Digital constitutionalism describes the political process of entrenching rights and principles into the global governance of digital technologies, specifically the Internet. Digital constitutionalism does not describe actual legal constitutions but normative conversations about which rights and principles should govern the Internet – locally, nationally and globally. Documents of digital constitutionalism have been proposed by different kinds of actors – including civil society, business, governments, national parliaments, political parties, international organizations – and have emerged from a national level or transnationally.

The Digital Constitutionalism Network aims to systematically study the political, social, and legal processes involved in this field. The Network was created in late 2019 from a working group on digital constitutionalism supported by the Bochum-based Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS). As of February 2020, the Network is comprised of members located at twelve universities in Africa, Australia and Europe.