Reports & Papers

The government is facing a severe shortage of skilled workers, especially in information technology and cyber security jobs. The conventional wisdom in branches of policy and public administration is that the shortage is driven by low salaries that are not competitive for attracting top talent. Using longitudinal data on high skilled workers between 1993 and 2013, this paper shows that, if anything, government employees earn more than their private sector counterparts. Although government workers tend to earn less in the raw data, these differences are driven by the correlation between unobserved ability and selection into private sector jobs. These results are robust to additional data from the Census Bureau between 2005 and 2016. Instead, this paper shows that a more plausible culprit behind the worker shortage in government is a lack of development opportunities and poor management.

This paper addresses the question: how should Australia respond to the rising threat of cyber-enabled interference operations? While its focus is Australia, its findings and recommendations are intended to be relevant to a global audience. Australia has already been something of a ‘canary in the coal mine’ in putting the issue of foreign interference on the global agenda. Its geostrategic position—as a democracy in the middle of the increasingly volatile Indo-Pacific region—is likely to ensure it remains on the leading edge of the CEI-OPS threat.

How can IDEO.org use its expertise in human-centered design (HCD) to improve digital financial services for the poor in India, thus helping to make India’s digital transformation more inclusive?

This paper focuses on developing an operating concept—composed of ends, ways, and means—for those who are tasked to respond and those affected by foreign interference and IO. Based on the principle of information superiority and drawing on best practice from efforts to counter cyberattacks, terrorism, and civil emergencies, the paper seeks to develop a more holistic and collaborative approach for planning for and responding disinformation, identify additional sources of support and expertise, and outline new norms and standards of behavior to assist an effective response.

When we think about critical infrastructure, the first assets that come to mind include the electric grid, water networks and transportation systems. Further unpacking the definition of critical infrastructure, we consider industries such as agriculture, defense or the financial sector. However, we rarely think about where the underlying systems that enable technology functionality across these sectors physically reside, who developed the technology, and who can access and manage that technology.

This report goes beyond the headlines to analyze Xi’s foreign policy discourse. It uses historical analysis of official strategies to suggest that there may be more continuity than commonly assumed between Chinese foreign policy under Xi and that under his predecessors. In particular, Xi has not changed the fundamental strategic orientation of China’s external relations in the post-Mao era: “Opening” and “Peace and Development.”

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the contemporary Sino-Indian conventional ground and nuclear force balances and carefully reconstructs how mutual developments in these areas are perceived by both New Delhi and Beijing.

The goal of this report is to address the role that popular frustration can play in the politics of the Arab world. It analyzes contemporary populist movements to identify how the internal logic of populism could be applied in this region and how the cultural context can shape local messages, addressing in particular the roles of Islam, anti-Western sentiment and extremist propaganda. It also proposes actionable guidance for Western practitioners, including in terms of communication.

This essay seeks to explain why the United States is struggling to deal with the “soft” cyberoperations that have been so prevalent in recent years: cyberespionage and cybertheft, often followed by strategic publication; information operations and propaganda; and relatively low-level cyber disruptions such as denial-of-service and ransomware attacks.

The Psychology of Repression and Polarization in Authoritarian Regimes