Is digital sovereignty normatively desirable?

This article examines the concept of digital sovereignty and its role in analysing and shaping digital processes and transformations. It argues that current references to digital sovereignty rely on an implausibly one-dimensional and overly simplified understanding of sovereignty.

The article explores what it means to speak of sovereignty in the context of data and digital spaces. As a conceptual basis, it distinguishes three aspects of sovereignty: sovereignty as absolute power, sovereignty as embodied power, and sovereignty as institutional power. It argues that, particularly in the European debate on digital sovereignty, two of these aspects—relating to the complex relationship between the sovereign and the addressees of sovereignty claims—are often insufficiently considered (pp. 1–14).

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