A study of Chinese policy attention on cybersecurity

The rising number of cyber-attacks and cyber-criminals around the world has put major threats on the cyber-security and even the national security of many countries. In response, governments started to introduce policies and regulations to improve cyber-security. It is increasingly realized that the effective cyber-security policy making largely depends upon optimized policy attention and the effective use of public resources. This paper draws on the “attention-driven policy choice model” and the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) to analyse the relationship between policy attention allocation, policy agenda setting and the choice of policy tools in different periods of cyber-security development. Using Chinese cyber-security development as the main context, content analysis of policy texts was conducted to examine the pathway of cyber-security policy development in China between 1994 and 2019. The findings suggest that there is evidence for punctuated equilibrium with policy stagnation and incrementality being broken up by major events which shifts policy attention and subsequently affects agenda setting and the choice of policy tools. The findings of this paper will provide important implications for the development of strategic foresight of cyber-security and the effective use of public resources to improve cyber-security.

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