How can digital transformation be used to support peace and transition processes, at a moment when war is on the rise?
A new second edition of Prof Christine Bell’s foundational book, PeaceTech: Digital Transformation to End Wars, captures the rapid changes in conflict, mediation and technology that have gathered pace in the short time since the book was first published in early 2024.
Digital transformation to end wars: foundational PeaceTech book updated for 2026
Prof Christine Bell’s foundational book, Digital Transformation to End Wars, has been updated to a second edition for 2026.
PeaceTech: Digital Transformation to End Wars looks at how digital transformation is being used to support peace and transition processes, at a moment when war is on the rise. This open-access book combines an overview of transformative technologies and their key PeaceTech applications, with an account of how practices of production shape what PeaceTech is and can do.
What’s new in the second edition?
Published by Springer Nature Link/Palgrave Macmillan, the new edition is updated with the latest innovations in mobile phone and app technology, geographic information systems, satellite technology, ‘peace analytics’ (data-analytics in the peacebuilding field), and Artificial Intelligence.
The book illustrates their key peacebuilding applications, such as support to local peacebuilding projects, large-scale ‘conflict early warning systems’, and peace mediation support, examining also the ethical and moral issues that arise. Notably these include conflict and mediation fragmentation, and the arrival of new forms of Gen-AI. PeaceTech ends with a provocation in the form of a 12-Step Manifesto focused on successful use of digital tools to support peace processes and end wars.
The first edition of PeaceTech was published in 2024 to widespread acclaim from the conflict and mediation communities.
“Like so many other sectors, peacebuilding is experiencing disruption and opportunities as a result of the digital revolution. Christine Bell’s magnificently accessible book walks us through PeaceTech. The book steers a wise path between digital optimism and pessimism and concludes with a call for how technology can work more effectively for peace. Highly recommended.” —Roger Mac Ginty, Professor in Defence, Development and Diplomacy, Durham University
The book draws on Prof Bell’s work as part of the cross-disciplinary PA-X Peace Analytics team, University of Edinburgh, Queen’s University of Belfast and St Andrews. This work has pioneered innovative ‘peace analytics’ data on peace processes. The data has been used by the PA-X team to provide in-time evidence-based support to the mediation, design, and implementation of peace and transition processes globally, with a focus on inclusion.
About Professor Christine Bell
Prof Christine Bell, FBA, FRSE is Professor Emerita of Constitutional Law and Senior Adviser to PeaceRep at the University of Edinburgh. She holds an Honorary Professorship at The Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University of Belfast. She is a Fellow of both the British Academy and Royal Society of Edinburgh. She is also a distinguished peace process mediator and PeaceTech innovator renowned for her transformative role in global mediation and transition processes. Prof Bell has over thirty years of experience in conflict mediation and constitution-drafting including with the United Nations and has advised on international legal and constitutional matters relating to mediation strategies and processes in varied contexts, including in Colombia, Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, Bougainville/Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Ukraine.
Download Digital Transformation to End Wars (open access)