A digital divide? Digital market governance in the transatlantic space
Guillaume Beaumier, Jonas Heering & Abraham Newman, Comparative European Politics, Vol. 24.
The EU and the US have emerged as central actors in the governance of the digital economy. Existing scholarship tends to view their digital governance models as distinctive approaches, with the EU advancing a rights-based model and the US favoring a market-based approach. Yet, such arguments mask the underlying interdependencies that shape digital policymaking on both sides of the Atlantic. In this paper, we show how the digital market governance strategies of the EU and the US were shaped through the constant interactions of their respective attempts to unleash market competition and shield citizens from harm. By tracing the evolution of transatlantic digital governance since the 1990s, we highlight how both jurisdictions initially emphasized market making over market correction, hoping to unleash the promises of new technology. As the digital economy consolidated around a few large US-based technology companies, however, digital governance in the EU shifted toward a more protective approach. EU digital governance attempted to balance the EU’s dependence on foreign digital technology firms—and their influence on EU policymaking—with efforts to get these firms to follow EU market rules. European regulatory efforts reverberated across the Atlantic as US policymakers took up concerns related to market concentration. With the reelection of Donald Trump, digital policy is increasingly becoming intertwined with both trade and security policy on both sides of the Atlantic. The paper, then, underscores the interrelated nature of digital policy-making where markets and authority increasingly span borders.
Guillaume Beaumier
Professeur adjoint à l’École nationale d’administration publique
