Digitalization in local governments or put differently “smart cities” are nothing new. Simultaneously with their emergence, strands of critical scientific literature on smart cities and their perils, such as neoliberalism, injustices and various other negative implications evolved (Hollands 2008, Coletta et al., 2018).
In contrast to this dystopian outlook for digital futures, the trend of local governments striving for digital sovereignty originated in Barcelona and entered the scientific discourse on digital futures of local governments. The emerging research field on digital/technological or data sovereignty claims to outline non-normative pathways or opportunities towards a more inclusive, bottom-up oriented and democratic digital urban future (Calzada 2021, Lynch 2020).
Thus, this contribution aims to conceptualize the trend of digital/technological or data sovereignty, beyond the example of Barcelona, in a European context from a policy- , governance - and research perspective, focused on but not limited to the local government level.
Guiding research questions are:
How can digital/technological and data sovereignty be conceptualized? What are the implications of digital sovereignty on different dimensions of digital urban futures such as policy, design of technology and civil society? An extensive scientific literature review builds a foundation for the conceptualization of the phenomenon. Based on these results, various experts on the topic will be interviewed with the help of the Delphi method (Häder 2014).
Mots clés : digital sovereignty|local governments|trend
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