Julia Voo

Julia focuses on national cyber strategies, influence operations and strategic competition in the information environment. Her current work examines how states use cyber-enabled information operations to shape perception, behaviour and political decision-making across competition, crisis and conflict.

She is currently the Senior Fellow for Cyber Power and Future Conflict and leads the programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Previously, Julia has worked across government, industry and academia, including roles at HP, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the UK government in China. Her work has focused on cyber power, state-linked cyber operations and related technology policies.

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Talk: Competing without losing legitimacy: democratic constraint in the information environment

States increasingly combine cyber operations to shape not only what publics believe, but what they experience about the resilience and credibility of democratic institutions. Drawing on both authoritarian and democratic cases, this talk examines how cyber-enabled information operations are being used for cognitive and political effect across strategic competition and conflict. It will explore why democracies are structurally disadvantaged in the information environment and how they might compete more effectively without undermining the legitimacy and accountability that distinguish them.

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