A Discourse Analysis of Cyber Defense in Brazil

Abstract

Over the past ten years, cyber security and cyber defense have become widely discussed topics in Brazil. In the context of national defense, a careful discourse on cyber defense can be observed. The publication of the 2008 National Defense Strategy which includes references to the "cybernetic sector" has lead to a number of steps taken place mostly in the sphere of the Ministry of Defense to develop cyber defense strategies. In parallel to such debates, an academic discourse is attending the procedures within the ministry. Part of this initial academic discourse resulted in a number of publications including a cyber defense guide developed by researchers from universities in Pernambuco, Santa Catarina, São Paulo and others. The objective of this article is to analyze the contributions of the military and the academic sector regarding the debate on cyber defense in Brazil. To achieve this goal a discourse analysis will be conducted that uses methodological approaches originally developed by Michel Foucault and which were specified later by German researchers at the universities of Augsburg and Dortmund (Reiner Keller, Jürgen Link et al.) whose methodological works will be used as well. Another important source for the methodological design is the work of the constructivist copenhagen school, especially Lene Hansen and her discourse analysis methods on the war in Bosnia. The approaches of the researchers mentioned here were chosen to benefit from their relatively different directions regarding discourse analysis. While Foucault and the German researchers are extensively working with sociological approaches and literary studies, Hansen has adopted the same methodological approaches to the areas of International Relations and Security Studies. The experience drawn from her analysis will therefore be used as a central means to develop the final article on the discourse analysis of cyber defense in Brazil.