Research Portfolio Post #9: Mentor Meeting
I met with Professor Novotny on Friday the 30th of November for an hour to discuss my next steps for my research. Throughout the semester, I have discussed my research interests with my mentor. For each research design, we discussed news ways to look at my research puzzle—the relationship between regime types and cyber governance and power.
On Friday, I explained that I was most interested in pursuing my large-N research proposal for SIS-306. I explained to Professor Novotny that I aim to analyze how scholars determine cyber power and expand on the current measurements to include private corporations in the scholarly analysis. Professor Novotny gave me a few resources to consider when conducting my research. Firstly, on the topic of measuring cyber power and comparing this to internet governance systems and regime types, Professor Novotny suggested I reference Freedom House.[1] He also told me about the resources that the Internet Telecommunication Union (ITU) has for acquiring statistical data on internet usage around the world.[2] This website has extremely useful data sources for operationalizing my variables in my large-N research study. He directed my attention to the degree of internet penetration calculation which measures the number of internet users per capita as well as the digital readiness index which measures how apt countries are at dealing with a cyber issue.[3]
Professor Novotny then informed me about the concepts of input legitimacy and privacy stacks. Input legitimacy is grounded in the theory of multi-level governance that I can use within my literature review in order to inform the choices I make in my methodology. Similarly, a privacy stack is a conceptual way of structuring the levels of protection methods in the public sphere. These concepts are useful for expanding the literature I consider in my project.
Lastly, Professor Novotny shared his own research he conducted on WCIT-12 votes.[4] His research question was similar to my own because he was analyzing the implications that stem from different governments deciding upon international cyber policies. He concluded that there are two distinct paths that states are going down when promoting governance models.[5] He shared with me how he arrived at these conclusions using the Mann Whitney U statistical test. This is one statistical test I will keep in mind when making decisions about how I conduct my research methodology.
As I look forward to SIS-306, I need to keep in mind that I need to broaden my understanding of statistical analysis. I know that there are resources at AU to help me with this concern and my mentor and Professors can also point me in the right direction. Overall, my meeting with Professor Novotny was very informative, and he has given me many resources and concepts to consider as I continue down the path of research.
[1] Michael J. Abramowitz, Freedom in the World 2018: Democracy in Crisis (Freedom House, January 13, 2018), accessed December 4, 2018, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018; Shahbaz Adrian, Freedom on the Net 2018: The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism (Freedom House, October 30, 2018), accessed November 4, 2018, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2018/rise-digital-authoritarianism.
[2] “ICT Facts and Figures 2017,” ITU, last modified 2017, accessed December 4, 2018, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/facts/default.aspx.
[3] “The ICT Development Index (IDI): Conceptual Framework and Methodology,” ITU, last modified 2018, accessed December 4, 2018, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/mis2017/methodology.aspx.
[4] Eric J. Novotny, “A World Split Apart? An Analysis of WCIT-12 Votes” (Berkman Center for Internet Society at Harvard University, May 1, 2013).
[5] Ibid., pg. 20.