Taking Down Havel’s Greengrocer Sign to Plant a Transatlantic Forest: Mark Carney, Digital Sovereignty, and Middle-Power Resistance to Geopolitical “Rapture”
Are middle powers condemned to be passive rule-takers in an era of hegemonic tech monopolies and geopolitical "Rapture"? In his landmark addresses at Davos and Strasbourg, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a bold rallying cry for mid-sized nations to reject false compliance and forge value-based alliances. Writing from the perspective of an Information Science doctoral researcher specializing in tech policy, AI ethics, and digital governance, I examine Carney’s twin metaphors, taking down Václav Havel’s Czech greengrocer sign and planting a Transatlantic Digital Forest, through the lens of information policy research. From sovereign compute pools and critical mineral value chains to data privacy commons and access to knowledge, this article explores how Canada and the EU can build a resilient canopy of democratic tech sovereignty.