The sociotechnical politics of digital sovereignty: Frictional infrastructures and the alignment of privacy and geopolitics

This article examines how digital sovereignty emerges not solely through state mandates but via unpredictable alignments of infrastructures, institutions, and imaginaries. Drawing on Science & Technology Studies (STS), it conceptualizes digital sovereignty as a hybrid black box —a provisional assemblage of technical, legal, and cultural components that stabilize sovereign claims in the digital realm. Through a case study of Threema, a privacy-focused messaging app headquartered in Switzerland, the article analyzes how the platform co-produces digital sovereignty in interaction with Swiss public institutions. Using semi-structured interviews and document analysis, it identifies three frictional dynamics—privacy, seclusion, and territorialism—that periodically destabilize the hybrid black box, revealing how sovereignty is negotiated and reconfigured in response to competing legal, infrastructural, and geopolitical pressures. The analysis is rooted in grounded theory coding and builds on literature in infrastructural media studies and post-traditional sovereignty theory. In doing so, the article contributes to current debates on digital sovereignty by showing how non-state actors, like secure messaging platforms, can enact infrastructural practices that perform sovereign functions, thereby reshaping the contours of statehood and autonomy in the digital age.