Explaining the Political-Institutional Sustainability of the Border Tourism in Improvement of Rural Settlements (Case Study: Ilam Border County)

Rural areas in the border areas are geographical spaces that have significant potential as tourist attractions. The Ilam border province has historical, natural, and cultural attractions, and the entry of the gateway to Iraq is the annual accommodation of many domestic and foreign tourists. In this study, political-institutional tourism sustainability has been examined as a method of forming the tourism process that reflects the impact of tourism approaches in intersecting and intertwining the general processes of society's livability. The present study was conducted as a survey method. The sample size is based on the method of snowballing from the local authorities of the rural settlements of the border areas of Ilam city (120 individuals). The research tool is a questionnaire. The content validity of the tool has been approved by the experts with an average CVR of 0.844 and its reliability was approved by the pre-test and the induction coefficient of 0.864 for livability and 0.870 for political-institutional stability. The results show that, from the viewpoint of local authorities, the level of the livability of rural settlements in the city is at a medium level, with a social index of 25.11, economic index of 21/40, physical index of 26.98, and environmental index of 26.5. Also, the political institution of tourism with an organizing indicators index of 0.80, planning index of 0.75, and policy and supervision index of 0.51 has affected the livability of rural settlements with a coefficient of 0.43 and has changed the livability indicators with 26.50, 23.72, 26.50, and 23.72 respectively. Therefore, to balance the dimensions of border livability, tourism's most influential political-institutional stability is economic and social livability.