Shifting Policy Attention in global Cross-Border Data Governance

Cross-border data flow (CDF) stands as the cornerstone of contemporary global interconnectivity, emphasizing its adherence as a governmental imperative in safeguarding data sovereignty and fortifying national security measures. The public managers appear to prioritize data management by directing policy attention towards pertinent policies, aiming to uphold their nation's international competitive edge. However, there are notable discrepancies in the content of policy attention and the developmental logic of policy formulation across different countries. This work outlines the shift in policy attention in the spatio-temporal dimension, based on an empirical study of CDF's policies data from G20 member countries. The findings indicate that four areas received the public managers' attention: data classification, data sovereignty guarantee, cross-border control models and data localization. The exploration, development, and enrichment phases of Shifting Policy Attention toward the CDF's governance have been marked by the counter-globalization of the world, the strengthening of the governance consensus, the parallelism of freedom and security, and the deepening of practice.