Trends and Risks in Shaping Global Digital Governance

In the context of rapid digitalization, states and alliances create norms, institutions, and standards to regulate the development and application of digital technologies. Parameters of future digital governance will have long-term economic and political implications and will define the balance of power in geopolitical and economic relations. Hence, competition to influence the construction of global digital governance, which was clearly manifest in the negotiations and final text of the Global Digital Compact. The Group of 7 (G7) defined the goal and undertakes coordinated actions to build a new digital order based on common democratic values, digital solidarity, norms, and the institutions the members set up. The Group of 77, China, Russia and their partners in the BRICS (Brazil, India, South Africa, and others) promote digital governance development led by the states, especially developing states, opposing coercion of laws and regulation with exterritorial effect. Sharing similar approaches, developing countries do not have a platform for consolidating and advancing their positions, while the G7 members and their like-minded partners intensify concerted efforts to shape a system of digital economy governance that would safeguard G7 members’ interests and influence. This article reviews G7 initiatives aimed at shaping global digital governance. The analysis focuses on the G7’s decisions and actions and the rules and standards it promotes through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and on the digital economy agenda of the Group of 20 (G20), in which BRICS and the G7 constitute two core groups representing the interests of emerging market and developing economies and advanced economies [IMF, 2023], respectively. Drawing on the results of the G7, G20 and BRICS documents analysis, the author presents inferences on the state of the G7’s influence on the establishment of new rules and institutions and the risks associated with consolidating advanced economies’ weight and competitive advantages in global governance. The review concludes with recommendations on possible BRICS actions to build a multilateral, fair, inclusive, and effective digital governance architecture in the interests of the world majority.