Democratic governments face a foundational tension in the digital age: how to assert meaningful sovereignty over critical infrastructure and national data without replicating the authoritarian architectures of control they oppose. Existing policy responses have largely been reactive, addressing incidents and exploits rather than the structural conditions that produce them.

The Democratic Cyber Sovereignty Framework (DCSF) is an ISRS policy architecture designed to resolve this tension. It provides governments with a principled, operationally grounded approach to digital sovereignty; one that is structurally compatible with open societies, allied interoperability, and rule-of-law constraints.

The DCSF addresses three core problem areas: jurisdictional coherence over national digital infrastructure, governance of foreign technology dependencies, and the standards gap between democratic and authoritarian models of internet governance.

Full analysis in development. Contact ISRS for briefing inquiries.

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