Quality of Governance and Cybersecurity : A quantitative study into Securitization-theory and Cyberspace

Sammanfattning: Does the Quality of Governance correlate with the outcome of a state´s Cyber-securitization? This study shows that it does. Cybersecurity is of great concern for many countries in the world. This study however finds that government level of commitment towards Cybersecurity necessarily don’t equal outcomes of actual security. With this insight, this study instead interprets observed security commitments through the theory of Securitization from the Copenhagen School of International Relations. Quantitative methods and linear regression analysis are used to show that Quality of Governance, in the form of bureaucratic efficiency, is important for a positive outcome of a Securitization process conducted in the form of Cybersecurity governance. In the process, this study also responds to previous researches call for methodological diversity and empirical data regarding both Securitization theory as well as Cybersecurity research. In sum, the contribution of this thesis is the importance of Quality of Governance for state Cybersecurity. This is complemented by empirical findings on that outcomes, in the form of political commitments to Cybersecurity, don’t necessarily correlate with actual conditions of security in Cyberspace.