Digital Sovereignty and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): Emerging Geopolitics of Cyberspace

Abstract

The rapid digitalization of global politics has elevated digital sovereignty—the ability of state to govern and safeguard their data, networks and digital infrastructures into a central concern of contemporary international relations. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has surfaced as an influential yet unexplored platform where divergent visions of cyberspace governance are contested. This study aims at exploring the engagements of SCO with digital sovereignty by analyzing the policy documents, declarations of SCO summit, declarations, and national cyber strategies through a qualitative discourse analysis. The research paper explores how digital governance norms of the west are being challenged? It argues that the SCO functions less as cohesive digital bloc and more as discursive and diplomatic arena, where narratives of security, autonomy, and resistance to western dominance are negotiated. By applying critical geopolitics theoretical framework, the paper highlights how digital sovereignty debates within the SCO reflects broader struggle over spatial imaginaries of cyberspace and contribute to the emerging multipolar order in digital governance. The findings reveal that while SCO members converge rhetorically in opposing western digital governance model, their narratives diverge in substance. It highlights SCO as a discursive arena rather than a unified policy making bloc.