Negotiating states’ sovereignty over the Internet

Internet standards provide crucial points of control over the Internet. They define the level of
privacy, efficiency and security of the world’s Internet traffic, and have effectively become the default
infrastructure mediating all digital interactions between citizens, companies and governments.
Generating intense economic and political battles, the adoption of Internet standards mostly takes
place within private standards-developing organisations. While state actors have been considered
marginal in these industry-driven processes, they appear increasingly assertive in relation to the
Internet, adopting new policies to protect their “digital sovereignty”. States’ ambition for more
control creates frictions with the global nature of the Internet and its governance, though weak
scholarly attention limits our understanding. This project will explore the effect of states’ digital
sovereignty policies on Internet standards drawing on an innovative mixed methods approach,
combining quantitative research and ethnographic fieldwork. Through a new dataset and a book
publication, it will pave the way for a new research agenda on power in Internet standardisation.