The Question of Information Technology in International Relations

Abstract

Against the backdrop of events produced by the InfoTechWarPeace Project at Brown University, including internet interventions, videoconferences, symposia, public forums, multi-media exhibitions and video documentaries, this article seeks to understand through information technology (IT) how the `Digital Age' and an `Age of Terror' converged on 9/11. As an inquiry into the impact of IT on International Relations (IR), it mobilizes the key concepts of `infowar' and `infopeace' to trace the development of network-centric forms of conflict and peacemaking. Two short case studies of 11/9 and 9/11 are presented to assess the dual capacity of IT in IR. Trapped in a new interwar of technological and theological fundamentalisms, we need to tap into the surplus capacity of information networks to awaken a global critical consciousness.