Working Group on Digital Sovereignty

Since the 1990s, politicians, policymakers, scholars, technical experts and representatives of the private sector and civil society have been discussing and struggling over the role of the state in the global governance of digital networks. During the early 2000s, and particularly in the context of the UN-led process known as World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the principle of state sovereignty was embraced by a coalition of national governments contesting the private order established by the US Government in the Internet governance field. Although unsuccessful at that time, those efforts have been growing over the years, also achieving remarkable results such as the new International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) signed by a majority of 190 countries at the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT). More recently, beside the initiatives guided by the Chinese and the Russian governments to protect what they call “cyber sovereignty” and “information sovereignty”, the European Union and its leading Member States have stood out for their claims of “digital sovereignty”. New strategies and policies have been elaborated by Brussels around this principle, and initiatives such as public investments, governmental control over the IT industry, and legislative procedures have been implemented. The working group contributes to the scientific understanding of digital sovereignty as a policy discourse, a set of practices, and an emerging normative framework. Participants will address relevant political questions, including: Who is claiming or opposing digital sovereignty and why? Sovereignty over what? What are the societal and geopolitical settings within which the discourse on digital sovereignty is practiced? What are the expected consequences of any change of sovereign power’s distribution over digital networks?