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

‘Digital sovereignty’ is a call for action that we – as individuals or collectives – should ‘take (back) control of our data’. 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 elusive and contradictory. There is neither a shared sense of what ‘digital sovereignty’ means, nor why and how it might be achieved. Can free flowing data ever be controlled? Is ‘digital sovereignty’ a protectionist agenda, an attempt to bolster democracy, or a proxy for continued surveillance capitalism?[i] SOVEREIGN will combine discourse analysis with multi-sited political ethnography to uncover the production, negotiation, and appropriation of the emerging ‘digital sovereignty’ doctrine. The core group will interview and observing key players in the EU and big tech on scene in Brussels and other EU national capitals, analyzing how the ‘digital sovereignty’ debate and regulation reconstitute significant facets of global and EU politics. At stake, 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.