Systemic analysis of the role of geographical factors in the formation of local government in Iran

The political organization of space in Iran is affected, foremost, by the geographical features. The present study has explored the role of geographical features in the formation of local governments in Iran and because of the importance systemic thinking approach in investigating and analyzing the topics and issues of the management, geography and political science fields, the present study is conducted using this approach. Method of the study is descriptive, analytic and inferential and quantitative and qualitative approaches are used in collecting the field data. In the quantitative part, the ideas of forty experts in the field of local government were sought and cited. In the qualitative part, seven scholars in the domain of local government were selected based on the snowball sampling method and were interviewed. In order to examine the effect of the geographical aspect in the formation of local governments in Iran and to prioritize the extent of effects of each of the factors associated with the geographical aspect, the researchers have used the independent samples t-test and Friedman test in SPSS software, respectively. In order to design and draw the cause and effect diagrams based on the systems thinking approach, Vensim software was used and the interview method is utilized to complete the final model. The results of the research indicate that the effects of geographical factors in the formation of local governments in Iran is medium to high and the status of this aspect for constructing local governments in Iran is rather desirable.