The rise of China was always going to ruffle some feathers. Its unique approach to development combines the export- oriented dynamism of East Asian tigers with a resilient authoritarian system that is challenging the idea that democracy and economic development go hand in hand. When China truly went global and Chinese enterprises, interests and political agents started to explore opportunities across the world, the West's ontological security was understandably shaken and fears abounded about China's unchecked ambition. This book is not about the fears of the West but it did attempt to analyze the ambition of China. We collected questions on the BRI from academics, policymakers, businesspeople and professionals from different industries and organized the book accordingly. By studying the excellent academic work of our many colleagues working around the world on the shifting and multifaceted field of the BRI, we assembled a systematic and systemic overview of how China's ambition is changing the face of the world. But the BRI is as much about China's ambition as it is also an outward expression of its domestic system, good and bad included.

The Initiative relies on the decentralized model of governance that encourages actors to pitch projects for approval by the centre, which in turn maintains discipline through fiscal and party- ideological means. While this creates the flexibility needed to fill the gaps left by the centre's vague goals, it can also result in message drift. It is no surprise that the first few years of the BRI saw the words “belt” and “road” pasted on any international event, investment or project hosted by any Chinese entity. Much like with the CCP's other policies, however, the initial flurry of experimentation was brought under control and a winning formula emerged: underneath the big slogans, the BRI has so far been about getting work for China's SOEs by using accumulated foreign exchange to offer loans to developing nations. This point seems obvious by now but it is the key identity marker of the BRI, which will remain an exercise in the internationalization of China's state- owned sector, from builders to banks.

Throughout the process of writing this manuscript, the involvement of technology in international politics has become ever more visible. These encounters range from the hopeful, to the unexpected, to the frightening, to the absurd.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 was widely documented on social media with discourse that took on a strange, bimodal quality. On the one hand, international media played to the image of the Taliban as a band of backward luddites, who posed a significant danger (especially to women and girls) but who were simultaneously incapable of running the new, modern Afghanistan that decades of international aid had created. Early stories and social media updates from Associated Press portrayed young Taliban fighters as ‘awestruck’ by ‘modern office buildings’, shopping malls, ‘plush furniture’, and gym equipment (Associated Press 2021; Gannon 2021). A video of Taliban fighters cheerfully attempting to navigate elliptical machines and other equipment at a gym in the presidential palace was widely circulated online and became a source of mockery (Lock 2021). Yet these narratives sat alongside serious reflection about the fate of biometric databases that contained information on millions of Afghans, including many who had worked with US forces and other international agencies (Guo and Noori 2021; Klippenstein and Sirota 2021). Commentators rightfully questioned the damaging effects of allowing these materials to fall into the wrong hands and pondered whether this was a reflection on the judiciousness of collecting this information in the first place.

In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele oversaw the adoption of bitcoin as a national currency on par with the US dollar in 2021. Early reports suggested that the bitcoinization of the country was marred by popular discontent, technical issues, volatility, and fraud. The government-sponsored Chivo platform, which promised an electronic wallet and a small amount of startup funds to all Salvadorans who created an account, was plagued with reliability issues. The lure of free money further incentivized fraud, as criminals used stolen identities to create accounts (Gerard 2021; McDonald 2022). Protests accompanying the bitcoin rollout in autumn 2021 demonstrated citizens’ concerns about financial instability – but also about rising authoritarianism and the rapid, top-down way in which bitcoin was being deployed (Pineda 2021).

In July 2020, Twitter was briefly rocked by a cryptocurrency scam in which hackers, gaining access to the verified accounts of approximately 130 organizations and high-profile individuals, solicited donations of bitcoin with the promise of returning double the donors’ money. Though Twitter intervened within the day to stop the spread of these scam messages, estimates suggest the scheme netted the equivalent of over US$100,000 in cryptocurrency transfers (Frenkel et al 2020). Though the hack raises various cybersecurity issues, of note is that, among the individual accounts compromised, it was the accounts of male celebrities, technology innovators, and politicians that were targeted to raise money in the scheme. Among lists of known targets only one woman – celebrity Kim Kardashian – was identified (Frenkel et al 2020; Holmes et al 2020).

The demographics of the targets in this scam speak to a bigger question surrounding cryptocurrency and the growing sphere of decentralized finance: Where are the women? As the rise of virtual currencies has accelerated over the past decade – with bitcoin appreciating as much as 8,000 per cent per year in value and becoming more widely accepted as a form of payment (Golumbia 2016) – women have largely been left out of the resulting wealth acquisition. Demographic surveys of cryptocurrency holders suggest that women represent under 13 per cent of all users, while surveys of the general public suggest that women have substantially less awareness about this market than men (ING/Ipsos 2018; Coin Dance 2020). As such, it can be said that the architects of the July 2020 attack on Twitter knew their marks – primarily leveraging the accounts of users that a mostly male target audience would view as aspirational or trustworthy figures.

The gender inequality among cryptocurrency users stands at odds with promises from advocates and developers, who have long sold cryptocurrency as a tool to liberate populations from authoritarian governments, existing social hierarchies, and the instability of traditional currencies in many parts of the world (Vigna and Casey 2015; Golumbia 2016). Cryptocurrency projects carry the promise of reducing inequality by reaching the ‘unbanked’ populations of the world – particularly women and residents of the Global South – offering new avenues for economic empowerment and security, including in fragile and conflict-affected states (Baldet and Powell 2019).

In a digital environment that is so often hostile to women and members of other marginalized groups, is there space for resistance and innovation? Many activists and practitioners seem to believe this is the case. Despite widespread concerns about surveillance, privacy, and gender-based violence online, there are signs that innovation is finding inroads. There are also indications that the COVID-19 pandemic has become a tipping point for the adoption of new technologies – with a few caveats. This chapter explores how new technologies are being used to promote feminist goals, including peacebuilding and efforts to combat gender-based violence. In doing so, it draws on case studies and interviews with individuals involved in related projects.

What emerges from this discussion is that technologies including ICT platforms, social media, blockchain, and even AI are being used in service of feminist goals. At the same time, though, these spaces are fragile. Women working in these areas are highly cognisant of the potential for backlash, of biases within the tech industry, and of the role inequalities play in shaping engagements with technology. These inequalities map onto gender, but also race/ethnicity, sexuality, and Global North/South divides. Self-censorship, as alluded to in earlier chapters, is a common coping mechanism for those facing backlash or harassment, but it is a response that limits prospects for transformative change. At the same time, I find that even highly educated and capable women professionals tend to underestimate their own expertise and capacity in ways that map onto gender stereotypes. Importantly, while prior work suggests that men in policy-relevant positions also have knowledge gaps and struggle to understand opaque technologies, this rarely seems to hinder their participation in policy debates (Singer and Friedman 2014). The durability of gendered stereotypes, the pervasiveness of online abuse, and the enduring nature of unequal access to tech all show how more attention and resources must be devoted to cultivating innovation, if we want to see a feminist future in the digital space.

Technologies and peacebuilding

As one practitioner I spoke with put it, ‘innovation’ can mean either developing new technologies or using existing technologies in new ways.

Understanding where we are at and what is at stake with regard to gender, technology, and the security of women involves examining the data. But what happens when the data are part of the problem? The production and dissemination of newer, larger (and, in almost every instance, quantitative) data is in and of itself a technology – one that is inherently gendered. In recent years, a number of authors have raised warnings about how data gaps, misleading interpretations, and algorithms that are both gendered and racialized impact virtually every aspect of women’s lives (O’Neil 2016; Noble 2018; Criado-Perez 2019). Work has also interrogated the gendered, racialized, and intersectional power relationships reflected in data collection, which tends to favour elite perspectives and motivations (Walter and Andersen 2013; D’Ignazio and Klein 2020). Discussion of power relationships has further led to reflection on the relationship between data collection, quantification, and surveillance (Walby and Anaïs 2015). This creates a problem, insofar as the call for gender-disaggregated data is deeply embedded in policy initiatives aimed at gender mainstreaming. If this lynchpin of institutional monitoring and evaluation schemes is flawed, what does it mean for efforts to highlight emerging issues in gender and security?

This chapter seeks to present but also critique the data we have on gender equality and gendered experiences of security. This begins with some background, covering the coinciding rise of ‘big data’ (as a technology and an ethos) and normative frameworks in academic and policy circles that incentivize the collection and dissemination of gender-disaggregated data. From there, I proceed to a discussion of the theoretical, ethical, mathematical, and practical issues involved in the collection and analysis of gender-disaggregated data. Ultimately, I argue that the move towards incorporating big data values into discourse on gender and security has created a problematic environment in which problems including (but not limited to) missing data, subjective coding choices, and the functional erasure of intersectional dynamics abound. Taking these issues into account, I argue that there is a continued need to explore questions about gender and security through a mixed-methods framework.

Examining questions of surveillance and policing in international relations invites us to engage in a conversation with surveillance studies. Lyon (2007) defines surveillance as: ‘Focused, systematic and routine attention to personal details for purposes of influence, management, protection, or direction.’ Effectively, this can mean any process that monitors behaviour for reasons other than idle curiosity (Lyon 2007). At its most expansive, the definition of surveillance encompasses surveillance for commercial reasons, in a corporate/managerial context, as a security act, or even within the context of the family – that is, surveillance of a spouse or child. Surveillance studies, however, also situates surveillance within the process of modern state-building, drawing on the work of Foucault (2019 [1975]). Beginning with early efforts by the state to collect data and track citizens – often, in the service of taxation or to monitor the spread of disease – surveillance studies sees continuity with the proliferation of surveillance in modern society. As a field, surveillance studies is interested in not only why this trajectory has unfolded as it has but also how systems, institutions, bureaucracies, and societies interact to create this landscape (Ball et al 2012). While technology development and computing power (especially, the rise of big data culture as discussed in Chapter 2) are important pieces of the puzzle in understanding the spread of surveillance, surveillance studies also takes an interest in exploring how the rise of corporate cultures, the diffusion of security threats (real or perceived), and permissive attitudes in society and government have facilitated the rise of surveillance (Ball et al 2012; Petersen 2012).

The types of questions asked in surveillance studies invite dialogue with both political science and feminist international relations. While surveillance studies has primarily been viewed as a sociological discipline, its inherent reflections on power dynamics necessarily make these topics political (Lyon 2007). Moreover, the differential impacts of surveillance systems or cultures on marginalized groups invite reflection about how gender, race, class, (dis) ability, sexuality, and other axes of difference play into discussions about surveillance. While gender is in its own right a useful topic of analysis, considering the new forms of insecurity that surveillance introduces for women, authors argue that a feminist approach to surveillance studies must be intersectional (Koskela 2012; Magnet and Dubrofsky 2015).

In 2014, a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace – cybercriminals with known connections to North Korea – launched an attack on Sony Pictures Studio in the United States, disabling much of its network and resulting in the leak of confidential data including business plans, emails, and personal information about Sony employees (Stengel 2019). The proximate cause of the attack, as identified in a message from the hackers, was Sony’s plan to release a film called The Interview, a comedy in which two journalists become reluctant assassins and are enlisted to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The North Korean government had repeatedly complained about the film prior to the attack, calling it ‘an act of terrorism and war’, threatening retaliation, and even appealing to the United Nations (UN) to stop its release (Reuters 2014; Stengel 2019).

The resulting hack was considered one of the largest cyberattacks ever launched within the United States, but it turns out it was not unique. Unknown at the time was that North Korean hackers had previously attacked Britain’s Channel 4 network, shortly before it planned to broadcast a TV drama that presented the country in an unfavourable light (Sanger et al 2017). Commenting on this latter attack, one British cybersecurity official described the surprise of discovering North Korea’s capabilities to mount cyberattacks, calling the country ‘weird and absurd and medieval and highly sophisticated’ as well as ‘isolated’ and ‘backward’. ‘People didn’t take it seriously’, he summarized (Sanger et al 2017). Such attitudes about the country and its leaders, especially current leader Kim Jong-un and his father Kim Jong-il, are apparently common, if one takes their cues from Western popular culture. During his reign and even after his death, Kim Jong-il had been lampooned on American movies and TV as insane, fat, lonely, effeminate, small, and – generally – someone to inspire mockery rather than fear. During the early years of his reign, Kim Jong-un was likewise caricatured in music videos and other media, reportedly provoking his anger (NBC News 2014).

Media portrayals and viral videos may have been a particularly useful tool for getting under the skin of North Korea’s dictators.

Having discussed the various reasons to be critical of both big data and of the available quantitative data on gender and security, I proceed to an overview of the gender gap in technology access. This section begins by presenting some of the available knowledge on gender gaps in technology development, proceeds to discuss gender gaps in technology use and how these can be contextualized within research on FSS, and applies these insights to a case study of regional issues in gender and technology in selected South Asian countries.

The analysis broadly makes the case that gendered concerns about online security should be taken more seriously in discussions about the digital gender gap, which tend to parse the issue through development-focused frameworks. It further calls for reflection upon the roles that various actors – including developers, multinational corporations, and governments – may play in addressing these issues. Finally, the analysis examines the potential role of civil society, which is already calling attention to problems related to inequality (including gender inequality) and digital rights in some parts of the world. In all, I argue that action on the digital gender gap must take into account the extent to which the issue is a question of security, as well as development. Given the range of security and safety issues that women face online (matters discussed in greater detail in the following section of the book), an ethical approach to bridging the gendered digital divide must work to create a safer and more inclusive digital environment.

Gender inequality in technology development

In terms of technology development and representation in the profession, sources universally agree that women are underrepresented. Additionally, there is compelling evidence that this underrepresentation results in androcentric outcomes, producing technology that at best fails to serve women and, at worst, may actively cause harm.

Drawing on statistics from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the American Association of University Women, D’Ignazio and Klein (2020) estimate that women make up 26 per cent of technology professionals working in the United States. This number has actually declined over time, with the number of women receiving degrees in computer science peaking in the mid-1980s at 37 per cent.