World Sociopolitical Studies

The increasing expense of healthcare creates substantial difficulties for individuals, especially those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds who frequently encounter obstacles in obtaining prompt and adequate medical treatment. This study investigates how artificial intelligence could revolutionize healthcare by reducing these disparities and controlling costs. AI-powered medical services—such as remote consultations, diagnostic aids, and customized health advice—possess the ability to make healthcare information more widely accessible and improve early detection of preventable diseases. These technologies offer scalable, cost-effective solutions to bridge gaps in healthcare delivery, especially in underserved communities. However, the paper also examines the potential downsides of AI health systems, such as privacy concerns, biases in AI algorithms, and the risk of over-reliance on automated systems at the expense of human oversight. Despite these challenges, we argue that the integration of AI into healthcare is not only inevitable, but essential for the future of global health. Rather than dismissing these innovations, efforts should focus on developing ethical frameworks, robust governance, and equitable distribution mechanisms to maximize their benefits.

This research explores how Iranian MBA students view artificial intelligence as a driver of change in global power structures. Using a mixed-methods design, it combines survey results from 394 respondents with thematic analysis of open-ended answers. The quantitative data indicate a widespread belief that AI will hasten the decline of established global powers, widen global disparities, and offer emerging economies chances for geopolitical advantage. Qualitative themes include AI as a soft power tool, concerns over technological dependence, entrepreneurial optimism, and regulatory inadequacy. The analysis situates participants’ views within broader theoretical frameworks articulated by Innis, McLuhan, Castells, and Toffler, emphasizing AI’s capacity to redefine sovereignty, governance, and economic competitiveness. Statistical tests highlight how demographic variables, such as employment sector and academic status, significantly influence attitudes toward AI’s disruptive potential. These results underline both the optimism and anxiety among future business leaders regarding Iran’s capacity to harness AI’s transformative possibilities amidst structural and regulatory challenges.

This study presents a systematic literature review of 24 academic and policy-focused sources published between 2020 and 2025, synthesizing how AI literacy is conceptualized, operationalized, and integrated into national and regional strategies. Using the PRISMA framework, this study identifies recurrent challenges—such as infrastructural disparities, linguistic exclusion, and policy fragmentation—and highlights innovative, context-sensitive initiatives in countries like India, Kenya, and South Africa. The findings highlight that AI literacy as a multidimensional construct that encompasses technical proficiency, civic engagement, ethical reasoning, and digital sovereignty. The study reveals that national strategies often mirror Global North paradigms, risking misalignment with local epistemologies and socio-economic conditions. As a corrective, the review underscores the need for regionally grounded, community-informed, and equity-driven approaches that position AI literacy as a foundational right and development tool. By treating AI literacy as a cross-sectoral policy issue rather than a narrow educational objective, this research contributes to the emerging discourse on inclusive, democratic, and fair digital transformation.

This study examines the intersection of artificial intelligence, global governance, and disaster risk management through a qualitative investigation of 92 Iranian experts across disciplines such as geoinformatics, emergency planning, and environmental engineering. While AI offers a significant promise for enhancing early warning systems, damage assessments, and real-time decision-making, its integration into DRM systems remains constrained by fragmented data infrastructures, institutional silos, and geopolitical exclusions. Participants underscored AI’s potential to improve response coordination and risk forecasting, but emphasized the need for robust data governance, algorithmic transparency, and capacity building. The study highlights critical ethical and political concerns—particularly in countries like Iran facing technological marginalization due to sanctions and limited access to global data ecosystems. Drawing on grounded theory and thematic analysis, the research identifies institutional fragmentation, interoperability barriers, and normative governance deficits as primary obstacles to AI-enabled DRM. It argues for a globally coordinated approach grounded in justice, inclusivity, and human-centered design.

This study investigates the evolving crisis of national sovereignty in the context of artificial intelligence and the expanding power of transnational technology corporations. Drawing from over thirty peer-reviewed academic and policy sources published between 2018 and 2025, this paper critically examines how traditional concepts of sovereignty—particularly data, digital, technological, and normative sovereignty—are being redefined by global AI infrastructures and the algorithmic authority of private firms. Employing a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology grounded in law, political theory, and ethics, the research reveals growing asymmetries between state authority and corporate influence over digital infrastructures, data governance, and regulatory norms. Our findings highlight divergent policy responses, including efforts to reassert sovereign control through data localization, the pursuit of strategic autonomy, and emerging international cooperation frameworks. The study also evaluates normative debates surrounding legitimacy, democratic oversight, and algorithmic accountability. The study concludes that sovereignty in the AI era must be reconceptualized beyond territorial jurisdiction to include infrastructural and ethical dimensions, necessitating hybrid governance models that integrate states, civil society, and corporations, while prioritizing democratic legitimacy and public interest.

This study investigates the ways in which Iranian sociologists conceptualize artificial intelligence as both an epistemic infrastructure and a geopolitical force within global knowledge production. Drawing on 32 in-depth interviews and grounded theory methodology, the research identifies a central analytic category:  contested epistemic futures . This concept encapsulates the tensions between structural epistemic asymmetries and local efforts to reappropriate AI for culturally specific ends. Participants critiqued AI systems as carriers of Eurocentric epistemologies and instruments of digital colonization, but also highlighted strategic opportunities for local innovation, agency, and resistance. The analysis reveals five key thematic axes: epistemic asymmetry, decontextualization versus cultural specificity, technological determinism versus strategic agency, epistemic justice, and sociotechnical governance. These axes describe AI as neither a neutral tool nor an inevitable threat, but as a socially contingent technology shaped by political choices, institutional infrastructures, and cultural values. The study contributes to critical AI and decolonial epistemology by centering non-Western academic voices and proposing a relational, justice-oriented framework for AI governance.

This study investigates the way in which public discourse on social media reflects and shapes global power dynamics surrounding AI. Leveraging a corpus of approximately 21,000 English-language posts from Platform X (2021–2025), this study utilizes a computational linguistics framework—incorporating topic modeling, sentiment analysis, emotion classification, and named entity recognition—to analyze the construction of AI, interrogating its thematic narratives and affective investments across geopolitical contexts. Findings reveal a discourse shaped by U.S.–China technological rivalry, AI militarization, and infrastructural sovereignty, with strong currents of fear, anger, and skepticism. While Western powers and corporate actors dominate the narrative space, alternative discourses from the Global South emphasize digital dependency, exclusion, and justice. The emotional intensity and thematic complexity of the discourse suggest that publics are not simply reacting to geopolitical developments, but actively construct contested imaginaries of AI’s role in world order. This research contributes to a growing body of literature that recognizes public discourse as a critical site of informal geopolitics and underscores the need for more inclusive, responsive, and ethically grounded AI governance frameworks.