Tenant in Your Own House the Wickedness of Regaining Digital Sovereignty over Digital Public Infrastructures

Abstract

Escalating geopolitical tensions and technological dependencies have rendered the pursuit of digital sovereignty a paramount challenge for governments. Sovereignty is especially desirable for digital public infrastructures given their foundational role in authenticating, transacting, and exchanging information. However, the literature provides few policy strategies for sovereignty and few in-depth analyses of sovereignty challenges. Moreover, pathways towards higher levels of digital sovereignty for a digital public infrastructure are yet to be theorised and tested. This paper provides a deeper analysis of the challenges to sovereignty over digital public infrastructures, enabling governments to unearth pathways. Drawing on an empirical case study in the Netherlands and the PESTEL framework, this paper derives a set of challenges that must be addressed. The analysis shows that regaining digital sovereignty is a wicked problem with low normative consensus and many dependencies and uncertainties. This paper develops two pathways to address the wicked problem: fire-fighting measures that aim to address the immediate loss of digital sovereignty, vs fire prevention that aims to orchestrate an ecosystem of more sovereign alternatives for digital public infrastructure components. The analysis and pathways can inform policymakers looking to stimulate digital sovereignty.