Digital Sovereignty in the Euro-Mediterranean Region: Protection and Competition in an Interconnected World

The main objective of this research is to probe into the social processes through which different meanings of digital sovereignty are elaborated by different actors, how they are used, and how they interact with particular contexts and political conditions. The object of investigation is the interplay between the production of digital sovereignty claims and the actual position of the claimant within contingent power relations, both inside and beyond the state. In order to do so, this paper (a) elaborates an analytical framework to study digital sovereignty claims, drawing on the combination of available literature on the topic with constructivist theories of sovereignty; b) employs this framework to study the policy discourse around digital sovereignty in a wide and heterogeneous geographical area, i.e. the Euro-Mediterranean region.