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Dr Paul White

Senior Lecturer

Paul joined the PIR team at Leeds Beckett in 2015 and has also taught at the University of Huddersfield and the University of Derby.

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Paul White

About

Paul joined the PIR team at Leeds Beckett in 2015 and has also taught at the University of Huddersfield and the University of Derby.

Paul joined the PIR team at Leeds Beckett in 2015 and has also taught at the University of Huddersfield and the University of Derby.

Paul was awarded his PhD by the University of Huddersfield in 2012 for a thesis entitled "Protocols of Power: Lessons from ICANN for International Relations Theory". Since that time he has continued to specialise in the area of Internet governance as a subfield of the broader area of global governance.

Related links

School of Humanities and Social Sciences

United Nations sustainable development goals

16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Research interests

Paul's primary research interests lie in the broad field of global governance, with a particular focus on Internet governance, together with questions around democratic accountability of global governance institutions and the 'new global politics of inequality'. He also has an interest in peace and security, particularly with regard to the emerging areas of cybersecurity, cyberwarfare and 'cyberpeace'.

Publications (5)

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Chapter
Global market integration, crisis management and the limits of the macro-social turn: The case of IMF inequality pilots
Featured 17 October 2024 Oxford Handbook of the International Monetary Fund Oxford University Press
AuthorsAuthors: White P, Editors: Hibben M, Momani B

For almost eight decades, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with other international bodies, has played a pivotal role in fostering global market integration and crisis management. However, critics have argued that policies promoted by the Fund have had negative social impacts, including in relation to inequality. In recent times, the IMF has shifted its focus to “macro-social” concerns, including inequality, signaling an apparent departure from its traditional emphasis on fiscal consolidation above all else. This chapter scrutinizes the IMF’s post-2015 “inequality pilots,” assessing policy advice changes in the pilot countries and elsewhere. It is argued that the Fund’s ability to actually make a positive impact on macro-social issues like inequality is hindered by internal constraints and geo-political dynamics.

Journal article
Cyberpeace: Why Internet Governance Matters for Global Peace and Stability
Featured 31 October 2019 Peace & Change44(4):441-467 Wiley

While the governance of the Internet is often assumed to be merely a technical matter, it is actually a fiercely contested political arena, in which institutional arrangements are still being shaped. This paper aims to demonstrate how, and why, the politics surrounding Internet governance are of significance for international peace and stability. The Internet has great potential as a facilitator of the peacebuilding process, but it can also be used as a tool of oppression, a channel for disinformation and propaganda, and even as a means of waging war. The institutions that are built around Internet governance will determine in whose hands ultimate control of the network will lie, and will ultimately decide whether the Internet is to be a vehicle of human liberation and peacebuilding, or a tool of oppression and conflict. To accomplish the latter, there is a need to move away from traditional state‐based assumptions around global governance and security.

Journal article
Peace and the Digital Revolution: Towards 'Cyberpeace'?
Featured 31 October 2024 Peace and Change: a journal of peace research49(4):393-399 Wiley

This article will explore challenges posed by the digital communications revolution to some long-standing concepts and assumptions around security, warfare, and peace. It will demonstrate the obsolescence of the traditional state-focused national security paradigm with regards to matters of cybersecurity, as well as the limitations of conventional collective security approaches. It will also outline the Internet's potential as a peacebuilding medium, and the crossroads we currently face between a new era of cyberwarfare or an Internet for “cyberpeace.”

Chapter

ICANN, New gTLDs and the Global South

Featured 2018 Internet Governance in the Global South: History, Theory and Contemporary Debates University of São Paulo
AuthorsAuthors: White P, Editors: Opperman D
Journal article

The IMF and a New Global Politics of Inequality?

Featured July 2016 Journal of Australian Political Economy78:186-231 Journal of Australian Political Economy
AuthorsNunn A, White P