Digital sovereignty as an ill-structured (or wicked?) problem

In this chapter, we discuss digital sovereignty as an ill-structured problem negotiated within democratic and participative discourses in public and private organisations. We argue that even though ill-structured problems describe challenges that cannot be solved in a formally structured way, tensions between knowledge and practice within discursive attempts at solutions and theoretical foundations may gradually lead to (increasingly) well-structured problem formulations. We first invoke Herbert Simon's analytical take on ill-structured problems to then apply the concept to digital sovereignty, the conception of which oscillates between the individual and the collective (inter-)national level. In light of issues and transgressions related to digital practices in violation or absence of digital sovereignty, however, we voice a call to resiliently pursue and engage in spaces of negotiations rather than succumbing to defeatism. Identifying digital sovereignty as an ill-structured problem can only emphasise the relevance of attempts to determine whether a transformation into a well-structured problem is possible. Accordingly, we contend that the discourse about digital sovereignty confirms an 'ill-structured problem' as a timely analytical term that helps enhance our understanding of problems shaped by the conditions of (digital) societies.