The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
The talk will assess the structural factors that led to Lebanon's current protest wave, with an emphasis on local governance in the country's urban periphery. It will describe how the parties that have dominated the national government since the end of the civil war engaged in practices that contributed to deteriorating welfare conditions while foreclosing the capacity of outsiders to challenge incumbent elites' power. It will then examine the nature of protests in urban spaces outside of Beirut. For this, the presentation will leverage original survey data collected before then, unexpectedly, during the 2019-20 protest wave.
