Caught Between Privacy and Surveillance: Explaining the Long-Term Stagnation of Data Protection Regulation in Liberal Democracies

Abstract

This article pursues two objectives. First, it aims to trace the genealogy of data protection regulation in major liberal democracies. To do so, it examines the evolution of this regulation in the United States, France, and Germany, among others, and relies on the policy actors' triangle framework. Second, the article provides an explanation for the paradox that emerges from this diachronic analysis: a long-term stagnation of data protection regulation despite the radical transformation of the information environment and surveillance practices over the last three decades. The article finds that this long-term regulatory stagnation can be explained by a constant trade-off between competing and sometimes irreconcilable policy goals and, especially since 9/11, an overlap between state and private interests. Despite post-Snowden reforms, this conflict of interest continues to shape the regulation, raising many democratic concerns.