Speaker
Description
How do non-state cyber actors convert visibility into political leverage, and when does visibility become a liability that pushes them back into the shadows? This paper examines the Belarusian Cyber Partisans, a digital resistance movement that emerged after the Belarusian regime’s violent repression of a 2020 protest wave. I argue that a simple rise-and-fall in media attention cannot explain the group’s trajectory, nor can it be explained by choosing between external or internal drivers. Instead, the Cyber Partisans’ organisational evolution is best understood as characterised through the politics of visibility, in which visibility is co-produced, delegated, and strategically adjusted in response to new risks and opportunities.
High levels of visibility can increase a digital resistance movement’s perceived international legitimacy, recruitment efforts, and funding. Yet, high levels of visibility also make non-state actors more vulnerable. Visibility increases operational exposure and may raise fears of escalation. This becomes particularly significant when cyber operations start to intersect with interstate conflict. Empirically, my in-depth analysis of the Belarusian Cyber Partisans reveals how this fascinating movement shifted between phases of overt ‘spectacle’ (e.g., sensitive data leaks or kinetic sabotage operations) and phases of more subdued ‘persistence’ (e.g., quietly maintaining covert access, selectively leaking data, collaborating in ways similar to intelligence work). I conduct a comparative within-case study of key operational episodes and the related international media attention between 2020 and 2025. I collected data from the Cyber Partisans’ own communications, media reports (including through web scraping), and insider interviews.
The contribution that my paper makes is twofold: first, it contributes to a better understanding of non-state actors' critical role in global politics by showing how visibility becomes a mechanism of security governance; second, it offers a new framework for analysing intricate patterns behind puzzling operational changes of emerging digital resistance groups: the politics of visibility.
| If you are submitting an Open Panel proposal, have you included all four abstracts in attachment? | No, I am submitting a Closed Panel abstract |
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| Would you like to be considered for travel funding through the NetSec COST Action? | Yes |
| Are you a member of the NetSec Management Committee? | No |
| What discipline or branch of humanities or social sciences do you identify yourself with? | International Relations |
| Which of the following best describes your stage of the career? | PhD Candidate |
| In which country is your home institution? | United Kingdom (Oxford) |
| What is your gender? | Female |