Peacetech: Digital Transformation to End War

This open access book charts the implications of the digital revolution for peacebuilding and peacekeeping practices aiming to end conflict in deeply divided societies. Rather than focusing on the relationship between the 'dark side' of digital transformation and conflict, it looks to how people are using technology to transform the business of peacemaking. PeaceTech harnesses peacebuilders and technology, in pursuit of political innovation focused on achieving sustainable peace. However, PeaceTech operates alongside War Tech, where the same technologies also carry significant risk for escalating conflict, or are even used as tools for pursuing conflict.Can tech really be used for good and to end conflict? Or do the risks outweight the benefits? The author maps fast-paced developments of PeaceTech, and sets out a manifesto to using transformative technologies in this space that focuses on the types of practice and commitment that should be built in, if it is to do more good than harm. The book sits at the cutting edge of scholarship as it seeks to set out a basic mapping and framework for understanding the PeaceTech world, drawing on the author's involvement in it, and to connect that to the wider digital transformation world of which it is a part.The author uniquely brings together a clear understanding of how peacebuilding is in a moment of transformation, and how digital transformation is re-shaping practices. She identifies the common thread as: a new era of geo-political competition in which competition over how to build peace is quickly becoming a tool for war itself. While remaining very optimistic about the potential of the digital revolution in the peacebuilding field, she also argues quite simply that the digital revolution is here to stay, and against that backdrop sets out the moral, political and ethical commitments that those who seek to 'do good' need to bring to the table.