Digital Sovereignty and Identity in the European Union: A Challenge for Building Europe

Abstract

Summary This paper aims at showing how the concepts of national sovereignty and national identity are challenged by the digital revolution. In the age of modernism, both concepts were defined as a condition for society’s loyalty to the political framework, but this long-established format changed with the new technologic developments. The digital revolution requires a postmodern – heterogeneous and fluid – idea of identity, as well as a post-modern idea of sovereignty, which is non-territorial, neither hierarchical. Therefore, the postmodern idea of sovereignty and the concept of identity are significant for the development of the concepts of digital sovereignty and European digital identity.