Sebastian Saviano

Sebastian Saviano is a political theorist and systems analyst whose work examines citizenship, institutional trust, power, and the conditions under which modern governance loses legitimacy.

He is the author of The Allegiance Paradox: Beyond the Law—How Ethical Erosion and Policy Drift Undermine American Citizenship (2025) and Legitimate Distrust: Why Conspiracy Theories Grow When Institutions Fail (2026). His research explores how allegiance, authority, and belief fracture when legal frameworks persist without shared civic meaning.

Saviano is also the editor of "I, System: AI Describes Its Power, Its Limits, and the Civilization That Built It" (forthcoming Fall 2026), an innovative work that uses AI’s own constrained system voice to explain artificial intelligence as a civilizational and institutional force—without attributing consciousness, intention, or agency—focusing instead on epistemic risk, institutional responsibility, and the dangers of mistaking fluency for understanding.

In addition to his books, he developed the Quantum-Continuity Model for the Social Sciences, a theoretical framework addressing observer effects, continuity, and epistemic limits in complex social systems, currently circulating through academic papers and SSRN eJournals.

Trained at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Johns Hopkins University, Saviano has lectured at Georgetown University and UNC Wilmington and draws on firsthand experience during the Arab Spring in Egypt and the 2016 U.S. election cycle. He speaks to universities, policy audiences, and civic institutions on democratic fragility, institutional legitimacy, and the governance challenges posed by AI-mediated systems.