Cybersecurity in Political Studies: A Scoping Review

In recent years the increasing prevalence of technology has elevated cybersecurity from being a niche focus of interest for a small group of specialised computer scientists to a macro-level concern, attracting the attention of scholars and practitioners in political science and international relations. Today governments and military bodies view aspects of cybersecurity—ranging from preparations for cyberwar (a facet of digital geopolitics) to managing responses to cyber events (a facet of strategic communications)—as critical to their national security. However, while this mounting interest among academics has led to a rise in publications in political science and international relations journals, such rapid growth also results in literature fragmentation, where many studies do not sufficiently communicate with each other, and theoretical development remains relatively limited. In this paper, by reviewing the 113 cybersecurity papers published in 53 prominent journals in political science and international relations, I aim to provide an overview of the current state of research in this domain. Overall, this study has implications for the political science and international relations fields, especially the literature on strategic communications and digital geopolitics.