Microsoft's Challenge to US Militarization of Cyberspace: A Lacanian Study of Norm Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Abstract Microsoft is making strategic attempts to change the US government's practices of exploiting technical vulnerabilities in Microsoft software for military and intelligence purposes. So far, these efforts have not borne fruit. Microsoft's strategy has much in common with one of the most common strategies proposed by the International Relations literature on norm entrepreneurship in terms of exposing the contradictions between the government's ideals and practices. The article contributes to this literature by examining Microsoft's strategy through Lacanian psychoanalysis and suggests that it fails to work as intended, not because the US public or those in government remains unaware of the contradictions, but because the strategy is unable to address the existing desire to transgress the cyber ideals. Lacan's formula for transformation, the Analyst Discourse, provides an alternative framework for examining norm entrepreneurial potential in light of such transgressions. It proposes that the entrepreneur must occupy a position as the (psycho)analyst who hystericizes the norm violator. The article revisits Microsoft's attempt to halt the militarization of cyberspace and argues that the proposal of becoming a “Cyber Red Cross” holds a potential to hystericize but cannot succeed as long as Microsoft refuses to repress its status as a profitable cyber expert.