Abstract
The Global Information Age poses new and interesting questions for the study of international affairs. This Presidential Address surveys recent developments in commercialized and globalized information technologies that have and will continue to impact political and social relationships around the world. These new technologies affect power relationships among states, as well between states and civil society. They also present possibilities for new forms of global accountability and participation in governance. Finally, a range of technologies offer new and powerful ways to collect data for our research that allow us to ask new questions. President Simmons concludes as a result that exploratory empirical research is more enticing than ever before, but cautions that we should never think we can outsource the hard job of thinking to the very technologies that make innovative research possible in the first place.
Highlights
How have new ways of producing and communicating information changed the nature of power among states; altered the relationship between governments and the governed; or addressed problems of governance? And what do all of these things mean for the future of International Studies – the way we do our work?
The global information age is casting some doubt on this traditional notion
Information – and superiority over the technology to control it, to disseminate it and to disrupt it – surely has to be an important part of the power equation. In his recent book The Future of Power, Joseph Nye predicts that the rapid diffusion of power spurred on by the spread of information is likely to be much more challenging for states than the rise of rival powers, traditionally understood
Summary
I have decided to speak this evening about a topic that is important to our world and to our profession, and amazes me personally: the role of global information and communication technologies. I cannot think of anything that has the potential to change social and political relationships as much as the production, dissemination and use of new information technologies and new ways to communicate globally. How have new ways of producing and communicating information changed the nature of power among states; altered the relationship between governments and the governed; or addressed problems of governance?
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