How Power Politics Reshapes Global Data Flows

Why This Matters

Harry Oppenheimer (BJPS) delivers the first empirical evidence that international security concerns shape how data moves across the globe. As digital interdependence grows — firms routing traffic to secure fast, stable, and affordable connections — emerging conflicts and state power play a direct role in shaping those routes, with implications for firms, infrastructure, and national cybersecurity.

The Puzzle and Argument

Why would geopolitical conflict alter commercial data flows when common tools of economic statecraft (sanctions, tariffs, boycotts, contracts) largely leave Internet interconnection untouched? Oppenheimer argues that international conflict creates cybersecurity externalities: when states and non-state actors weaponize connectivity, firms and their networks face increased risk, so they reorganize routing and peering relationships in anticipation of conflict. This process is driven more by these externalities than by deliberate state preferences to control traffic.

How the Question Is Tested

• Uses network topographical measurements drawn from computer engineering to map where and how data is routed across jurisdictions and between firms.
• Tests whether expectations of conflict between states predict changes in mutual data reliance and routing decisions.
• Employs additional empirical checks to distinguish effects of security-driven externalities from direct state policy preferences.

Key Findings

• Provides robust evidence that power politics influences digital interdependence: expectations of conflict increase mutual reliance shifts in data movement.
• Conventional economic statecraft instruments often do not explain these routing changes because Internet interconnection is frequently exempted or not governed by the same contracts and tariffs.
• Additional analyses support the claim that cybersecurity externalities — not primarily intentional state rerouting policies — drive firms’ adjustments.

Implications

The study highlights that firms, their networks, and global Internet infrastructure are directly in the path of geopolitical conflict. Policymakers and private actors should account for security-driven externalities when assessing the resilience and governance of critical digital infrastructure.