The article explores the ways in which digital transformation – namely information and communication technologies, and artificial intelligence –can help achieve the 17 UN SDGs and 2030 Agenda while maintaining good governance. To do this, the article studies Egypt’s digital transformation initiatives as part of its Vision 2030 strategy, focusing on how these efforts contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a case study, this paper specifically examines the National Structural Reform Programme, Digital Egypt and National AI Strategy and their effects on achieving SDG-16, which aims to promote peace, justice, and strong institutions. Using a qualitative approach, the study employs secondary data from government reports and academic literature, to investigate the role of digital tools, including artificial intelligence (AI) and information and communication technologies (ICT), in improving transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement. Challenges associated with these digital initiatives, such as concerns regarding data privacy and security, are also discussed. The study offers valuable insights into how Egypt can harness digital transformation to foster a more just and equitable society, advancing its commitments to the SDGs and establishing a framework for effective governance.

The article explores the concept of Vincolo Esterno and its profound influence on Italy’s governance, focusing on its impacts on democracy, public management, economic growth, and immigration. Vincolo Esterno, defined as the reliance on external constraints to enforce domestic reforms, has been pivotal in Italy’s alignment with European Union (EU) standards and global practices. The research highlights the dual-edged nature of this governance approach. While it has driven modernization and economic integration, it has also imposed rigid frameworks that challenge sovereignty, democratic accountability, and social equity.
The analysis of democracy reveals tensions between EU mandates and Italy’s parliamentary sovereignty, exacerbated by a perceived “democratic deficit” in supranational governance. Influenced by EU directives, public management reforms have modernized administrative systems but exposed regional disparities and bureaucratic inertia. The study also examines the mixed economic outcomes of Vincolo Esterno, emphasizing the constraints of fiscal austerity on infrastructure investment and regional development. Furthermore, immigration policies shaped by external frameworks, such as the Dublin Regulation, illustrate the challenges of managing migration flows and ensuring equitable burden-sharing within the EU.
This research underscores the need for a more balanced and inclusive governance model that aligns external compliance with domestic priorities. It calls for future studies to explore mechanisms for enhancing democratic accountability, addressing regional inequalities, and adapting Vincolo Esterno to dynamic global challenges. The findings contribute to broader debates on multilateral governance and the evolving relationship between sovereignty and globalization, providing insights for policymakers and scholars.

The article is concerned with the application of the concept of international roles for small states occupying the bottom floor of the international hierarchy. As is known, traditionally small states are characterized by low status, essential lack of influence on international affairs and complete dependence on great powers. At the same time, taking into account the sheer size of the group, it is possible to identify a subgroup of small states that are able to effectively employ their available resources and play a comparable role with middle or even great powers in world politics. In order to identify significant international roles, a typology is proposed that takes into account the main spheres of international interaction and the type of reference object for which the state in question plays a significant role (global, regional or dyadic levels). Such systematization of significant roles allows comparing vastly different countries, for instance, those belonging to different classes of the international hierarchy, including small, medium and leading states. In addition, the axis of reference objects in the typology allows to reflect an important sociological component of a role, which distinguishes it from a function. Based on the proposed typology of significant international roles, the article goes on to analyze the transformation of the roles of small Middle Eastern monarchies – namely, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in contemporary world politics, which constitute some of the most successful examples of small states that have achieved significant agency at the beginning of the 21st century.

School education as a process of formation of masses acting as drivers of megatrends of globalization and democratization has the potential to influence the formation of a polycentric world order. Being a hierarchical structure, the world order implies status differentiation of states depending on the degree of their participation in economic, human rights, military and environmental subsystems. At the same time, it is noted that it is sufficient for a middle power to have a noticeable participation in two of these subsystems.
Using the method of regression of quantitative data, the article analyses the correlation of schooling indicators of 48 countries of the world with a focus on 20 countries of the Global South with objective metrics peculiar to each of subsystems. It is concluded that there is a statistically significant positive correlation between the quality of school education and related public expenditures in the case of countries of the Global South, on the one hand, and GDP growth and increased human rights activism, – on the other. This suggests that by expanding its role in two of the four subsystems considered, schooling reinforcement can put developing countries on a middle power trajectory that is conducive to a polycentric world order.

The article explores the consequences of the rule of the conservative and national-populist «Law and Justice» (PiS) (Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc) in Poland. The focus is on the specifics of the political space and spectrum of political forces in Poland, the attitudes of voters, as well as the internal party structure of PiS itself. It is shown how the leader oriented and centralized intra-party system distinguished by the deep rootedness of paternalistic relations and the almost complete absence of intra-party democracy, which is little compatible with the image chosen by the party as “the only people’s force in the country.” The anti-elite discourse of PiS collides with the sacred role of senior officials and directly the chairman in the party itself. PiS is characterized by the priority of informal practices over official institutions and procedures; this is rooted in internal party life and is actively used by PiS also outside of it. Further, the article analyzes how the populist ideological aspiration pushes PiS to carry out a large-scale policy of transformation of Polish soci ety which includes the policy of exclusion, the policy of submission, instrumentalizing the country’s courts and state media; a policy of searching for enemies, cultivating in society an atmosphere of fear and mistrust; a policy of dogmatization, bringing social life to full compliance with the moral guidelines of the party, eradicating any pluralism of opinions; politics of public partisanship, integrating party structure and aspirations into co-opted public organizations and social movements. Finally, the article reveals how PiS, politicizing sociocultural issues and the environment, influences civil society with party and state resources, infrastructure and influence, seeking to monopolize social consensus, establish party agenda and, most importantly, replace the sociocultural elite with co-opted and allied to party. In this way, the article pays special attention to the analysisng of PiS’s youth policy.