Registrational Pluralism and the Limits of Platform Sovereignty: Why Big Tech Cannot Become Sovereign in the Digital Age

This article advances Registration Regime Theory (RRT) by introducing the concept of registrational pluralism to explain the evolving structure of sovereignty in the digital age. Contrary to widespread claims about platform sovereignty, the article argues that Big Tech firms remain structurally dependent on state-based foundational registration systems such as legal identity, property, and monetary infrastructures. The study demonstrates that digital platforms operate as secondary and predictive registration regimes rather than autonomous sovereign actors. Their power expands during periods of stability but becomes fragile during moments of crisis, when the continuity of primary registrational infrastructures becomes decisive. The article further develops a pluralistic framework in which state, platform, decentralized, and community-based regimes coexist and compete. This layered model challenges binary narratives of state versus digital sovereignty and offers a new analytical lens for understanding global governance, geopolitical competition, and the future of identity and authority.