Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries

How the Global South and Emerging Power Alliances Are Reshaping Digital Governance

Min Jiang, Luca Belli

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009531092
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In a world where digital development and policymaking are dominated by Silicon Valley tech giants, the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa - play an increasingly important role. With forty percent of the world's population and twenty-five percent of global GDP, these nations possess vast troves of personal data. Yet, their conceptions, narratives, and initiatives of digital sovereignty remain understudied. This volume is the first to explore digital sovereignty from a Global South perspective and offers a forward-looking take on what a world less dependent on Silicon Valley might look like. It brings together excellent analyses of BRICS digital sovereignty issues, from historical imaginaries to up-to-date conceptualizations, e-payment to smart cities, legal analysis to geopolitical assessment. By offering neglected perspectives from the Global South, this book makes important contributions to the digital sovereignty debate. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Special Acknowledgments: Institutional Sponsors for Open Access
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: Contesting Digital Sovereignty: Untangling a Complex and Multifaceted Concept
• Part I State-centric Formations of Digital Sovereignty
• Part II Techno-economic Structurings of Digital Sovereignty
• Part III Grassroots Contestations of Digital Sovereignty
• References
• Index