Investigating the Index of Readiness of Frontier Technologies in the Context of Political Stability Case Study: Selected Islamic Countries

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Department of international studies in science and Technology, Technology Studies institute, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Islamic Civilization Studies, Islamic Sciences and Culture Academy, Qom, Iran

Abstract

Numerous factors such as political struggles, economic decline, colonialism, and anti-civilizational ideas lead to frigidity of scientism spirit and backwardness in technological development in the Islamic world. Despite such an experience, compensating the scientific backwaters requires transcending the shortcuts and discovering the unknown ways that may accelerate the scientific growth and development of the Islamic world. Readiness for frontier technologies is one of the ways for compensating the past for going towards the civilizational development in material dimensions. However, two questions arise as follows: “What is the situation of this readiness in Islamic countries?” and “How do conditions such as political stability affect that situation?” To answer these new questions, to which less attention has been paid in governance of development in Islamic world, we used the empirical data, while providing conceptual and theoretical explanations. The results of the comparative analysis showed that the aforementioned index has no ideal situation in most Islamic countries, and compared to other countries, this gap is much wider. Similarly, correspondence of those data with the condition of political stability showed that severe political instability is a factor coexisting with the abovementioned critical situation. Thus, the hypothesis of the study was compiled as follows: “Limiting the severe political crisis requires readiness for acquiring frontier technologies; however, it is not enough and creation of other factors such as establishment of developing state in continuing movement towards technological development must be considered as well.”

Keywords