Digital sovereignty - Rhetoric and reality.

In recent years, the language of digital sovereignty has become ubiquitous in Europe. However, we still lack systematic knowledge if and to what extent the discourse on digital sovereignty is accompanied by actual policy change in different areas of EU policymaking. Drawing on a range of both qualitative and quantitative methods, the various contributions to this special issue examine discursive and policy change in nine major areas of EU digital policymaking. While they find policy change towards more control of the digital across all policy areas examined, this shift is only sometimes accompanied by discursive change towards digital sovereignty. This, we argue, is the result of ideational trade-offs actors face when using the language of digital sovereignty in different venues, policy areas, or countries. Considering current geo-political and geo-economic challenges, this special issue sheds light on recent transformations of EU digital policymaking and its discursive politics in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]