Power in the Information Age
Jeffrey A. Hart, Sangbae Kim · 1997
The assessment of capabilities and other forms of potential power has to reflect the technologies of a given historical period. The invention of nuclear weapons, for example, changed the way people thought about the distribution of power after the end of World War II. The widespread use of high-speed digital computers and telecommunications networks since the late 1960s is likely to have a similar impact on the assessment of power. This chapter focuses on the question of how one should think about power during periods of rapid technological change, and particularly the current period. It argues that there has been a shift in the conceptualization of technology as a result of the rise of information technologies. The new conceptualization emphasizes the embedding of institutional and cultural elements in information technologies and the possibility that the transfer of technologies across national boundaries will become more problematic.