Identify and sort: how digital power changes world politics
The advent of information technology ushered in new forms of political power. Machines play crucial roles in how states see, understand, and act, and scrutiny of these processes lies at the heart of this book. It frames debates about IT in world politics, explaining how industrial sorting systems employed by political actors are renegotiating the social contract between individuals and the state. The text takes the reader on a global expedition that tracks the historical antecedents of digital power, from Aztec and Inca rituals, to medieval filing systems, to a grandiose 1930s design for a German registry, to the databases used in US presidential campaigns and how IT is deployed in war and post-conflict reconstruction.
