Dr. Densua Mumford is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University. Her research primarily explores the international relations of African peoples and states. Within this broad theme, she focuses on the role of regional organisations such as the African Union, ECOWAS, and SADC in the political and economic dynamics of the continent. She is currently investigating the discursive context of African regionalism. She also has a robust research interest in the politics of the internet and digital technologies, with a current project on the political narratives of cryptocurrency evangelists. Her work contributes to decolonising perspectives on international relations.

James Shires is the Co-Director of the European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative (ECCRI), and Senior Research Fellow in Cyber Policy at Chatham House. He was previously an Assistant Professor in Cybersecurity Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, University of Leiden. He is also a non-resident Fellow with The Hague Program on International Cyber Security. He has written widely on issues of cybersecurity and international politics, including cybersecurity expertise, digital authoritarianism, spyware regulation, and hack-and-leak operations. He is the author of The Politics of Cybersecurity in the Middle East (Hurst/Oxford University Press 2021).