Digitalization policy as policy integration: The case of integrating sustainability objectives

Policymaking explicitly referring to steering, advancing or mitigating side effects of digitalization for society have become ubiquitous. Such policymaking ranges from EU-level efforts such as the European Union's Digital Decade Policy Program to the local level, where city administrations might be grappling with effects of loosely regulated digital platform/ gig economy business models on transport systems or trying to balance data privacy requirements with demand for open government data. In many ways, the policy sciences are still catching up to these fast-moving developments. One of the key reasons for lagging cross-fertilizing policy science research on digitalization is a lack of conceptualizations of digitalization policy as a policy field. We aim to change this. To advance more robust analysis of digitalization policy, we develop and propose a conceptualization of digitalization policy from a policy integration perspective. Essentially, we propose to understand the domain(s) and challenges of digitalization policy as a question of policy integration. In doing so, we provide an answer to the question "What is digitalization policy?", which is surprisingly understudied and which makes coordinated work on the phenomenon of digitalization policy in public policy research possible. As a case to develop our argument, we analyze one of the thorniest questions of policy integration when it comes to digitalization policy - the integration of sustainability objectives into digitalization policymaking. How sustainability as a normative concept of intra- and intergenerational justice and human flourishing within planetary boundaries is realized in socio-technical sustainability transformations is ever more dependent on digitalization. Currently, the shape of digitalization, itself a process of socio-technical transformation, is not aligned with sustainability goals in many aspects. Reshaping digitalization to serve sustainability transformations is one of the great challenges for policymaking in the 21st century. Policymaking related to digitalization already takes place in highly complex, cross-scale and cross-level policy fields. This complexity is further exacerbated when trying to integrate sustainability objectives into digitalization policy. Recognizing this, here, we propose that sustainable digitalization is a exemplary case in point for why digitalization policy is inherently a question of policy integration. By empirically exploring policymaking and challenges for sustainable digitalization policy in Switzerland, we show how concepts developed within policy integration and sustainable ICT research can contribute to clarify domains of sustainable digitalization policy in a way that is exemplary for digitalization policy research in general. We specifically focus on problem-based domain clarification, recognizing process and instrument duality in the policy integration process and issue interdependencies in leveraging policy integration theory.