Stanislav Budnitsky is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies at Colgate University in upstate New York, with a focus on Russian and global media politics. Previously, he held postdoctoral fellowships at the Wilson Center, University of Duisburg-Essen, Indiana University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Budnitsky’s publications, which explore the nexus of nationalism, globalization, and digital technologies, have appeared in the International Journal of Communication, Internet Policy Review, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies, among other venues. Budnitsky holds a PhD in Communication from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and Master’s degrees in Nationalism Studies and Journalism.

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In May 2024, the U.S. State Department released its new International Cyberspace Strategy, placing the concept of ""digital solidarity"" at its heart. This marked a striking rhetorical departure from decades of U.S. cyber diplomacy, which had centered on tropes of freedom, openness, and globality. This paper takes that pivot as its starting point to examine digital solidarity as a metaphor of global reordering, mobilized to manage disorder and legitimize realignments in the face of social, technological, and geopolitical rupture. Despite being a fixture of cyber politics for two decades, digital solidarity has received no sustained scholarly attention, unlike widely analyzed concepts such as digital sovereignty, multistakeholderism, or the free flow of information. This paper addresses that omission by offering the first critical genealogy of digital solidarity as a discursive device for symbolic and institutional restructuring.

The analysis traces “digital solidarity” across three pivotal moments of (real or perceived) global disruption, deployed to frame alliances, differentiate adversaries, and legitimize new modes of global governance: (1) the early 2000s digital divide debates and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), where digital solidarity was institutionalized through the Digital Solidarity Fund; (2) the EU’s COVID-era rhetoric, which framed data and digital infrastructure as sites of shared responsibility and regional cohesion; and (3) the post-2022 geopolitical climate shaped by the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the U.S. Trump administration. Across these moments, digital solidarity functions as a floating signifier that adapts to different visions of global order.

The paper adopts a genealogical-discursive approach that asks how the term is constructed, operationalized, and strategically repurposed. Using Kneuer et al.’s framework to analyze the structure of solidarity claims (actorness, adversity, contribution, shared goals) and Alharbi’s performative model to assess their effects (e.g., promises, identifications, boundary-making), the study shows how digital solidarity is invoked to navigate disorder, mediate legitimacy, and craft alliances in a destabilized international cyber environment.

The paper contributes to debates about the symbolic and strategic tools that states and other actors use to rebuild the global (digital) order in line with their identities and interests.