This blog argues that, in India, this pursuit of digital sovereignty makes accountability more difficult, and explores the increasing reliance on voluntary, industry-led AI governance frameworks in place of binding regulation, and the expanding role of private actors in functions traditionally associated with the state through the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) model.
Abstract
The pursuit of digital sovereignty is often presented as a way to reclaim control from powerful technology companies. This blog argues that, in India, this pursuit makes accountability more difficult. India's approach to digital sovereignty is not solely concerned with reasserting state authority over technology companies, but also with reconfiguring the relationship between the state and private actors. In this emerging model, the state plays an enabling role by providing funding, digital infrastructure, and access to scale, while indigenous private technology companies often retain significant operational autonomy and capture much of the resulting value. The blog explores this dynamic across two domains: the increasing reliance on voluntary, industry-led AI governance frameworks in place of binding regulation, and the expanding role of private actors in functions traditionally associated with the state through the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) model. It argues that these developments may blur lines of regulatory responsibility and diffuse accountability across public and private actors, raising questions about how digital sovereignty is being operationalised in practice.
As private technology firms expand their control over critical infrastructures, questions of sovereignty and governance are increasingly displaced from states to corporate actors. Existing scholarship on sovereignty assumes that authority is either monopolized by states or shared through institutionalized public–private arrangements. Yet, recent events, including SpaceX's control of wartime communications in Ukraine, Meta's confrontation with the Australian government, and OpenAI's attempts to shape global AI regulation, demonstrate that firms can exercise discretionary authority without formal delegation, legal accountability, or democratic oversight. This study introduces the concept of Corporate Quasi‐Sovereignty (CQS) to theorize how certain technology firms function as de facto sovereign actors. CQS is defined by the convergence of three enabling dimensions: infrastructural command, executive autonomy, and normative or geopolitical assertion. Drawing on Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), this paper theorizes ‘sovereignty windows’ as the mechanism through which firms internally collapse the problem, policy, and politics streams, enabling unilateral interventions with geopolitical consequences. ‘Stream collapse,’ the internalization of all three MSF streams within a single corporate hierarchy, is operationalized as a boundary condition of MSF, distinct from conventional stream coupling. The ‘conditional policy entrepreneur’ is introduced as the corporate analogue to Kingdon's entrepreneur: a founder‐CEO who exercises this role only when all three CQS enabling conditions simultaneously converge. Drawing on comparative case analyses of Meta, SpaceX, and OpenAI, the article shows how CQS captures both reactive and anticipatory modes of corporate authority, showing that firms now operate as both market actors and quasi‐sovereign agents capable of substituting, bypassing, or preempting state power.
Chee Hae Chung, Bryce J. Dietrich· Policy Studies Journal· 0 citations
Corporate governance in India is undergoing a paradigm shift from traditional shareholder primacy to a pluralistic accountability model, statutorily mandated by Section 166(2) of the Companies Act, 2013. This provision theoretically elevates the interests of stakeholders such as employees, communities, and the environment to the same legal footing as shareholder returns. However, a critical dichotomy exists between this statutory mandate and its practical enforcement; the lack of direct legal remedies for non-shareholders creates an enforcement gap that threatens to render the pluralist duty a "paper tiger". To understand how stakeholder protection is operationalized de facto, this paper analyses the existing regulatory infrastructure, emphasizing the shift toward mandatory, quantitative transparency through SEBI’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting (BRSR) framework. Additionally, it evaluates internal board-level institutional mechanisms and landmark judicial interventions, such as the Vedanta v. Orissa Mining Corp. judgment, which highlights the strategic and financial imperative of securing local community consent. The research concludes that while mandatory disclosure and judicial activism currently serve as the primary drivers of corporate accountability, statutory reforms such as expanding class-action standing to affected communities are necessary to close the enforcement gap and fully transform directors into genuine mediators of stakeholder interests.
Maryam Khalid, Kavya Chandel· ILE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW· 0 citations
The article is devoted to the analysis of digital neocolonialism and the issues of ensuring state digital sovereignty amid the transformation of the global digital space. In recent years, the concept of digital sovereignty has been gaining prominence in global political and public discourse: issues related to digital sovereignty are raised at both supranational (the EU, the World Economic Forum) and national levels (for example, Canada). The BRICS countries are not lagging behind this trend: at the current stage, each member state is implementing initiatives aimed at strengthening state digital sovereignty, enshrined in national regulatory frameworks. Some scholars associate this trend with the growing «data colonialism» of transnational digital corporations that exploit population data in exchange for services a phenomenon referred to in the literature as digital neocolonialism. The study sets the following objectives: first, to clarify the concept of «digital sovereignty» based on contemporary domestic and international academic approaches; second, to conduct a comparative analysis of the institutional, legal-regulatory, and strategic foundations of BRICS member states’ policies on protecting digital sovereignty; third, to formulate and substantiate a scenario for the development of BRICS cooperation on digital sovereignty protection in the context of international challenges posed by digital neocolonialism. The purpose of this article is to identify the current political course of the BRICS countries in protecting digital sovereignty in response to emerging challenges of digital neocolonialism. To achieve this aim, the study seeks to identify the key features of digital sovereignty and to define digital neocolonialism; to outline common steps taken by BRICS countries in protecting digital sovereignty; to determine national models of digital sovereignty protection (including new members); and to identify constraints on the development of a common BRICS approach to digital sovereignty. The research employs case study methods, document analysis, the comparative method, and scenario method. The findings make it possible to assess the potential and limits of cooperation among BRICS countries in the field of digital policy and to identify possible directions for developing coordinated approaches to the protection of digital sovereignty.
N. Sidorenko, V. A. Dmitrieva, M. Savchenkova· Governance and Politics· 0 citations
This study analyzes the integration of human‐centric concepts into legislative and technological frameworks to promote digital sovereignty and demonstrates a global transition from state‐centric to individual‐centric sovereignty.
Tarun Kumar Behera, S. Misra, Biswajeeban Mishra et al.· WIREs Data Mining and Knowle...· 0 citations
It is argued that while technology has enhanced efficiency and transparency, governance outcomes ultimately depend on institutional capacity, inclusivity, and ethical commitment, and that Governance 4.0 represents not merely a technological shift but a normative redefinition of democratic governance in India.
Sanchita Ray· LAW AND SOCIAL POLICY REVIEW· 0 citations
Private transnational governance institutions increasingly acquire regulatory authority in contexts of weak or inactive state regulation, yet their capacity to exercise it remains contested. We extend Poulantzas' concept of relative autonomy, understood as the capacity to act with organizational independence from specific fractions of capital while reproducing capitalist relations, to the transnational context. We develop this framework through a longitudinal case study of the Bangladesh Accord and its transition to the ready‐made garments (RMG) Sustainability Council (RSC) (2013–2024). We identify three institutional conditions enabling relative autonomy: joint governance between labour and capital, organizational independence, and legally enforceable commitments. Under these conditions, transnational initiatives can move beyond symbolic compliance to discipline global brands and exert credible regulatory power. However, such autonomy is inherently unstable, provoking resistance from domestic capital and state actors, particularly in Global South contexts where such initiatives are contested as external impositions. We show that relative autonomy is not static but emerges from political contestations between capital and labour, and between global and domestic actors. While private governance featuring relative autonomy can temporarily constrain capital, it ultimately reproduces the capital‐labour and North–South power asymmetries of global supply chains.
Mahreen Khan, Jimmy Donaghey, Juliane Reinecke· Journal of Management Studie...· 0 citations
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