ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ROLE IN RESHAPING GLOBAL POLITICAL GOVERNANCE

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force reshaping institutional structures, regulatory frameworks, and power dynamics within global political governance. This study examines how AI influences global governance through institutional adaptation, geopolitical competition, and regime-complex coordination between 2023 and 2026. Using a qualitative research design based on structured document analysis, the study analyzes major governance instruments, including multilateral resolutions, summit declarations, binding regional legislation, and international standards frameworks.

The findings reveal a significant shift from voluntary ethical principles toward formalized, risk-based regulatory architectures characterized by lifecycle oversight, compliance mechanisms, and supervisory institutions. AI governance increasingly operates within a regime-complex structure, where overlapping governance layers—multilateral institutions, summit diplomacy, regional regulation, and standards bodies—interact through cooperation and contestation. The analysis further demonstrates that AI governance functions simultaneously as a tool of risk mitigation and as an instrument of geopolitical positioning, with regulatory leadership serving strategic influence objectives.

State capacity and regulatory cooperation are identified as critical moderating variables affecting governance effectiveness and coherence. Moreover, democracy, information integrity, and legitimacy concerns have become central drivers of institutional innovation in AI governance.

The study contributes to Political Science by conceptualizing AI as a structural governance variable that redefines authority, accountability, and global coordination mechanisms. It provides a theoretically integrated explanation of how AI reshapes global political governance and offers policy recommendations to strengthen interoperability, institutional capacity, and democratic safeguards in the evolving AI governance landscape.