Introducing Key Concepts and the Analytical Framework

This chapter, first, consolidates the concept of cyber norms on which the book is based by addressing five points of contention in the cyber norms literature: the addressees of cyber norms, the scope of regulated behavior, the role of propriety, the socially shared nature, and the relationship between cyber norms and international law. Based on the resolution of these points of contention, I develop my own definition of cyber norms. Second, I introduce the Normative Agency Framework. According to this analytical framework, actors can engage with international norms in at least six ways: Norm entrepreneurship, norm antipreneurship, rival norm entrepreneurship, norm-following, passivity, and norm bridge-building. I define and operationalize each of these kinds of agency and explain how they relate.