UCLA

Classic studies hold that great power begins, culminates, and ends in control of the means of communication. In recent years, the worldwide development of undersea cable systems - the indispensable communications technology - has become a focal point in the broader twenty-first century competition between the United States and China. Yet few scholars have looked deeply at the structure of communications, its design and buildout, as an arena of great power rivalry. This dissertation addresses this gap and develops a theory to understand and account for the politics of global networking: the emergence and transformation of global communications networks.

Whether and how great powers engage in competitive infrastructuring comes down to the interaction of two factors: infrastructure deficits and network positions. Great powers with the lowest deficits are those least dependent on foreign communications; they enjoy the most surplus infrastructure resources with which to invest, cooperatively or competitively, in worldwide communications. Second, great powers can enjoy similar deficit levels but occupy different positions in the global communications network; different network positions differentially encourage and dampen competitive behavior. The network-deficit interaction creates capabilities and obstacles for the design and buildout of communications infrastructure.

Employing a combination of case studies along with quantitative network analysis, this dissertation unpacks the implications of the theory at multiple levels of analysis. Additionally, it presents novel data on all international cable systems built between 1865 and 2019. In doing so, it situates contemporary U.S.-Chinese communications relations in long-term, empirical perspective. Moving beyond arguments that explain great power rivalry according to the relative weight of economic and security factors, this dissertation demonstrates how networks built by states can both create opportunities for influence and impose constraints on autonomy. Moving further from conventional explanations based on static network effects, the network-deficit dynamic also reveals how networks initially designed by great powers can take on a momentum of their own, delimiting pathways for action in multiple and often unintended ways.