Algorithmic governmentality and the European digital subject : a discourse analysis of the European strategy for data

Abstract

This thesis investigates how digital governance in the European Union, as articulated through policy documents, constructs, stabilizes, and legitimizes specific forms of digital subjectivity in the fields of data and artificial intelligence. The central argument is that the European Strategy for Data extends beyond merely regulating data usage and functions as a technology of governmentality that shapes modes of being, agency, and self-understanding in a data-driven society, forming part of a broader political–economic discourse. Using a Foucault-inspired framework, the thesis argues that EU digital policies act as mechanisms that categorize individuals, establish behavioural norms, and legitimise algorithmic logic, producing a dual digital persona: the “normal” and “non-normal” European citizen. Within this discourse, SMEs appear as creative yet fragile actors, nation-states as monitored law enforcers, and the EU as a moral–strategic subject contrasted with China and the United States. The first part shows that, despite extensive theoretical debates on digital governmentality, limited research critically analyses EU policy documents or examines how they discursively construct the desired digital subject at the intersection of algorithmic systems and policymaking.

The methodology implements an interpretive, qualitative research approach guided by Critical Discourse Analysis and consisting of four steps: mapping the discursive field, identifying subject positions, analysing boundaries and antagonisms, and examining interdiscursive relations. The research is primarily based on the European Strategy for Data (2020), a key document within the EU data governance model. The results show that the EU discourse in the European Strategy for Data formulates a logic that redefines the digital subject not only as an individual with rights but also as an entity deeply connected to algorithmic and economic networks. This emerging regime prioritizes truth, predictability, accountability, and self-regulation as core features, encouraging the acceptance and internalization of efficiency, transparency, and data-driven participation as social values. At the same time, it highlights various forms of exclusion, inequality, and constraints on agency and political participation in digital societies in relation to global “others,” namely China and the United States.