Description
In recent years, the issue of “digitalization” has slowly made its way into the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. While none of the ten resolutions on WPS explicitly mention digitalization, the new realities shaped by digital technologies have increasingly entered the discourse and practice around the agenda. In this paper, we set out to provide a better understanding of how digitalization is conceptualized and implemented within the WPS agenda. We trace the relationship between digitalization and WPS through a three-tier analysis of discourse, policy and practice. We find that the overall pattern in how states speak about digitalization within the WPS agenda indicates that they have moved from a more instrumentalist perception of technology as a tool to support one-off initiatives related to WPS to a more holistic view of it as an integral part of the broader environment in which the WPS agenda is implemented. Yet, the story revealed through an analysis of WPS policy and practice is more complex: it suggests that transformative intentions are often not operationalized, resulting in a piecemeal and ad hoc implementation of the WPS-digitalization nexus. Further, we find that while States lead on shaping the discourse around the WPS-digitalization nexus, the implementation is primarily driven by civil society actors, who act both within and outside of WPS policy frameworks. Finally, we demonstrate that rather than being a linear process, the incorporation of digitalization into the WPS framework occurs through diverse and at times contrasting pathways – reflecting a broader trend in the WPS agenda evolution.
