Digital sovereignty: European visions for self-determination in a digital age

Telling a story of being hemmed in by US tech-capitalism and Chinese and Russian tech-authoritarianism, European actors now seek a ‘third way’ into the digital future. Yet ‘digital sovereignty’ remains enigmatic and contradictory. There is neither a shared sense of what ‘digital sovereignty’ means, nor why and how it might be achieved. At stake in the ongoing negotiations of policy and legislation, ultimately, is the relationship between political authority, corporate interests, and citizen rights and the roll-out of the doctrine cut to the very future of democratic governance and international order.
SOVEREIGN combines political discourse analysis with multi-sited political ethnography to uncover the production, negotiation, and appropriation of the emerging ‘digital sovereignty’ doctrine. The project traces the discursive framing, justifications and practical uses of ‘digital sovereignty in the EU institutions, in the tech companies, and in EU member states.