Orchestrating Without Partiture; Getting Information Systems Ready to the Future of Crisis Diplomacy

Crisis in and around Ukraine is becoming the first show-case in multilateral diplomacy, where Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) and other technologies are deployed to produce information for the diplomatic processes of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)and to public at the same time. This has taken place in a very rapid manner without time for descent planning and through learning by doing before and in the middle of the start and development of the crisis special monitoring mission based on the consensus of 57 member states. This paper approaches these multi-lateral diplomacy scenes by looking at the work done through two disciplines which “orchestrate”; Social Science and Information Systems. Abbot et al. orchestration theory application into OSCE and to its “Ukraine toolbox” needs more research, in which e.g. IS literature ́s socio-technical modeling methods will be helpful in order to bridge recognized gaps from practice and literature. Information system researchers and developers are needed in more active roles as intermediaries to complement existing principal-agent e.g. OSCERPAS and other ICT vendor relationships. More theoretical and empirical research is needed to make the IGOs’ orchestration to meet what ICT can offer for future crisis diplomacy.