Digital society : ethics, socio-legal and governance of digital technology最新文献

For about a decade, the concept of 'digital sovereignty' has been prominent in the European policy discourse. In the quest for digital sovereignty, the European Union has adopted a constitutional approach to protect fundamental rights and democratic values, and to ensure fair and competitive digital markets. Thus, 'digital constitutionalism' emerged as a twin discourse. A corollary of these discourses is a third phenomenon resulting from a regulatory externalisation of European law beyond the bloc's borders, the so-called 'Brussels Effect'. The dynamics arising from Europe's digital policy and regulatory activism imply increasing legal complexities. This paper argues that this phenomenon in policy-making is a case of a positive 'policy bubble' characterised by an oversupply of policies and legislative acts. The phenomenon can be explained by the amplification of values in the framing of digital policy issues. To unpack the policy frames and values at stake, this paper provides an overview of the digital policy landscape, followed by a critical assessment to showcase the practical implications of positive policy bubbles.

Anu Bradford has described the European Union's ability to externalise its norms and standards as the so-called Brussels effect. We apply the Brussels effect to select issues discussed via the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) and show that its capacity to project power stems not only from the EU's market size but also from its domestic decision-making structure. The political capital accumulated in the EU's consensus-based and inclusive deliberations functions as an effective instrument for motivating other states to adopt European regulations, as legislative acts resulting from European inter-institutional and multi-level policy-making hold high standards of legal certainty and signal European strategic goals and political commitments credibly. Knowing that European consensus is an important condition for externalisation, Brussels can facilitate consensus by calling for internal compromise in order to be able to take the European compromise to the international stage. Thus, the internal and external dimensions of the Brussels effect are mutually reinforcing. This twofold appearance demarcates it from the California effect and the Beijing effect.

Recently, the concept of sovereignty in the digital has attracted much attention. Several publications dealing with this concept assume that it can best be described as a network of different, overlapping exercises of power. Nevertheless, there is a need for further research on how exactly sovereignty in the digital can be understood. In order to contribute to a better understanding of this concept, I illustrate its complex structure using contact tracing apps as a paradigmatic example. I conduct a narrative review to show what sovereignty looks like in the context of these apps. In the context of digital contact tracing apps, sovereignty is best understood as a complex network of three actors-nations, (big tech) companies, and individuals-that exercise various forms of power against or on behalf of each other to claim sovereignty for themselves and to either weaken or strengthen the sovereignty claims of other actors. Since large parts of the results can be generalized from the particular context of contact tracing apps, they contribute to a better overall understanding of the concept of sovereignty in digital. This might, in turn, be helpful for discussions about this technology as well as about the regulation and governance of the digital in general.