Digital Sovereignty

digital sovereignty artificial intelligence governance platform ecosystems digital infrastructure information systems

Information Systems Journal

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Éditeurs invités

  • Petter Nielsen, University of Oslo
  • Laura Brandimarte, University of Arizona
  • Ben Eaton, Copenhagen Business School
  • Juliana Sutanto, Monash University
  • Mary Tate, Victoria University of Wellington
  • Daniel Veit, University of Augsburg

Synthèse

This special issue addresses digital sovereignty—the capacity of actors at individual, community, organizational, or national levels to make informed choices about sourcing, designing, and governing digital systems while avoiding dependency risks. The field encompasses concerns about data governance, platform reliance, interoperability, and AI transparency, reflecting growing political momentum globally from regions like the EU, Denmark, and China.

While digital sovereignty has attracted attention across policy, philosophy, and law, information systems research remains underdeveloped despite offering valuable socio-technical perspectives. This call seeks empirically grounded and theoretically ambitious research that explains digital sovereignty as a socio-technical accomplishment, including its tensions and trade-offs, alongside conceptual and review papers.

The special issue welcomes both qualitative and quantitative contributions that foreground digital technologies in context, drawing from relevant information systems research on infrastructures, digital innovation, platform governance, open-source solutions, and human-AI relationships.

Thèmes proposés

  • Conceptual and theoretical foundations of digital sovereignty in information systems and its unique properties compared to other conceptualizations of sovereignty
  • Critical investigations of the sovereignty paradox – the sacrifice of sovereignty for the utility and efficiency of big-tech, related to path dependencies, shadow sovereignty and exit strategies
  • The exercise of power by dominant players and its impact
  • The specific sovereignty challenges of digital infrastructure, platforms, AI and other emerging technologies such as quantum computing
  • Sovereignty-by-design: interoperability, standards, modularity, API governance, devolved, horizontal and open architectures
  • Open-source, digital public goods, and open data commons as strategies for autonomy, resilience, and public value
  • AI for managing sovereign digital infrastructures
  • Global, regional and local governance, regulation and policy regarding data, platforms and infrastructures, and governance models
  • Public sector digital sovereignty, including procurement, vendor lock-in, interoperability and capability building
  • Surveillance, digital identity, biometrics, and the sovereignty implications for rights and democratic accountability
  • Digital sovereignty in development and "post-aid" contexts: shifting dependencies, infrastructures at scale, and long-term sustainability
  • Indigenous and minority groups disadvantaged by colonisation value sovereignty, especially over their data, including protection from misuse, responsible stewardship, and maintaining integrity
  • Managing capability, skills, and technology gaps and deficits
  • Managing choke points in critical technical layers
  • Managing national policy alignment

Éditeurs associés

Tawfiq Alashoor, University of Navarra
Armin Alizadeh, Technical University of Darmstadt
Pierre-Emmanuel Arduin, Université Paris Dauphine-PSL
Irwin Brown, University of Cape Town
Jen Dailo Chandler, California State University
Wonhyuk Cho, Ewha Womans University
Jacqueline Corbett, Université Laval
Tingru Cui, University of Melbourne
Torgeir Dingsøyr, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Andreas Drechsler, Victoria University of Wellington
Daniel Gozman, University of Sydney
Agam Gupta, IIT Delhi
Riitta Hekkala, Aalto University
Federico Iannacci, University of Sussex
Alexander Kempton, University of Oslo
John Krogstie, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Shi-Ying Lim, National University of Singapore
Shirin Madon, LSE
Johan Magnusson, University of Gothenburg
Antonio Martini, University of Oslo
Silvia Masiero, University of Oslo
Eric Monteiro, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Priyanka Pandey, King's College
Roser Pujadas, University College London
Alexander Rieger, University of Arkansas
Tamara Roth, University of Arkansas
Hanlie Smuts, University of Pretoria
Timo Sturm, Technical University of Darmstadt
Ruonan Sun, Monash University
Johan Ivar Sæbø, University of Oslo
Benjamin van Giffen, University of Lichtenstein
Marjolein van Offenbeek, University of Groningen
Will Venters, LSE
Pauline Weritz, University of Twente
Amber Young, University of Oklahoma
Xiaojie Zhang, Ocean University of China
Markus P. Zimmer, University of Agder