Discursive constructions of cyber partnerships in the US cybersecurity policies: a diachronic corpus-assisted study

Abstract This paper examines how cyber partnerships, constituted by countries and international organizations, are discursively represented, using a corpus of cybersecurity policy documents during the Obama, Trump and early-Biden administrations. Drawing upon critical discourse analysis, this paper investigates how power is exercised through these policy texts to achieve specific communicative goals. Taking a diachronic corpus-assisted approach, this paper identifies the discursive shifts in the three administrations’ perceptions of cyber allies, enemies and frenemies, constructing a dynamic “friends versus foes” ideological structure in the US cybersecurity policy discourse. The policymakers utilize referential and predication strategies to legitimize their allies as ingroup members and their enemies as cyber threats. Moreover, this paper reveals discursive differences in the three administrations’ attitudes towards international organizations regarding cyber governance, with Obama and Biden’s greater willingness to cooperate and Trump’s tendency for alienation. Their particular ways of depicting cyber partnerships are contingent upon geopolitical dynamics and contrasting ideologies. Thus, this paper suggests that a country’s cyber partnerships can be transient in nature and are subject to historical (re)definition and governments’ ideological preferences. It is hoped that this paper contributes a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between language, power and socio-politics in cyber partnership discourse.