Hegemony without hierarchy: how the United Nations Global Digital Compact discursively constructs global AI governance norms

The United Nations’ (UN) Global Digital Compact (GDC) is presented as a necessaryresponse to a fragmented global AI governance landscape. Conducting a poststructuralist discourse analysis of UN policy texts (2019-2024) and 177 public consultation submissions, this paper examines how the UN constructs the normative foundations of global AI governance through policy disocurse. It shows how the UN constructs a neoliberal ‘economic-developmentalist’ governance imaginary that frames AI as a driver of digital transformation towards the global ‘common good.’ This discourse produces an ‘illusion of necessity’ around AI adoption-oriented governance - centered on multistakeholderism, cross-border dta flows, and capacity-building – while reinforcing dependencies on Global North digital infrastructure. Although counter hegemonic positions, particularly around data sovereignty, emerge during UN consultation processes, they are largley excluded from the final GDC. Ultimatley, the paper demonstrates how international organizations exercise discursive power by delimiting legitimate policy horizons in the emerging global AI governance regime.