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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ben FarrandORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
In recent years we have been able to observe the emergence and mainstreamingof a EU discourse on digital sovereignty, which highlights the importance of gaining back control of EU digital infrastructure and technological production, based on the EU’s perceived loss of economic competitiveness, limited capacity to innovate, high degree of dependence on foreign digital infrastructures and service providers, and, related to all these factors, difficulty in providing EU citizens with a high level of cybersecurity. Bearing in mind that a considerable percentage of these infrastructuresand service providers are under private sector control, the present article asks how this sovereignty discourse conceptualises the role of the private sectorin EU cybersecurity. Drawing from a Regulatory Capitalism theoretical model, this articleproposes that the EU has instead entered a Regulatory Mercantilist phase where it seeks toreassert its control over cyberspace, impose digital borders,accumulate data wealth and reduce its dependence on external private sector actors whose values may notreflect those of the EU order.Anew approach to cybersecurity is emerging, in which the non-EU private sector can be perceived as much of a threat as foreign powers, and from whom digital sovereignty must be secured.
Author(s): Farrand B, Carrapico H
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: European Security
Year: 2022
Volume: 31
Issue: 3
Pages: 435-453
Online publication date: 09/09/2022
Acceptance date: 14/07/2022
Date deposited: 09/08/2022
ISSN (print): 0966-2839
ISSN (electronic): 1746-1545
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09662839.2022.2102896
DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2022.2102896
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/52dq-m386
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