Pluralism and Co-opetition: The Shift in the Governance of Cross-Border Data Flows and the Transformation of State Authority

Cross-border flow of data is the foundation of the current global interconnection, and its compliance has become a priority for governments to safeguard data sovereignty and national security, and the competition in the authoritative arena of global cross-border data governance has become more and more intricate. Exploring the shift in governance practices of cross-border data flows and the change of authoritative fields is instructive for enhancing China's institutional discourse on global data governance. This study explores and describes the historical development process of governance, explains policy changes, and the development trends and distribution of global governance authority fields from the multi-dimensional perspective of policy arrangements by constructing a theoretical framework for the governance of cross-border flow of data and adopting a case study approach. The study found that the current global cross-border data governance has gone through a three-stage governance turn of personal data cross-border governance regulation, the emergence of the European authoritative field and the European and American authoritative field competition and multi-level regulation game, forming a logical movement of competition and co-existence and a diversified pattern; The cross-border data governance authority field has evolved from the national level to multi-level fields such as intercontinental and trade organizations; The path of authority building in cross-border data governance in countries such as China and India is converging with Europe and the United States; whereas private actors such as multinational corporations are limited in their authority on cross-border data governance.