can be a strong player both in its neighbourhood and globally. Given what is at stake, what are the Commission’s strategic and policymaking priorities for the next five years? With the discussions on the future EU budget ongoing, what areas will be prioritized when member states come to make decisions between competing objectives? Does the way the EU is perceived externally depend on its member states’ ability to put on a united front when it comes to the most pressing global challenges?

Finally, is this ambitious geopolitical vision deliverable within the EU’s existing structures? If not, are member states ready to give up more control for a stronger Europe at the EU level?

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

The measures taken to limit the spread of the coronavirus - in particular social distancing -  come with significant economic costs, as the drop both in demand for goods and services and in supply due to workers being at home sick will create a short-term economic shock not seen in modern times.

Sectors that are usually less affected by regular economic swings such as transport and tourism are being confronted with an almost total collapse in demand. In the airline sector, companies are warning they might only be able to hold out for a few months more.

Building on the calls to provide income support to all citizens and shore up businesses, European leaders should now be giving explicit permission to the European Central Bank (ECB) to provide whatever financial support is needed.

Although political leaders have responded to the economic threat, the measures announced across the continent have mainly been to support businesses. The crisis is broader and deeper than the current response.

Support for weaker governments

The ECB already reacted to COVID-19 by announcing measures to support the banking system, which is important to guarantee the continuity of the European financial system and to ensure financially weaker European governments do not have to confront a failing banking system as well.

Although government-subsidised reduced working hours and sick pay are a solution for many businesses and workers, crucially they are not for those working on temporary contracts or the self-employed. They need direct income support.

This might come down to instituting something that looks like a universal basic income (UBI), and ensuring money keeps flowing through the economy as much as possible to help avoid a cascade of defaults and significant long-term damage.

But while this is likely to be the most effective remedy to limit the medium-term impact on the economy, it is particularly costly. Just as an indication, total compensation of employees was on average around €470bn per month in the eurozone last year.

Attempting to target payments using existing welfare payment channels would reduce costs, but is difficult to implement and runs the risk of many households and businesses in need missing out.

The increase in spending and lost revenue associated with these support measures dwarf the fiscal response to the 2008-09 financial crisis. The eurozone economy could contract by close to 10% this year and budget deficits are likely be in double digits throughout the bloc.

The European Commission has already stated member states are free to spend whatever is necessary to combat the crisis, which is not surprising given the Stability and Growth Pact - which includes the fiscal rules - allows for such eventualities.

Several eurozone countries do probably have the fiscal space to deal with this. Countries such as Germany and the Netherlands have run several years of balanced budgets recently and significantly decreased their debt levels. For countries such as Italy, and even France, it is a different story and the combination of much higher spending and a collapse in tax revenue is more likely to lead to questions in the market over the sustainability of their debt levels. In order to avoid this, the Covid-19 response must be financed collectively.

The Eurogroup could decide to use the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to provide states with the funds, while suitably ditching the political conditionality that came with previous bailout. But the ESM currently has €410bn in remaining lending capacity, which is unlikely to be enough and difficult to rapidly increase.

So this leaves the ECB to pick up the tab of national governments’ increase in spending, as the only institution with effectively unlimited monetary firepower. But a collective EU response is complicated by the common currency, and particularly by the role of the ECB.

The ECB can’t just do whatever it likes and is limited more than other major central banks in its room for manoeuvre. It does have a programme to buy government bonds but this relies on countries agreeing to a rescue programme within the context of the ESM, with all the resulting political difficulties.

There are two main ways that the ECB could finance the response to the crisis. First, it could buy up more or all bonds issued by the member states. A first step in this direction would be to scrap the limits on the bonds it can buy. Through self-imposed rules, the ECB can only buy up to a third of every country’s outstanding public debt. There are good reasons for this in normal times, but these are not normal times. With the political blessing of the European Council, the Eurosystem of central banks could then start buying bonds issued by governments to finance whatever expenditure they deem necessary to combat the crisis.

Secondly, essentially give governments an overdraft with the ECB or the national central banks. Although a central bank lending directly to governments is outlawed by the European treaties, the COVID-19 crisis means these rules should be temporarily suspended by the European Council.

Back in 2012, the then president of the ECB, Mario Draghi, proclaimed the ECB would do whatever it takes, within its mandate, to save the euro, which was widely seen as a crucial step towards solving the eurozone crisis. The time is now right for eurozone political leaders to explicitly tell the ECB that together they can do whatever it takes to save the eurozone economy through direct support for businesses and households.

It is less than a month since we published our research paper on the future of democracy in Europe. But it feels like we now live in a different world. The coronavirus has already killed thousands of people in Europe, led to an unprecedented economic crisis and transformed daily life – and in the process raised difficult new questions about democracy.

The essence of our argument in the paper was that democracy in Europe should be deepened. But now there is a much more basic question about whether democracies can protect their citizens from the pandemic.

There has already been much discussion about whether authoritarian states will emerge stronger from this crisis than democracies. In particular, although the virus originated in China and the government initially seemed to struggle to deal with it, it was able to largely contain the outbreak in Hubei and deploy vast resources from the rest of the country to deal with it.

Come through the worst

China may have come through the worst of the health crisis – though a second wave of infections as restrictions are lifted is possible – and there have already been three times as many deaths in Italy, and twice as many in Spain, as in China (although there is increasing doubt about the accuracy of China’s figures).

However, it is not only authoritarian states that seem so far to have coped relatively well with the virus. In fact, some East Asian democracies appear to have done even better than China. At the time of writing South Korea, with a population of 51.5 million, has had only 144 death rates so far. Taiwan, with a population of nearly 24 million, has had only two deaths.

So rather than thinking in terms of the relative performance of authoritarian states and democracies, perhaps instead we should be asking what we in Europe can learn from East Asian democracies.

It is not yet clear why East Asian democracies were able to respond so effectively, especially as they did not all follow exactly the same approach. Whereas some quickly imposed restrictions on travel (for example, Taiwan suspended flights from China and then prohibited the entry of people from China and other affected countries) and quarantines, others used extensive testing and contact tracing, often making use of personal data collected from citizens.

Whatever the exact strategy they used, though, they did all act quickly and decisively – and the collective memory of the SARS outbreak in 2003 and other recent epidemics seems to have played a role in this. For example, following the SARS outbreak, Taiwan created a central epidemic command center. Europe, meanwhile, was hardly affected by SARS – and we seem to have assumed the coronavirus would be the same (although that does not quite explain why we were still so slow to react in February even after it was clear that the virus had spread to Italy).

However, while the relative success of East Asian democracies may have something to do with this recent experience of epidemics, it may also have something to do with the kind of democracies they are. It may be a simple matter of competence – the bureaucracy in Taiwan and South Korea may function better, and in particular in a more coordinated way, than in many European countries.

But it may also be more than that. In particular, it could be that East Asian democracies have a kind of 'authoritarian residue' that has helped in the initial response to this crisis. South Korea and Taiwan are certainly vibrant democracies – but they are also relatively new democracies compared to many in Europe. As a result, citizens may have a different relationship with the state and be more willing to accept sudden restrictions of freedoms, in particular on movement, and the use of personal data – at least in a crisis.

In that sense, the pandemic may be a challenge not to democracy as such but to liberal democracy in particular – in other words, a system of popular sovereignty together with guaranteed basic rights, such as including freedom of association and expression and checks and balances on executive power. There may now be difficult trade-offs to be made between those basic rights and security – and, after the experience of coronavirus, many citizens may choose security.

This brings us back to the issues we discussed in our research paper. Even before the coronavirus hit, there was already much discussion of a crisis of liberal democracy. In particular, there has been a debate about whether liberalism and democracy, which had long been assumed to go together, were becoming decoupled.

In particular, ‘illiberal democracies’ seemed to be emerging in many places including Europe (although, as we discuss in the paper, some analysts argue that the term is incoherent). This model of ‘illiberal democracy’ – in other words, one in which elections continue to be held but some individual rights are curtailed – may emerge stronger from this new crisis.

It is striking that Singapore – also seen as responding successfully to coronavirus – was seen as a paradigmatic ‘illiberal democracy’ long before Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán embraced the idea. In particular, there is little real opposition to the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since 1959.

Since this new crisis began, Orbán has gone further in suspending rights in Hungary. On March 11, he declared a state of emergency – as many other European countries have also done. But he has now gone further by passing legislation that allows him to govern by decree indefinitely and make it illegal to spread misinformation that undermines the government’s response to the pandemic. Clearly, this is a further decisive step in the deconsolidation of liberal democracy in Hungary.

So far, though, much of the discussion, particularly in the foreign policy world, has focused mainly on how to change popular perceptions that liberal democracies are failing in this crisis. For example, High Representative Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign minister, wrote last week of a 'battle of narratives'.

But this misses the point. It is not a matter of spinning the European model, but of taking seriously the substantial questions raised by the coronavirus about the ability of liberal democracies to adequately protect their citizens.

Following a year of protests, extreme politics and the emergence of new and sophisticated security challenges, Robert Malley and Leslie Vinjamuri examine the International Crisis Group’s Ten Conflicts to Watch in 2020.

They identify key challenges for international relations, discuss the potential for national and regional political instability and consider how these issues may impact foreign policy, international security and democratic governance.

As tensions escalate in the Middle East, US President Donald Trump has threatened to strike targets in Iran should they seek to retaliate over the killing of Qassem Soleimani. According to the president’s tweet, these sites includes those that are ‘important to Iran and Iranian culture’.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper was quick on Monday to rule out any such action and acknowledged that the US would ‘follow the laws of armed conflict’. But Trump has not since commented further on the matter.

Any move to target Iranian cultural heritage could constitute a breach of the international laws protecting cultural property. Attacks on cultural sites are deemed unlawful under two United Nations conventions; the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property during Armed Conflict, and the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

These have established deliberate attacks on cultural heritage (when not militarily necessary) as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in recognition of the irreparable damage that the loss of cultural heritage can have locally, regionally and globally.

These conventions were established in the aftermath of the Second World War, in reaction to the legacy of the massive destruction of cultural property that took place, including the intense bombing of cities, and systematic plunder of artworks across Europe. The conventions recognize that damage to the cultural property of any people means ‘damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind’. The intention of these is to establish a new norm whereby protecting culture and history – that includes cultural and historical property – is as important as safeguarding people.

Such historical sites are important not simply as a matter of buildings and statues, but rather for their symbolic significance in a people’s history and identity. Destroying cultural artefacts is a direct attack on the identity of the population that values them, erasing their memories and historical legacy. Following the heavy bombing of Dresden during the Second World War, one resident summed up the psychological impact of such destruction in observing that ‘you expect people to die, but you don’t expect the buildings to die’.

Targeting sites of cultural significance isn’t just an act of intimidation during conflict. It can also have a lasting effect far beyond the cessation of violence, hampering post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction, where ruins or the absence of previously significant cultural monuments act as a lasting physical reminder of hostilities.

For example, during the Bosnian War in the 1990s, the Old Bridge in Mostar represented a symbol of centuries of shared cultural heritage and peaceful co-existence between the Serbian and Croat communities. The bridge’s destruction in 1993 at the height of the civil war and the temporary cable bridge which took its place acted as a lasting reminder of the bitter hostilities, prompting its reconstruction a decade later as a mark of the reunification of the ethnically divided town.

More recently, the destruction of cultural property has been a feature of terrorist organizations, such as the Taliban’s demolition of the 1,700-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, eliciting international condemnation. Similarly, in Iraq in 2014 following ISIS’s seizure of the city of Mosul, the terrorist group set about systematically destroying a number of cultural sites, including the Great Mosque of al-Nuri with its leaning minaret, which had stood since 1172. And in Syria, the ancient city of Palmyra was destroyed by ISIS in 2015, who attacked its archaeological sites with bulldozers and explosives.

Such violations go beyond destruction: they include the looting of archaeological sites and trafficking of cultural objects, which are used to finance terrorist activities, which are also prohibited under the 1954 Hague Convention.

As a war crime, the destruction of cultural property has been successfully prosecuted in the International Criminal Court, which sentenced Ahmad Al-Faqi Al-Mahdi to nine years in jail in 2016 for his part in the destruction of the Timbuktu mausoleums in Mali. Mahdi led members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to destroy mausoleums and monuments of cultural and religious importance in Timbuktu, irreversibly erasing what the chief prosecutor described as ‘the embodiment of Malian history captured in tangible form from an era long gone’.

Targeting cultural property is prohibited under customary international humanitarian law, not only by the Hague Convention. But the Convention sets out detailed regulations for protection of such property, and it has taken some states a lot of time to provide for these.

Although the UK was an original signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, it did not ratify it until 2017, introducing into law the Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017, and setting up the Cultural Protection Fund to safeguard heritage of international importance threatened by conflict in countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ostensibly, the UK’s delay in ratifying the convention lay in concerns over the definition of key terms and adequate criminal sanctions, which were addressed in the Second Protocol in 1999. However, changing social attitudes towards the plunder of antiquities, and an alarming increase in the use of cultural destruction as a weapon of war by extremist groups to eliminate cultures that do not align with their own ideology, eventually compelled the UK to act.

In the US, it is notoriously difficult to get the necessary majority for the approval of any treaty in the Senate; for the Hague Convention, approval was achieved in 2008, following which the US ratified the Convention in 2009.

Destroying the buildings and monuments which form the common heritage of humanity is to wipe out the physical record of who we are. People are people within a place, and they draw meaning about who they are from their surroundings. Religious buildings, historical sites, works of art, monuments and historic artefacts all tell the story of who we are and how we got here. We have a responsibility to protect them.

In response to the changing geopolitical landscape in Asia, both China and the United States attempt to alter the regional order in their own favour, both in the economic and security realms. This article shows how diverging views on future arrangements are leading to strategic shifts and increasing tension between these two Great Powers. As part of its quest for Great-Power status, China has been actively pushing its regional initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as adopting assertive security policies towards its neighbours. In contrast, in order to counter China's growing influence America's regional strategy is undergoing a subtle shift from ‘rebalancing to Asia’ to focusing on the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region. However, amid an intensifying trade war and other challenges facing the region, China has chosen to moderate its proactive foreign policy-orientation in the past few years. In particular, China has made attempts to downplay its domestic rhetoric, rebuild strategic relationship with India and Japan, and to reassure ASEAN states in the South China Sea. In response to the Indo-Pacific strategy, it would be more effective for China to articulate a more inclusive regional vision and promote an institutional framework that also accommodates a US presence in the region.

The ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy, actively promoted by the United States with support from its allies and partners, is a significant geopolitical response to China's growing power and expanding influence in Asia and beyond. Beijing has adopted various new strategies to cope with the challenges related to FOIP. One of these strategies is to secure a robust relationship with south-east Asia in order to make these regional states either neutral to or less supportive of the Indo-Pacific vision. In addition to economic statecraft and soft power, Beijing believes that it can also tap into the domain of non-traditional security (NTS) to strengthen relations with this region to position itself better in the intensifying regional geopolitical competition. The article addresses the following question: what is the impact of China's NTS cooperation with south-east Asia on Beijing's geopolitical rivalry with other major powers in the Indo-Pacific region? The article argues that China's NTS cooperation with south-east Asian countries may help China maintain its geopolitical standing in the region, but it is unlikely to lead to any dramatic increase of China's strategic influence in the region. This essentially means that Beijing may be able to prevent ASEAN or most ASEAN member states from lending substantive and strong support to the Indo-Pacific construct, but it will not be able to stop ASEAN states from supporting some elements of the FOIP.

Japan's primary objective of the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives—shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence from the FOIP concept, which reflects a change in the degree of its commitment to the two objectives. On the one hand, as its overall security strategy, Japan has determined to steadily enhance its national defence by increasing its own defence capabilities and strengthening the US–Japan alliance, while transforming its partnerships with like-minded states, such as Australia and India, into a diplomatic, and potentially military, alignment. This has been brought about by shifts in the regional balance of power, particularly the rise of China and the relative decline of the United States. On the other hand, as part of its FOIP strategy, Japan's attempts to build a new regional order in the Indo-Pacific region aim to defend the existing rules-based order established by the United States from challengers, particularly China. Yet, given the strategic uncertainty over Japan's international coalition-building efforts to create a new regional order, Japan has made its approach flexible; Tokyo is using its ambiguous FOIP concept to gauge other states' responses, understand their perspectives, and change its strategic emphases accordingly—so-called ‘tactical hedging’. Japan has pursued similar means to achieve the two key objectives. Nevertheless, the country's core interest, the defence of Japan, is more imperative than building a regional order in the Indo-Pacific region, and Japan faces different types of challenges in the future.

Australia has been among the most prominent advocates of the increasingly popular Indo-Pacific concept. This article argues that Canberra's enthusiasm for the concept stems from its appeal to the two dominant traditions of Australian foreign policy—a ‘dependent ally’ tradition and a ‘middle power’ approach. While these two traditions are typically seen as being in tension, the Indo-Pacific concept provides a rare point of convergence between them. The article begins by outlining the appeal of the Indo-Pacific concept to each of these traditions. Using a case-study of recent Australian policy toward the South China Sea disputes, however, the article then demonstrates that Australia has in practice implemented its stated Indo-Pacific strategy far less consistently than its very vocal support would appear to suggest. This disjuncture is attributed to the growing influence of a third, generally understudied, ‘pragmatic’ Australian foreign policy tradition. Because Australia has been such a prominent champion of the Indo-Pacific concept, the article concludes that this divergence between the rhetoric and the reality of Australia's Indo-Pacific strategy threatens to have a negative impact on the concept's broader international appeal and sustainability, particularly among Australia's south-east Asian neighbours.

Indonesia has taken a leadership role within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in drafting a common outlook on the Indo-Pacific concept. The widening of Indonesia's geostrategic canvas from the Asia–Pacific to the Indo-Pacific is in line with President Joko Widodo's intent to make Indonesia a Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF). In view of the rivalry between the US and China and the emergence of various Indo-Pacific initiatives from other countries, Indonesia believes that ASEAN must try to maintain its centrality. The draft of Indonesia's perspective for an ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific: towards a peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive region was submitted for considerations by ASEAN, and after 18 months of intensive lobbying by Indonesia the concept was finally adopted at the ASEAN Summit in June 2019. The ASEAN outlook promotes the principles of openness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect for international law and ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific region. It proposes a building-block approach, seeking commonalities between existing regional initiatives in which ASEAN-led mechanisms will act as a fulcrum for both norm-setting and concrete cooperation. Rather than creating a new regional architecture, the East Asia Summit (EAS) is proposed as the platform for advancing the Indo-Pacific discourse and cooperation. Indonesia's ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific marks its renewed foreign policy activism as a middle power and underlines the continuing importance that Indonesia places on ASEAN as the cornerstone of its foreign policy, emphasising ASEAN's centrality as the primary vehicle for managing relations with the major powers in the Indo-Pacific region.

This article assesses how south-east Asian countries and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have responded to the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategies promoted by the United States and the other countries in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the ‘Quad’: US, Japan, Australia and India). Their nuanced ripostes imply a persistent commitment to hedging and shifting limited alignments in the face of growing great rivalry and the lack of a clear FOIP vision among Quad members. In the face of external pressure to take sides, the ASEAN states are likely to keep hedging through working selectively with China and the United States. Given the United States' apparent preference to balance China and Trump's disregard for multilateralism, ASEAN's ability to maintain its centrality in the evolving regional architecture is in doubt—despite the Quad countries' (belated) accommodation of ASEAN in their FOIP strategies. However, the success of the US strategy depends on Washington's ability to build and sustain the requisite coalition to balance Beijing. ASEAN has undertaken efforts to enhance bilateral security collaboration with China and the United States respectively. In doing so, ASEAN is arguably seeking to informally redefine its centrality in an era of Great Power discord and its ramifications for multilateralism.

Although the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ has become popular in the foreign policy discourse of some countries, we have yet to see any significant institution-building in the Indo-Pacific region. Borrowing insights from functional institutionalism and political leadership studies of international regimes, we introduce a ‘leadership–institution’ model to explore the problems and prospects of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific. Through a comparative case study of the institutionalization of the Asia–Pacific vs the Indo-Pacific, we argue that two crucial factors contributed to the slow institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific as a regional system in world politics: the lack of ideational leadership from an epistemic community and the weak executive leadership from a powerful state. While ideational leaders can help states identify and expand common interests in cooperation, executive leadership will facilitate states to overcome operational obstacles in cooperation, such as the ‘collective action’ problem and the ‘relative gains’ concern. The future of institution-building in the Indo-Pacific will depend on whether and how these two leadership roles are played by scholars and states in the region. In the conclusion, we discuss the challenges of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific and highlight China as a wild card in the future of Indo-Pacific regionalism.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been regarded by international society as a major policy tool in China's geo-economic strategy. Under this policy platform, Beijing has pledged to invest billions of dollars in the infrastructure and industrial sectors across Eurasia and in the Indo-Pacific nations. It is widely believed that such huge amount of investment will inevitably generate significant geostrategic repercussions in these regions. In response to the BRI, the United States and other powers have come up with a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ strategy. This article attempts to address the following question: what impact is the BRI likely to have on the security ties between China and the other major players in the Indo-Pacific? The author finds that the BRI may significantly transform China's international security policy and the expansion of Beijing's security influence may further intensify the security competition between China and other major powers in the Indo-Pacific region. The article also proposes a new analytical angle for the study of geo-economics that unpacks the role of economic activities and processes in generating geopolitical intentions and catalysing geopolitical competition.

This article adopts a constructive approach to examining the problem of the Indo-Pacific construct. Through reflection on the east Asian experience, it proposes an analytical framework of developmental peace as a constellation of international practices, which means that the more economic development is prioritized by states in regional processes, the more likely it is that a sustainable peace will be achieved. States participating in regional integration comprise a community of practice. On the basis of a shared understanding that development is of overriding importance and underpins security and state legitimacy, the community takes economic development as the anchoring practice; this practice embodies and enacts constitutive rules and fundamental norms for a broader set of practices in regional processes, such as peaceful coexistence and non-interference. The more economic development is prioritized on domestic and regional agendas, the more likely it is that conflicts in the security realm will be relaxed or even resolved to protect security interests. The author draws some useful implications from the developmental peace in east Asia for the Indo-Pacific construct, among which the most important include building shared understandings on the prioritization of economic development, taking advantage of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and using the code of conduct process as a vehicle and best practice to facilitate rule-making for the maritime order. Finally, the author briefly discusses the contributions of the study and limitations of the model.

As a geographical concept, ‘Indo-Pacific’ has existed for decades. As a political and strategic concept, it has since 2010 gradually become established in the foreign policy lexicon of some countries, especially Australia, India, Japan and the United States. However, China seems to be reluctant to identify itself as part of the Indo-Pacific; Chinese leaders believe that the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy aims to contain China's rise. While the battle between the two geographical concepts ‘Indo-Pacific’ and ‘Asia–Pacific’ may be fairly easily settled in the future, US–China strategic competition has just begun. Will the Indo-Pacific become a battlefield for US–China rivalry? How will China cope with the US ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy? How will other regional actors respond to the US–China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific? What are the strategic implications of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept for regional order transformation? How will the Indo-Pacific be institutionalized, economically, politically and strategically? This article introduces the January 2020 special issue of International Affairs, which aims to address those questions, using both country-specific and regional perspectives. Seven articles focus on the policy responses of major players (Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan and ASEAN) to the US FOIP strategy and related US–China rivalry in the region. A further three articles examine the profound implications of Indo-Pacific dynamics for regional institution-building and for geopolitical and geo-economic architecture.

The president of Malta discusses the current security challenges in the Mediterranean region, reflecting on the role of international cooperation in addressing climate change, migration and refugee flows.

In April 2018, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), held in London, saw the creation and the adoption of the Commonwealth Cyber Declaration. The declaration outlines the framework for a concerted effort to advance cybersecurity practices to promote a safe and prosperous cyberspace for Commonwealth citizens, businesses and societies. 

The conference will aim to provide an overview on the progress made on cybersecurity in the Commonwealth since the declaration was announced in 2018. In addition, it will examine future challenges and potential solutions going forward.

This conference is part of the International Security Programme's project on Implementing the Commonwealth Cybersecurity Agenda and will convene a range of senior Commonwealth representatives as well as a selection of civil society and industry stakeholders. This project aims to develop a pan-Commonwealth platform to take the Commonwealth Cyber Declaration forward by means of a holistic, inclusive and representative approach.

Please see below meeting summaries from previous events on Cybersecurity in the Commonwealth:  

• A cyberspace that supports economic and social rights online (London)
• Build the foundations of an effective national cybersecurity response (Barbados)
• Promote stability in cyberspace through international cooperation (Addis Ababa)

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

The GCC states have invested significantly in cybersecurity and have made large strides in protecting governments, businesses and individuals from cyber threats, with the aim of delivering on their ambitious national strategies and future visions. However, several challenges to cybersecurity and cyber resilience in the region persist, putting those ambitious plans at risk.

These challenges include the uneven nature of cybersecurity protections, the incomplete implementation of cybersecurity strategies and regulations, and the issues around international cooperation. Such challenges mean that GCC states need to focus on the more difficult task of cyber resilience, in addition to the simpler initial stages of cybersecurity capacity-building, to ensure they harness the true potential of digital technologies and mitigate associated threats.

Set against this background, this workshop will explore opportunities and challenges to cyber resilience in the GCC focusing on four main pillars:

1. Cyber resilience: in concept and in practice
2. Building an effective cybersecurity capacity
3. The potential of regional and international cooperation to cyber resilience
4. Deterrence and disruption: different approaches

This event will be held in collaboration with the Arab Regional Cybersecurity Centre (ARCC) and OMAN CERT.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. 

This article explores the role of religion in political transnationalism using the case of the Shi'a Iraqi diaspora since 2003. The article focuses on three areas that capture important trends in Shi'a transnationalism and their implications for transnational Shi'a identity politics. These include Shi'a diasporic politics, transnational Shi'a civic activism, and the cultural production of Iraqi Shi'a identity through pilgrimages, rituals and new practices. It is argued that understanding Shi'a Islam and identity formation requires adopting a transnational lens. The evolution of Shi'a Islam is not only a result of the dictates of the Shi'a clerical centres, and how they influence Shi'a populations abroad, but also the transnational interrelationships and links to holy shrine cities, Shi'i national and international politics, humanitarianism and commemorations and rituals. The article demonstrates that Shi'a political transnationalism is unexceptional in that it echoes much of the literature on diasporic politics and development where diaspora involve themselves from afar in the politics and societies of their countries of origin. At the same time, it shows the exceptionalism of Shi'a diasporic movements, in that their motivations and mobilizations are contributing to the reification of sectarian geographical and social borders, creating a transnationalism that is defined by largely Shi'a networks, spaces, actors and causes. The case of Shi'a political transnationalism towards Iraq shows that this is increasing the distance between Shi'is and Iraq's other communities, simultaneously fragmenting Iraq's national unity while deepening Shi'a identity and politics both nationally and supra-nationally.

In this article, drawing on the work of the development sociologist Norman Long, I make the case for an actor-oriented approach to understanding the ‘turn to religion’ by global aid actors over the past couple of decades. I ask, is the ‘turn to religion’ evidence of the emergence of post-secular partnerships or are faith actors being instrumentalized to serve neo-liberal development goals? I argue that neither option captures the whole story and advocate that the study of religion and development needs to move beyond a binary between the ‘turn to religion’ as either evidence of post-secular partnerships or of the ‘instrumentalization’ of religion by the secular global aid business, and instead to think about how faith actors themselves encounter and shape development discourses and frameworks, translate them into relevant formats and strategically employ them. Alongside the adoption of an actor-orientated approach, I build on the work of Lewis and Mosse, Olivier de Sardan and Bierschenk to view international faith-based organizations (IFBOs) as development brokers and translators. This approach allows me to articulate the distinctive role that many members of IFBOs report they play as intermediaries who shift register between the secular development language and the faith-inspired language of their local faith partners. I take the engagement of faith actors with the new Sustainable Development Goals framework as a case-study to explore this.

In international policy circles, conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) is commonly viewed as a weapon of war, a framing that researchers have criticized as overly simplistic. Feminist scholars in particular caution that the ‘weapon of war’ framing decontextualizes sexual violence in conflict from the structural factors of gender inequality that underpin its perpetration. In light of these tensions, how do politically relevant local actors perceive the nature and the origins of conflict-related sexual violence? Civil society organizations often actively confront conflict-related sexual violence on the ground. A better understanding of how their perceptions of this violence align or clash with the globally dominant ‘weapon of war’ narratives therefore has important policy implications. Interviews with representatives of Colombian women's organizations and victims' associations reveal that these civil society activists predominantly view conflict-related sexual violence as the result of patriarchal structures. The mobilized women perceive sexual violence as a very gendered violence that exists on a continuum extending through peace, the everyday and war, and which the presence of arms exacerbates. Strategic sexual violence, too, is understood to ultimately have its basis in patriarchal structures. The findings expose a disconnect between the globally dominant ‘weapon of war’ understanding that is decontextualized from structural factors and a local approach to CRSV that establishes clear linkages to societal gender inequality.

Complex systems models have played a significant role in informing and shaping the public health measures adopted by governments in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, modelling carried out by a team at Imperial College London is widely reported to have driven the approach in the UK from a strategy of mitigation to one of suppression.

Complex systems modelling will increasingly feed into policymaking by predicting a range of potential correlations, results and outcomes based on a set of parameters, assumptions, data and pre-defined interactions. It is already instrumental in developing risk mitigation and resilience measures to address and prepare for existential crises such as pandemics, prospects of a nuclear war, as well as climate change.

The human factor

In the end, model-driven approaches must stand up to the test of real-life data. Modelling for policymaking must take into account a number of caveats and limitations. Models are developed to help answer specific questions, and their predictions will depend on the hypotheses and definitions set by the modellers, which are subject to their individual and collective biases and assumptions. For instance, the models developed by Imperial College came with the caveated assumption that a policy of social distancing for people over 70 will have a 75 per cent compliance rate. This assumption is based on the modellers’ own perceptions of demographics and society, and may not reflect all societal factors that could impact this compliance rate in real life, such as gender, age, ethnicity, genetic diversity, economic stability, as well as access to food, supplies and healthcare. This is why modelling benefits from a cognitively diverse team who bring a wide range of knowledge and understanding to the early creation of a model.

The potential of artificial intelligence

Machine learning, or artificial intelligence (AI), has the potential to advance the capacity and accuracy of modelling techniques by identifying new patterns and interactions, and overcoming some of the limitations resulting from human assumptions and bias. Yet, increasing reliance on these techniques raises the issue of explainability. Policymakers need to be fully aware and understand the model, assumptions and input data behind any predictions and must be able to communicate this aspect of modelling in order to uphold democratic accountability and transparency in public decision-making.

In addition, models using machine learning techniques require extensive amounts of data, which must also be of high quality and as free from bias as possible to ensure accuracy and address the issues at stake. Although technology may be used in the process (i.e. automated extraction and processing of information with big data), data is ultimately created, collected, aggregated and analysed by and for human users. Datasets will reflect the individual and collective biases and assumptions of those creating, collecting, processing and analysing this data. Algorithmic bias is inevitable, and it is essential that policy- and decision-makers are fully aware of how reliable the systems are, as well as their potential social implications.

The age of distrust

Increasing use of emerging technologies for data- and evidence-based policymaking is taking place, paradoxically, in an era of growing mistrust towards expertise and experts, as infamously surmised by Michael Gove. Policymakers and subject-matter experts have faced increased public scrutiny of their findings and the resultant policies that they have been used to justify.

This distrust and scepticism within public discourse has only been fuelled by an ever-increasing availability of diffuse sources of information, not all of which are verifiable and robust. This has caused tension between experts, policymakers and public, which has led to conflicts and uncertainty over what data and predictions can be trusted, and to what degree. This dynamic is exacerbated when considering that certain individuals may purposefully misappropriate, or simply misinterpret, data to support their argument or policies. Politicians are presently considered the least trusted professionals by the UK public, highlighting the importance of better and more effective communication between the scientific community, policymakers and the populations affected by policy decisions.

Acknowledging limitations

While measures can and should be built in to improve the transparency and robustness of scientific models in order to counteract these common criticisms, it is important to acknowledge that there are limitations to the steps that can be taken. This is particularly the case when dealing with predictions of future events, which inherently involve degrees of uncertainty that cannot be fully accounted for by human or machine. As a result, if not carefully considered and communicated, the increased use of complex modelling in policymaking holds the potential to undermine and obfuscate the policymaking process, which may contribute towards significant mistakes being made, increased uncertainty, lack of trust in the models and in the political process and further disaffection of citizens.

The potential contribution of complexity modelling to the work of policymakers is undeniable. However, it is imperative to appreciate the inner workings and limitations of these models, such as the biases that underpin their functioning and the uncertainties that they will not be fully capable of accounting for, in spite of their immense power. They must be tested against the data, again and again, as new information becomes available or there is a risk of scientific models becoming embroiled in partisan politicization and potentially weaponized for political purposes. It is therefore important not to consider these models as oracles, but instead as one of many contributions to the process of policymaking.

Summary

• This collection of essays explores, from the perspectives of eight experts, four areas of deterrence theory and policymaking: the underlying assumptions that shape deterrence practice; the enduring value of extended deterrence; the impact of emerging technologies; and the ‘blurring’ of the lines between conventional and nuclear weapons.
• Nuclear deterrence theory, with its roots in the Cold War era, may not account for all eventualities in security and defence in the 21st century, given the larger number of nuclear actors in a less binary geopolitical context. It is clear that a number of present factors challenge the overall credibility of ‘classical’ nuclear deterrence, meaning that in-depth analysis is now needed.
• Uncertainty as to the appetite to maintain the current nuclear weapons policy architecture looms large in discussions and concerns on global and regional security. The demise of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, doubts over the potential extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, heightened regional tensions in Northeast and South Asia, together with the current and likely future risks and challenges arising from global technological competition, making it all the more urgent to examine long-held assumptions in the real-world context.
• Extended deterrence practices differ from region to region, depending on the domestic and regional landscape. Increased focus on diplomatic capabilities to reduce risks and improve the long-term outlook at regional level, including by spearheading new regional arms-control initiatives, may be a viable way forward. Addressing the bigger picture – notably including, on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang’s own threat perception – and the links between conventional and nuclear missile issues will need to remain prominent if long-term and concrete changes are to take hold.
• Most states have long held nuclear weapons to be ‘exceptional’: their use would represent a dramatic escalation of a conflict that must never be attained. Latterly, however, some officials and scholars have made the case that the impact of the use of a low-yield nuclear weapon would not be entirely distinct from that of a large-scale conventional attack. This blurring of lines between conventional and nuclear deterrence strips nuclear weapons of their exceptional nature, in a context in which states are faced with diverse, complex and concurrent threats from multiple potential adversaries that are able to synchronize non-military and military options, up to and including nuclear forces. The use of nuclear weapons risks becoming a ‘new normal’, potentially reducing the threshold for use – to cyberattacks, for example. This has direct implications for discussions around strategic stability. 
• While emerging technologies may offer tremendous opportunities in the modernization of nuclear weapons, they also present major risks and destabilizing challenges. Artificial intelligence, automation, and other developments in the cyber sphere affect dynamics on both the demand and supply sides of the nuclear deterrence equation. States and alliance such as NATO must adapt their deterrence thinking in light of these technological developments, and define their primary purpose and priorities in this shifting security context. Resilience planning, adaptation to the evolving security environment, threat anticipation, and consistent crisis management and incident response – as well as thinking about the mitigation measures necessary to prevent conflict escalation should deterrence fail – will all be critical in upholding nuclear deterrence as both policy and practice.

A controversial debate during COVID-19 is the state of readiness within governments and health systems for a pandemic, with lines of the debate drawn on the issues of testing provision, personal protective equipment (PPE), and the speed of decision-making.

President Macron in a speech to the nation admitted French medical workers did not have enough PPE and that mistakes had been made: ‘Were we prepared for this crisis? We have to say that no, we weren’t, but we have to admit our errors … and we will learn from this’.

In reality few governments were fully prepared. In years to come, all will ask: ‘how could we have been better prepared, what did we do wrong, and what can we learn?’. But after every crisis, governments ask these same questions.

Most countries have put in place national risk assessments and established processes and systems to monitor and stress-test crisis-preparedness. So why have some countries been seemingly better prepared?

Comparing different approaches

Some have had more time and been able to watch the spread of the disease and learn from those countries that had it first. Others have taken their own routes, and there will be much to learn from comparing these different approaches in the longer run.

Governments in Asia have been strongly influenced by the experience of the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 and - South Korea in particular - the MERS-CoV outbreak in 2015 which was the largest outside the Middle East. Several carried out preparatory work in terms of risk assessment, preparedness measures and resilience planning for a wide range of threats.

Case Study of Preparedness: South Korea By 2007, South Korea had established the Division of Public Health Crisis Response in Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and, in 2016, the KCDC Center for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response had established a round-the-clock Emergency Operations Center with rapid response teams. KCDC is responsible for the distribution of antiviral stockpiles to 16 cities and provinces that are required by law to hold and manage antiviral stockpiles.

And, at the international level, there are frameworks for preparedness for pandemics. The International Health Regulations (IHR) - adopted at the 2005 World Health Assembly and binding on member states - require countries to report certain disease outbreaks and public health events to the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade’.

Under IHR, governments committed to a programme of building core capacities including coordination, surveillance, response and preparedness. The UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk highlights disaster preparedness for effective response as one of its main purposes and has already incorporated these measures into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other Agenda 2030 initiatives. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has said COVID-19 ‘poses a significant threat to the maintenance of international peace and security’ and that ‘a signal of unity and resolve from the Council would count for a lot at this anxious time’.

Case Study of Preparedness: United States The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) established PERRC – the Preparedness for Emergency Response Research Centers - as a requirement of the 2006 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which required research to ‘improve federal, state, local, and tribal public health preparedness and response systems’. The 2006 Act has since been supplanted by the 2019 Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act. This created the post of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the Department for Health and Human Services (HHS) and authorised the development and acquisitions of medical countermeasures and a quadrennial National Health Security Strategy. The 2019 Act also set in place a number of measures including the requirement for the US government to re-evaluate several important metrics of the Public Health Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement and the Hospital Preparedness Program, and a requirement for a report on the states of preparedness and response in US healthcare facilities.

This pandemic looks set to continue to be a grave threat to humanity. But there will also be future pandemics – whether another type of coronavirus or a new influenza virus – and our species will be threatened again, we just don’t know when.

Other disasters too will befall us – we already see the impacts of climate change arriving on our doorsteps characterised by increased numbers and intensity of floods, hurricanes, fires, crop failure and other manifestations of a warming, increasingly turbulent atmosphere and we will continue to suffer major volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis. All high impact, unknown probability events.

Preparedness for an unknown future is expensive and requires a great deal of effort for events that may not happen within the preparers’ lifetimes. It is hard to imagine now, but people will forget this crisis, and revert to their imagined projections of the future where crises don’t occur, and progress follows progress. But history shows us otherwise.

Preparations for future crises always fall prey to financial cuts and austerity measures in lean times unless there is a mechanism to prevent that. Cost-benefit analyses will understandably tend to prioritise the urgent over the long-term. So governments should put in place legislation – or strengthen existing legislation – now to ensure their countries are as prepared as possible for whatever crisis is coming.

Such a legal requirement would require governments to report back to parliament every year on the state of their national preparations detailing such measures as:

• The exact levels of stocks of essential materials (including medical equipment)
• The ability of hospitals to cope with large influx of patients
• How many drills, exercises and simulations had been organised – and their findings
• What was being done to implement lessons learned & improve preparedness

In addition, further actions should be taken:

• Parliamentary committees such as the UK Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy should scrutinise the government’s readiness for the potential threats outlined in the National Risk register for Civil Emergencies in-depth on an annual basis.
• Parliamentarians, including ministers, with responsibility for national security and resilience should participate in drills, table-top exercises and simulations to see for themselves the problems inherent with dealing with crises.
• All governments should have a minister (or equivalent) with the sole responsibility for national crisis preparedness and resilience. The Minister would be empowered to liaise internationally and coordinate local responses such as local resilience groups.
• There should be ring-fenced budget lines in annual budgets specifically for preparedness and resilience measures, annually reported on and assessed by parliaments as part of the due diligence process.

And at the international level:

• The UN Security Council should establish a Crisis Preparedness Committee to bolster the ability of United Nations Member States to respond to international crisis such as pandemics, within their borders and across regions. The Committee would function in a similar fashion as the Counter Terrorism Committee that was established following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
• States should present reports on their level of preparedness to the UN Security Council. The Crisis Preparedness Committee could establish a group of experts who would conduct expert assessments of each member state’s risks and preparedness and facilitate technical assistance as required.
• Regional bodies such as the OSCE, ASEAN and ARF, the AU, the OAS, the PIF etc could also request national reports on crisis preparedness for discussion and cooperation at the regional level.

COVID-19 has been referred to as the 9/11 of crisis preparedness and response. Just as that shocking terrorist attack shifted the world and created a series of measures to address terrorism, we now recognise our security frameworks need far more emphasis on being prepared and being resilient. Whatever has been done in the past, it is clear that was nowhere near enough and that has to change.

Case Study of Preparedness: The UK The National Risk Register was first published in 2008 as part of the undertakings laid out in the National Security Strategy (the UK also published the Biological Security Strategy in July 2018). Now entitled the National Risk Register for Civil Emergencies it has been updated regularly to analyse the risks of major emergencies that could affect the UK in the next five years and provide resilience advice and guidance. The latest edition - produced in 2017 when the UK had a Minister for Government Resilience and Efficiency - placed the risk of a pandemic influenza in the ‘highly likely and most severe’ category. It stood out from all the other identified risks, whereas an emerging disease (such as COVID-19) was identified as ‘highly likely but with moderate impact’. However, much preparatory work for an influenza pandemic is the same as for COVID-19, particularly in prepositioning large stocks of PPE, readiness within large hospitals, and the creation of new hospitals and facilities. One key issue is that the 2017 NHS Operating Framework for Managing the Response to Pandemic Influenza was dependent on pre-positioned ’just in case’ stockpiles of PPE. But as it became clear the PPE stocks were not adequate for the pandemic, it was reported that recommendations about the stockpile by NERVTAG (the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group which advises the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses) had been subjected to an ‘economic assessment’ and decisions reversed on, for example, eye protection. The UK chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies, when speaking at the World Health Organization about Operation Cygnus – a 2016 three-day exercise on a flu pandemic in the UK – reportedly said the UK was not ready for a severe flu attack and ‘a lot of things need improving’. Aware of the significance of the situation, the UK Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy launched an inquiry in 2019 on ‘Biosecurity and human health: preparing for emerging infectious diseases and bioweapons’ which intended to coordinate a cross-government approach to biosecurity threats. But the inquiry had to postpone its oral hearings scheduled for late October 2019 and, because of the general election in December 2019, the committee was obliged to close the inquiry.

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on the cybersecurity landscape - both amplifying already-existing cyber threats and creating new vulnerabilities for state and non-state actors. The crisis has highlighted the importance of protecting key national and international infrastructures, with the World Health Organization, US Department of Health and Human Services and hospitals across Europe suffering cyber-attacks, undermining their ability to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. Changing patterns of work resulting from widespread lockdowns are also creating new vulnerabilities for organizations with many employees now working from home and using personal devices to work remotely.

In light of these developments, the panellists will discuss the evolving cyber threats resulting from the pandemic. How are they impacting ongoing conversations around cybersecurity? How can governments, private sector and civil society organizations work together to effectively mitigate and respond to them? And what could the implications of such cooperation be beyond the crisis? 

This event is part of a fortnightly series of 'Business in Focus' webinars reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on areas of particular professional interest for our corporate members and giving circles.

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Despite face-to-face diplomatic meetings being increasingly rare during the current disruption, COVID-19 will ultimately force a redefinition of national security and defence spending priorities, and this could provide the possibility of an improved political climate at RevCon when it happens in 2021.

With US presidential elections due in November and a gradual engagement growing between the EU and Iran, there could be a new context for more cooperation between states by 2021. Two key areas of focus over the coming months will be the arms control talks between the United States and Russia, and Iran’s compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal.

It is too early to discern the medium- and longer-term consequences of COVID-19 for defence ministries, but a greater focus on societal resilience and reinvigorating economic productivity will likely undercut the rationale for expensive nuclear modernization.

Therefore, extending the current New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) would be the best, most practical option to give both Russia and the United States time to explore more ambitious multilateral arms control measures, while allowing their current focus to remain on the pandemic and economic relief.

Continuing distrust

But with the current treaty — which limits nuclear warheads, missiles, bombers, and launchers — due to expire in February 2021, the continuing distrust between the United States and Russia makes this extension hard to achieve, and a follow-on treaty even less likely.

Prospects for future bilateral negotiations are hindered by President Donald Trump’s vision for a trilateral arms control initiative involving both China and Russia. But China opposes this on the grounds that its nuclear arsenal is far smaller than that of the two others.

While there appears to be agreement that the nuclear arsenals of China, France, and the UK (the NPT nuclear-weapons states) and those of the states outside the treaty (India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel) will all have to be taken into account going forward, a practical mechanism for doing so proves elusive.

If Joe Biden wins the US presidency he seems likely to pursue an extension of the New START treaty and could also prevent a withdrawal from the Open Skies treaty, the latest arms control agreement targeted by the Trump administration.

Under a Biden administration, the United States would also probably re-join the JCPOA, provided Tehran returned to strict compliance with the deal. Biden could even use the team that negotiated the Iran deal to advance the goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

For an NPT regime already confronted by a series of longstanding divergences, it is essential that Iran remains a signatory especially as tensions between Iran and the United States have escalated recently — due to the Qassim Suleimani assassination and the recent claim by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to have successfully placed the country’s first military satellite into orbit.

This announcement raised red flags among experts about whether Iran is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles due to the dual-use nature of space technology. The satellite launch — deeply troubling for Iran’s neighbours and the EU countries — may strengthen the US argument that it is a cover for the development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

However, as with many other countries, Iran is struggling with a severe coronavirus crisis and will be pouring its scientific expertise and funds into that rather than other efforts — including the nuclear programme.

Those European countries supporting the trading mechanism INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) for sending humanitarian goods into Iran could use this crisis to encourage Iran to remain in compliance with the JCPOA and its NPT obligations.

France, Germany and the UK (the E3) have already successfully concluded the first transaction, which was to facilitate the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran. But the recent Iranian escalatory steps will most certainly place a strain on the preservation of this arrangement.

COVID-19 might have delayed Iran’s next breach of the 2015 nuclear agreement but Tehran will inevitably seek to strengthen its hand before any potential negotiations with the United States after the presidential elections.

As frosty US-Iranian relations — exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic — prevent diplomatic negotiations, this constructive engagement between the E3 and Iran might prove instrumental in reviving the JCPOA and ensuring Iran stays committed to both nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

While countries focus their efforts on tackling the coronavirus pandemic, it is understandable resources may be limited for other global challenges, such as the increasing risk of nuclear weapons use across several regions.

But the potential ramifications of the COVID-19 crisis for the NPT regime are profound. Ongoing tensions between the nuclear-armed states must not be ignored while the world’s focus is elsewhere, and the nuclear community should continue to work together to progress nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, building bridges of cooperation and trust that can long outlast the pandemic.

Over the past couple of decades, cyberspace has evolved to become a truly global digital communication space. Managed by a multitude of state and non-state actors, it has enabled a huge range of positive innovations and developments. However, it has also become an arena of intense international competition and rivalry – a reflection of its increasing economic and political importance and broader geopolitical tensions. Despite a number of efforts and some progress in the United Nations and other forums, there are still disagreements on key issues between major powers on how to achieve responsible behaviour in cyberspace.

In light of this, the panel will explore how state and non-state actors can work together to encourage responsible behaviour in cyberspace. What challenges do various actors face in implementing agreed upon norms and principles? Is the existing global model for reaching an agreement a non-starter? What are the remaining challenges around attribution, accountability and enforcement? And what is the role for civil society, the private sector and NGOs in this debate?

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