Methods of Involving Tribes in Combating Drug Trafficking in the Border Belt of East Azerbaijan Province

People's capacities play a major role in strengthening the authority and security of the country's border areas. The present research was conducted with the aim of identifying the methods of getting the participation of clans and tribes in dealing with drug trafficking in the border zone of East Azerbaijan province. This research was carried out in the framework of a qualitative approach and by using the research method of directed thematic analysis to obtain the views of the participants regarding the research topic. . Two library and field methods were used to collect the data of this research. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interview that was conducted with questions between 35 and 55 minutes. After conducting 13 interviews, the relevant factors in the previous interviews were repeated and the researcher reached thematic saturation. In order to ensure the validity of the research tool from the researcher's point of view, valuable opinions of professors familiar with this field and relevant experts who were knowledgeable in this field were used. To calculate the reliability, the reliability method between two coders was used, and the reliability obtained from the two coders according to the calculations was 87%, which indicated the appropriate reliability of the questionnaire. In this research, thematic analysis method was used in MAXQDA software platform to analyze qualitative data. The findings showed that the number of 4 comprehensive themes and 8 organizing themes in the form of 37 basic themes can be used to attract the participation of clans and tribes in fighting drug trafficking in the border strip of East Azerbaijan province. Emphasizing trends and values, creating social-cultural solidarity, focusing the authorities on improving job conditions, improving livelihoods and social welfare, promoting specialized knowledge, promoting border knowledge, attracting individual and collective desire, and creating grounds for the participation of ethnic groups. And clans were identified as effective components in attracting participation to deal with drug trafficking.