The Role of Social and Cultural Factors in Formation of Local Governments in Iran based on System Approach

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MA in Political Geography, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

2 Associate Professor of Political Geography, Faculty of Literatures, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

3 Assistant Professor of Geography, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
The increasing growth of local and public institutions and their necessity in managing the general affairs of the country and the localization process for handling the general affairs in the final decade of the twentieth and the early decade of the twenty first centuries have changed the status of local government as an indispensable reality in the World. The geographical places  require local autonomy and management for a better management of the affairs, the horizontal and vertical planning of relations with other regions and the establishment of institutions and organizations. Such independencies and the political management of space in the local domain are referred to as the local government or local state in the geopolitics literature. Conceptually, local government is a political-administrative structure as the result of spatial distribution of political power process that is created by the central government. In other words, it is a process making decision-making, implementation and supervision of local affairs, in the framework of general policies of central government, to be assigned to the public institutions and organizations. The studies conducted in this regard indicate that there are a variety of influential factors in the creation of local governments. Such influential factors can be classified in five aspects including sociocultural, political, legal- judicial, financial-economic and geographical factors. . Based on the above-mentioned ideas, the present study attempts to identify the influential factors in the formation of local government in Iran according to the systemic thinking approach in a sociocultural framework. In fact, the main objective of the study is to make a modelling of the influence of sociocultural factors in creation of local government within the framework of systemic thinking using Vensim software. 
Methodology
The current research study is to investigate the role of sociocultural factors in the formation of local government in Iran.  In this investigation, role of systemic thinking in different domains of planning and management is addressed using this approach. This study has a descriptive-analytical method based on an applied and exploratoryapproach. More generally, the present study is conducted to identify and prioritize the influential factors and to examine their relationship in the formation of local government in Iran and to recognize the existing challenges in the sociocultural aspect and finally to model the influential factors in a systemic thinking framework for the formation. For such purposes, based on the library studies and the systemic thinking approach, the influential factors were determined and the relationship between these factors and with the necessity of forming local governments in Iran were examined using quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative method, we made a questionnaire based on the Likert scale ranging from 1 as very few and 5 as very high responses. The reliability of the questionnaire has been determined using Cronbach alpha. The participants of the study were forty scholars in the field of local government and were selected based on estimations of the researchers. In the qualitative phase, seven experts were selected based on the snowball sampling method. We have used independent samples t-test and Friedman test to investigate the effects of the sociocultural factors in the formation of local government in Iran and to prioritize the effects in the sociocultural aspect, respectively. The Vensim software was sued in order to design the cause and effect diagrams, based on the systemic thinking approach. 
Results and discussion
For the successful formation of local government in Iran, the effective sociocultural factors must be identified and the upcoming challenges should be removed. In such a process, systemic thinking which is capable of solving complicated managerial issues has a great potential. In other words, for recognizing the influential factors in the formation of local governments, we should investigate and analyze them as a system. In this study, the attempts have been made to identify and prioritize the influential sociocultural factors and to explore their relationship with each other to shed some light on their effects in the formation of the local government  and their modeling in a systemic thinking framework. The survey about the literature helped us to extract influential factors including ethnic-linguistic diversity, increase in the public awareness of in deprived areas, the religious diversity, people’s attention and tendency towards democracy, increase in the local and national requests, existence of sense of belonging to a place and localizing tendencies, existence of common local assets and needs, increase in the contribution of people and development from the bottom with reviving the local capabilities. The results of interviews in this research found other influential factors including increase in informational networks, the continuation of ethnic-religious domain over the borders, human talents and abilities in each environment and the growth of urban residents. It can be asserted that the set of above mentioned factors are highly influential in the formation of local governments in the sociocultural aspect.
Conclusion 
The findings of the study have revealed that the sociocultural aspect is one of the influential aspects in the formation of local government in Iran. According to the quantitative part (the statistical data of the research) and the qualitative part (the interviews), the research indicates that there is ethnic-linguistic variety among the extracted influential sociocultural factors, the existence of spatial senses and localization tendencies and also the existence of national and local demands, due to their high degree of influence compared with the other factors.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

  1. احمدی‌پور، زهرا و میثم میرزایی‌تبار، 1389، نقش احساس مکانی در سازمان‌دهی سیاسی فضا، فصلنامة جغرافیایی آمایش محیط، سال چهارم، شمارة 12، صص 47-62.
  2. اطاعت، جواد و زهرا موسوی، 1390، تمرکززدایی و توسعة پایدار در ایران، نشر انتخاب.
  3.  اعظمی، هادی و علی‌اکبر دبیری، 1390، تحلیل نظام تقسیم سیاسی فضا در ایران، فصلنامة ژئوپلیتیک، سال هفتم، شمارة 2، صص 147-181.
  4. پورموسوی، سید موسی، مهدی میرزاده کوه‌شاهی و جهانبخش خانبگلو رهنماقره، 1387، سازماندهی سیاسی فضا و نواحی فرهنگی و کارکردی در ایران، فصلنامة ژئوپلیتیک، سال چهارم، شمارة 3، صص 75-101.
  5. حافظ‌نیا، محمدرضا، اسماعیل پارسایی و رضا حسین‌پورپویان، 1390، بررسی تطبیقی تأثیر نهادهای محلی قبل و بعد از انقلاب اسلامی بر مشارکت شهروندی (مطالعه موردی: خانة انصاف و شوراهای حل اختلاف)، مجلة پژوهش‌های جغرافیایی انسانی، سال چهل‌وسوم، شمارة 77، صص 145-164.
  6. حافظ‌نیا، محمدرضا و محمدباقر قالیباف، 1380، راهبرد توزیع فضای قدرت سیاسی در ایران از طریق توسعة نهادی‌های محلی، فصلنامة تحقیقات جغرافیایی، سال شانزدهم، شمارة 509، صص 39-61.
  7. حافظ‌نیا، محمدرضا، زهرا احمدی‌پور و مصطفی قادری‌حاجت، 1391، سیاست و فضا، پژوهشکدة امیرکبیر، تهران.
  8. حافظ‌نیا، محمدرضا، کاظم ذوقی‌بارانی و زهرا احمدی‌پور، 1388، بررسی تأثیر الگوی دوگانة مدیریت سیاسی فضا بر کارکردهای مناطق آزاد: مطالعة موردی کیش، مجلة برنامه‌ریزی و آمایش فضا، سال پانزدهم، شمارة 1، صص 21-39.
  9. حافظ‌نیا، محمدرضا و مراد کاویانی‌راد، 1388، افق‌های جدید در جغرافیای سیاسی، انتشارات سمت، تهران.
  10. حمیدی، مسعود، 1391، بررسی ساختار و عوامل مؤثر بر توزیع فضایی قدرت سیاسی در ایران، پایان‌نامة کارشناسی ارشد، دانشگاه فردوسی مشهد.
  11. رجبیه، محمدحسین، 1378، دولت محلی در انگلستان، پایان‌نامة کارشناسی ارشد، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی، دانشکدة حقوق.
  12. سامتی، مرتضی، محسن رنانی و مژگان معلمی، 1386، تمرکززدایی و منافع تشکیل دولت‌های محلی از منظر افزایش کارایی، مجلة تحقیقات اقتصادی، سال چهل‌ودوم، شمارة 78، صص 123-151.
  13. شکیبامقدم، محمد، 1384، مدیریت سازمان‌های محلی و شهرداری‌ها برای دانشجویان رشتة مدیریت دولتی، نشر میر، تهران.
  14. طاهری، ابوالقاسم، 1373، ادارة امور سازمان‌های محلی (رشتة مدیریت)، دانشگاه پیام‌نور.
  15. قالیباف، محمدباقر، 1380، بررسی تحلیلی سیر تکوین نهادهای محلی ایران در دوران معاصر و ارائة الگوی مناسب، رسالة دکتری، دانشگاه تربیت مدرس تهران، دانشکدة علوم انسانی.
  16. قالیباف، محمدباقر، 1391، حکومت محلی یا استراتژی توزیع فضایی قدرت سیاسی در ایران، انتشارات امیرکبیر، تهران.
  17. قالیباف، محمدباقر و محمدجواد شوشتری، 1392، تأثیر فرهنگ سیاسی بر مشارکت شهروندان در حکومت محلی، مطالعة موردی: تهران، پژوهش‌های جغرافیای انسانی، دورة 45، شمارۀ 2، صص 69-82.
  18. مختاری، قاسم، 1388، مقدمه‌ای بر نگرش سیستمی، http://behsad.com.
  19. معلمی، مژگان، 1389، تمرکززدایی و شکست در تدارک کالاهای عمومی محلی توسط دولت‌های محلی با استفاده از رهیافت تئوری بازی‌ها، مجلة تحقیقات اقتصادی، دورۀ 45، شمارة 91، صص 201-220.
  20. مقیمی، سید محمد، 1390، ادارة امور حکومت‌های محلی و مدیریت شوراها و شهرداری‌ها، انتشارات سمت، تهران.
  21. موسوی، میرنجف و حسن حکمت‌نیا، 1385، تحلیل تاریخی از مشارکت شهروندان در ادارة امور شهرهای ایران، مجلة تحقیقات جغرافیایی، دورۀ 21، شمارة 80، صص 121-136.
  22. میرحیدر، دره و قربانعلی ذکی، 1381، بررسی نظام جغرافیایی-سیاسی در ایران از طریق توسعة نهادهای محلی، پژوهش‌های جغرافیایی، سال سی پنجم ، شمارة 42، صص 49-64.
  23. یاوری بافقی، محمدحسین، حمید مستجابی و احمدرضا اسماعیلی، 1392، تحلیلی بر تأثیر همگرایی ملی اقوام ایرانی بر امنیتی ملی ج. ا. ایران، پژوهش‌نامة نظم و امنیت انتظامی، سال ششم، شمارة 2، صص 135-154.
  24. ویسی، هادی، 1392، درآمدی بر دولت محلی، نشر سمت، تهران.

25. Balle, M., 1994, Managing with Systems Thinking, McGraw-Hill, London.

26. Checkland, P. B., 1999, System Thinking, System Practice, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, England.

27. Flett, P., 2001, The role of Quality in the Management of Projects, PhD thesis, University of Stirling.

28. Gamper, A., and Palermo, F., 2011, Federalism, local government and policy-making, Federal Governance, Vol. 8, No. 3, PP. 1-4.

29. Patching, D., 1990, Practical Soft Systems Analysis, 1st, Pitman Publishing, UK, pp 10-45.

30. Senge, P. M., 1990, The Fifth Discipline, the art and practice of the learning organization, First, Doubleday, USA.

31. Ahmadipoor, Z., and Mirzaeitabar, M., 2010, The role of locational feeling in the political Organization of Space, Journal of Geographical Environment and Spatial Planning, Vol. 4, No. 12, PP. 47-62. (In Persian)

32. Etaat, J., and Moosavi, Z., 2011, Decentralization andSustainability in Iran, Entekhab Publication. (In Persian)

33. Azami, H., and Dabiri, A., 2011, Analysis of the Political Division of Space in Iran, Journal of Geopolitics, Vol. 7, No. 2, PP. 147-181. (In Persian)

34. Poormoosavi, M., Mirzadeh Koohshahi, M., and Rahnemaghareh,Kh., 2008, The Political Organization of Space and Cultural Functional Areas in Iran, Journal of Geopolitics, Vol. 4, No. 3, PP. 75-101. (In Persian)

35. Hafeznia, M. R., Parsaei, E., and Hosseinpoorpoyan, R., 2011, A Comparative Analysis of the Effects of Local Institutions on Citizen Participation Before and after Islamic Revolution: A Case Study of Trade Unions and Dispute Resolution Councils, Journal of Human Geography, Vol. 43, No. 77, PP. 145-164. (In Persian)

36. Hafeznia, M. R., and Ghalibaf, M. B., 2001, The Strategy of Spatial Distribution of Political Power in the Country Through the Development of Local Institutions, Journal of Geographical Research, Vol. 16, No. 509, PP. 39-61. (In Persian)

37. Hafeznia, M. R., Ahadipoor, Z., and Ghaderihajat, M., 2012, Politics and Space, Amirkabir Institute of Research, Tehran. (In Persian)

  1. 38.  Hafeznia, M. R., ZoghiBarani, K., and Ahadipoor, Z., 2009, Analysis of the Effects of Dual Model of Political Management of Space on the Functions of Free Zones: A Case Study of Kish, Journal of Planning and Space Preparation, Vol. 15, No. 1, PP. 21-39. (In Persian)

39. Hafeznia, M. R., and Kavianirad, M., 2009, New Horizons in Geopolitics, Samt Publication, Tehran. (In Persian)

40. Hamidi, M., 2012, Analysis of the Structure and the Influential Factors on the Spatial Distribution of Power in Iran, Unpublished M. A Thesis, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. (In Persian)

41. Rajabieh, M. H., 2008, Local Government in England, Unpublished M. A Thesis, Shahid Beheshti Universtiy, School of Law. (In Persian)

42. Sameti, M., Ranani, M., and Moalemi, M., 2007, Decentralization and the Benefits of Forming Local Governments Based on Enhanced Efficiency, Journal of Economic Research, Vol. 42, No. 78, PP. 123-151. (In Persian)

43. Shakibamoghadam, M., 2005, The Management of Local Institutions and Municipalities for the Students of Public Administration, Mir Publication, Tehran. (In Persian)

44. Taheri, A., 1994, The Management of Affairs of Local Institutions: Management Major, Payam-E-Noor University. (In Persian)

45. Ghalibaf, M. B., 2001, The Analytic Investigation of the Development Trend of Local Institutions in Iran in the Contemporary Era and Presenting an Appropriate Model, Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Tarbiyat Modarres University. (In Persian)

46. Ghalibaf, M. B., , 2012, Local Government or the Spatial Distribution of Power Strategy in Iran, Amirkabir, Tehran. (In Persian)

47. Ghalibaf, M. B., and Shooshtari, M. J., 2013, The Effect of Political Culture on the Participation of People in Local Governments: A Case Study of Tehran, Human Geography Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2, PP. 69-82. (In Persian)

48. Mokhtari, Gh., 2009, An Introduction to Systemic Thinking, Http://Behsad.Com. (In Persian)

49. Moalemi, M., 2010, Decentralization and Failure In Providing Public and Local Products By Local Governments: Based on the Strategy of Play Theory, Journal of Economic Research, Vol. 45, No. 91, PP. . (In Persian)

50. Moghimi, M., 2011, The Management of the Affairs of Local Governments and the Management of Councils and Municipalities, Samt Publication, Tehran. (In Persian)

51. Moosavi, M., and Hekmatnia, H., 2006, The Historical Analysis of Citizen Participation in the Management of Cities in Iran, Journal of Geographical Studies, Vol. 21, No. 80 ,PP. 121-136. (In Persian)

52. Mirheydar, D., and Zaki, Gh., 2002, The Analysis of Geopolitical System of Iran Through Developing Local Institutions, Geographical Studies, Vol. 35, No. 42, PP. 49-64. (In Persian)

53. Veisi, H., 2013, on Introduction to Local Government, Samt Publication, Tehran. (In Persian)

Human Geography Research
Volume 50, Issue 3
October 2018
Pages 537-554

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 17 June 2017
  • Revise Date: 18 April 2017
  • Accept Date: 12 December 2017

Share

How to cite

Statistics