In “On digital non-alignment”, published in International Affairs in 2026, Scott L Malcomson asks how states can gain from digitalisation without becoming vulnerable to the major powers and companies that control much of the technology behind it. His answer is “digital non-alignment”, which he presents as a better way of understanding state behaviour than neo-realism, “digital sovereignty”, or theories of data imperialism. India provides the main case for the argument. Malcomson’s starting point is the difficulty of applying conventional sovereignty to digital networks. Cables, satellites, and other infrastructure cross national borders, while much of the infrastructure and innovation is privately owned. Governments therefore remain dependent on technology companies even when they seek greater control over their digital space. For Malcomson, “digital sovereignty is not an achievable condition but a terrain of negotiation”. What matters is how states manage that negotiation with domestic firms, foreign companies, and other governments.
He separates this from “data sovereignty”. States may have limited control over digital flows, but they can regulate the storage and use of data generated by citizens and companies. Data localisation and digital public infrastructure can strengthen that control without closing the market to foreign firms. Malcomson therefore sees data sovereignty as compatible with an internationally connected digital economy. This is where “onshore balancing” enters his argument. Rather than simply choosing sides, states can allow competing technology powers into their markets and use that competition to gain investment, technology transfer, and domestic capabilities. Conventional realism tends to place security at the centre of balancing behaviour. Malcomson argues that digital competition works differently because commercial development and security are closely connected. Digital non-alignment is therefore “more about prosperity than security”, although the two increasingly affect each other.
Malcomson also finds the language of data imperialism too narrow. He accepts that large technology companies can use technological advantages to dominate markets, but points to cases that do not fit a simple centre-periphery model. China, South Korea, and Taiwan, for example, have become major technology powers, while firms in countries such as India, Brazil, and Nigeria have developed their own market positions. Foreign investment and technology transfer also move across borders in ways that complicate the idea of one-way extraction. Data imperialism, he writes, is “an attractively simple explanation”, but it does not account for many of these developments.
The Indian case gives the argument its historical depth. Malcomson traces digital non-alignment to an older Indian approach that combined self-reliance with selective use of foreign technology. Under Nehru, institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Indian Statistical Institute helped establish a domestic technological base. Foreign technology was admitted when it served wider developmental and strategic purposes. The same pattern later appeared in the construction of India’s digital ecosystem. Yet India’s technological autonomy was built with substantial foreign involvement. Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE helped construct telecommunications infrastructure at a time when Indian firms lacked the capacity to do so. American companies and investors later entered on a large scale. Malcomson’s point is that foreign presence did not automatically produce dependence. As the Indian market expanded, the state and domestic companies gained more leverage over the terms on which foreign firms operated.
The dispute over Facebook’s Free Basics illustrates that process. Indian technology entrepreneurs opposed the programme on the grounds that its restricted model of internet access could place domestic companies at a disadvantage. The government rejected Free Basics in 2016. Malcomson treats the episode as an example of domestic firms becoming active participants in defining the limits of foreign technological influence. The 2020 India-China border clash then altered the balance. Chinese technology came to be viewed more strongly as a security concern, leading to app bans and restrictions on Chinese participation in 5G trials. At the same time, American investment expanded, particularly in Reliance Jio. India also pursued domestic capabilities in satellite communications and navigation while working with foreign companies. The result, in Malcomson’s account, was a closer technological relationship with the United States without a complete abandonment of non-alignment.
Malcomson concludes that India has pursued digital non-alignment through “onshore balancing and careful hedging”, managing both the US and China and the companies associated with them. India Stack has allowed the state to strengthen data sovereignty while leaving the domestic market open to foreign technology. He sees similar behaviour in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, and parts of Europe. Digital non-alignment, he argues, is therefore “a balancing act rather than an achievable static condition”, reflecting the continuing competition among states and companies inside national digital markets.
