Caught Between Privacy and Surveillance: Explaining the Long‐Term Stagnation of Data Protection Regulation in Liberal Democracies
本文追踪美国、法国、德国等自由民主国家数据保护法规的演变，发现尽管信息环境和监控实践剧变，法规却长期停滞，原因在于政策目标间的权衡以及9/11后国家与私人利益的重叠。
ABSTRACT This article pursues two objectives. First, it aims to trace the genealogy of data protection regulation in major liberal democracies. To do so, it examines the evolution of this regulation in the United States, France, and Germany, among others, and relies on the policy actors' triangle framework. Second, the article provides an explanation for the paradox that emerges from this diachronic analysis: a long‐term stagnation of data protection regulation despite the radical transformation of the information environment and surveillance practices over the last three decades. The article finds that this long‐term regulatory stagnation can be explained by a constant trade‐off between competing and sometimes irreconcilable policy goals and, especially since 9/11, an overlap between state and private interests. Despite post‐Snowden reforms, this conflict of interest continues to shape the regulation, raising many democratic concerns.