Digital Sovereignty in the Twenty-First Century

Brazilian Reflections from the New Concept of Cyberspace

Resumo

Digital transformations have become a defining feature of the twenty-first century. The pace of change driven by new technologies often outstrips the State's capacity to adapt. Drafting legislation and developing systems to safeguard democracy, citizens, and public assets is inherently slower than the capital investments in science and technology made by global corporations. Consequently, states have sought rapid responses that have proven globally insufficient, both in securing rights and in curbing exploitation. One of the most common strategies for narrowing the gap between these technological transformations and state oversight is to draw an analogy between the material and the digital. As a result, legal frameworks refined over centuries to curb the abuses of economic actors within the social fabric are being transposed from the physical world to the digital realm. This transposition, however, has proven misguided and ineffective. This article investigated the impact of the digital-material analogy on the concept of "sovereignty" and provides a comparative analysis of North American and Brazilian proposals across several key domains of digital legislation. The findings suggest that Brazil is lagging not only in the development of these technologies but also in the State's efforts to assert the rights of its citizens and protect public goods. Ultimately, the digital proves more complex than the material analogy suggests.