Opening the Black Box of EU Digital Sovereignty: A Macro-Level Analysis of the Concept's Development

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Turobov, Aleksei; Carrapico, Helena; Farrand, Benjamin
• 署名单位: Northumbria University; University of Cambridge; Northumbria University; Newcastle University - UK
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895; 1468-0491
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.70112
• 发表日期: 2026-04
• 页码: e70112
• 关键词: digital sovereignty; eu policy; LDA; topic modeling; security; integration; governance; DECISION; promise

摘要

Digital sovereignty has emerged as a central organizing principle in European Union governance, yet systematic understanding of its conceptual evolution remains limited. This article provides the first macro-level analysis of how digital sovereignty evolves across institutional and academic domains. Through analysis of 156 academic articles and 808 EU policy documents using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling, we reveal sophisticated patterns in institutional conceptualization and evolution of digital sovereignty. Our findings demonstrate that its development reflects complex adaptive processes rather than linear policy progression. We identify a significant shift in institutional discourse from 2013 to 2016, where digital sovereignty transitions from a narrow technical concept to a comprehensive policy framework. This conceptual flexibility enhances rather than inhibits digital sovereignty development. The study advances understanding of how institutions construct and deploy new governance concepts in response to technological change while revealing previously obscured patterns in institutional interconnection.