The Study of ICT and Income Distribution Effects on Social Unrest in Iran

Today, information and communication technology (ICT) has affected human societies in all dimensions. Despite its significant effects on the economic, political and social development of societies, this technology also has adverse effects. Among these effects, we can mention the background of information and communication technology on social actions and conflicts. Accordingly, in this study, using Autoregressive Distributed Lag method the effect of information and communication technology and income distribution (Gini coefficient) on social unrest was investigated in Iran during the period 1984-2018. The Internal Conflict Index presented by the ICRG Political Risk Index was used as a proxy for social unrest. The results showed that information and communication technology and unfair income distribution significantly increases social unrest in Iran. As well as Inflation also significantly increases social unrest in Iran. However, GDP per capita has no significant effect on Iran's social unrest. Therefore, the policy of developing information and communication technology based on the internal Internet network, improving income distribution and curbing inflation in controlling Iran's social unrest seems necessary.