Navigating digital colonialism: Sovereignty models and development paths in the Global South

This study examines how Global South countries confront the pressures of digital colonialism while seeking digital sovereignty and sustainable development. Digital colonialism is understood as an external force that limits national autonomy through technological dependence, regulatory dominance, and data extraction. Against this backdrop, the paper develops a framework of four sovereignty models—Independent, Cooperative, Dependent, and Custodial—based on comparative case studies of South Africa, Thailand, Nigeria, and Laos. These models are applied through a cross-regional comparative analysis to clarify how sovereignty configurations differ across countries. The analysis shows that sovereignty is not a binary condition but a spectrum shaped by both external constraints and internal strategies, which in turn determine whether digital industries generate endogenous growth or remain tied to colonial dependencies. By linking African and Asian experiences, the paper offers a comparative perspective on how different trajectories of digital industrialization emerge in the Global South and highlights pathways such as regional collaboration and domestic innovation for resisting digital colonialism.