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The contemporary debate in democracies routinely refers to online misinformation, disinformation, and deception, as security-issues in need of urgent attention. Despite this pervasive discourse, however, policymakers often appear incapable of articulating what security means in this context. This paper argues that we must understand the unique practical and normative challenges to security actualized by such online information threats, when they arise in a democratic context. Investigating security-making in the nexus between technology and national security through the concept of "cybersovereignty," the paper highlights a shared blind spot in the envisaged protection of national security and democracy in cyberspace. Failing to consider the implications of non-territoriality in cyberspace, the "cybersovereign" approach runs into a cul de sac. Security-making, when understood as the continuous constitution of "cybersovereign" boundaries presumes the existence of a legitimate securitizing actor; however, this actor can only be legitimate as a product of pre-existing boundaries. In response to the problems outlined, the article proposes an alternative object of protection in the form of human judgment and, specifically, "political judgment" in the Arendtian sense. The turn to political judgment offers a conceptualization of security that can account for contemporary policy practises in relation to security and the online information threat, as well as for the human communicating subject in the interactive and essentially incomplete information and communication environment.

The contemporary debate in democracies routinely describes online information threats such as misinformation, disinformation and deception as security-issues in need of urgent attention. Despite this pervasive discourse, policymakers often appear incapable of articulating what security means in this context. Turning to EU policy and previous research on cybersecurity, this dissertation empirically unpacks, critically interrogates and theoretically rethinks the meaning of security in relation to online information threats. In so doing, the articles elucidate a new 'referent object' implicitly guiding securitization. Contemporary interventions can be seen as grounded in assumptions about the protection of human judgement. Using Hannah Arendt's writings on 'political judgement' as a point of reference for critically evaluating contemporary policy, the dissertation points to several problems with existing approaches to security in a democratic context where free debate constitutes a legitimizing element of political authority. The rethinking of security departs from this problematic and shows that treating human judgement as a 'referent object' – if firmly grounded in the interplay between independent human communicating subjects – can better address some problematic questions about legitimate authority and political community currently haunting security interventions in cyberspace. ; At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.

This essay aims to understand the time and space of the everyday in postindependence Dublin. Methodologically, the approach is hermeneutic. Theory and method can thus not be separated: it is at the same time a heuristic pursuit as an empirical investigation. The Magdalen Asylums, an urban network of coercive state-religious institutions for unmarried women, forms the empirical focal point for the reading of time and the everyday. The question of everyday space is addressed by reading national emergency law and Dublin north inner city. Everyday life has long been obscured from view; not only from the national political sphere, but also from the field of research. To date, discussions on Ireland have mainly focused on the Northern conflict or Irish democratisation. While Irish nationalism has been investigated, scholars tend to focus on unifying ideas4 rather than their everyday effects.