ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GOVERNANCE AND GLOBAL POWER POLITICS: PSYCHOLOGICAL PERCEPTIONS, STRATEGIC STATE BEHAVIOR, AND ORGANIZATIONAL ADAPTATION IN THE ERA OF AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the key factor in defining the power games in the world, economic competitiveness, military strategy, and political regimes. This paper examines how psychological perceptions, strategic state behavior and organizational adaptation interact in the age of autonomous systems. The qualitative interpretive approach to research design allows the researcher to review official national AI policies, defense white papers, legislative texts and multilateral policy negotiations of the United States, China and the European Union. Through discourse analysis, the study determines that there are recurrent themes in the narratives of policy including threat perception, status competition, ethical consideration, and strategic vulnerability. The paper also discusses the role of these perceptions in shaping the state conduct, such as the investments into AI-powered military systems, industrial policy, and regulatory governance. Organizational adaptation is studied in terms of institutional change, which takes into consideration the realignment in the structure, ethical oversight systems, and cultural change in bureaucracies. The comparison of the case studies shows that the United States insists more on decentralized innovation and urgency to compete, China incorporates AI as a part of centralized state-led modernization, and the European Union focuses on normative regulation and human-centered governance. The results indicate that the material capability does not dictate the AI governance alone but is significantly influenced by the psychological and sociopolitical constructs. The autonomous systems increase strategic rivalry and enhance the complexity of governance, leading to the fragmented regulating models and disputed international standards. The paper adds to the theoretical concept of AI governance combining structural realism, constructivism, techno-nationalism, and organizational institutionalism, which portrays how perception acts as a mediator between technological capability and strategic action. Policy implications are the necessity of transparency, the measures that would build confidence, and the multilateral dialogue as the means of limiting the risks of escalation and normative fragmentation.