Digital Peace. How Does Digitization Affect Conflict Transformation - and vice versa?
Annual Conference of the Platform Peaceful Conflict Transformation (21-23 April 2023)
Today, crises, conflicts, and outbreaks of violence always have a digital dimension. Whether social media, digital identities, AI, geographic information systems, blockchain, or big data - these technologies not only promote transnational exchange, de-democratization, and peace. Rather, digital transformation has advanced worldwide, especially in the areas of conflict - and violence, as well as autocratic abuse of power.
As a reaction to these developments, the field of digital peacebuilding has successfully established itself in recent years. Through the innovative use of digital technologies, positive experiences have been made with the transformation of conflicts at the interface between the online and offline worlds. However, these activities currently lag far behind the malign, autocratic, and peace-threatening application of digital technologies.
How do conflict transformation and digitization influence each other, and what practical and political conclusions can be drawn from this for the further development of the field of civil conflict transformation? Answers and recommendations to these questions were given by 70 participants at a conference in Loccum from April 21 to 23, 2023 - among them leading experts from the field of peaceful conflict transformation, digital experts, academics, and political decisionmakers.