Contesting Western and Non-Western Approaches to Global Cyber Governance beyond Westlessness

The power shift from West to East has engendered an increasingly confrontational and competitive multipolar system in cyberspace governance. The West has to confront the real possibility of its decline in the face of the rising influence of the non-Western world, as shown in the intensive discussions over ‘Westlessness’ at the 2020 Munich Security Conference. In order to address scholarly concerns around cyberspace governance in a digitalised world, this Special Core examines competing ideas and norms of cyberspace governance from comparative perspectives, shedding light on the promising research field of global cyberspace governance and the debate on ‘Westlessness’ in the study of international politics.
Keywords: cyberspace governance; cyber norms; multi-stakeholderism; multilateralism; Westlessness