Monocratic cybersecurity

Cybersecurity has arisen as a compelling public policy issue at all government levels. Political studies on this topic, although growing in number and variety, have still fallen short of providing a theoretical framework to connect cybersecurity policies to political transformations occurring in contemporary democratic regimes. This paper deploys Musella’s theory of monocratization in order to analyze the cybersecurity policy field in the Usa between 2009 and 2021, corresponding to the last three concluded presidential terms. The analysis seems to support the thesis of a monocratization of the cybersecurity policy-making, consisting of normative and communicative leadership of the presidency on the matter, privatization and personalization of the exercise of public powers, and fragmentation of the governance space. More in detail, findings show that the structure of the cybersecurity policy field in the Usa can be described as a «distributed monocracy», where «personal public-private partnerships» get institutionalized and state action becomes a function of decisions taken by a galaxy of micro-monocrats on the basis of individual interests. Finally, the paper discusses the political outcomes of the process of monocratization of cybersecurity policies, particularly what is defined as «personalized mass surveillance», in which surveillance targets are selected and magnified against a background of massive and generalized control.