اداره امور عمومی

One of the challenging topics among public administration theorists is the relationship between the two concepts of politics and administration. Various theories have been proposed regarding these two concepts; however, no consensus has been reached, and political science and public administration theorists still struggle to define the boundaries between administration and politics. Today, the concept of the state encompasses both bureaucracy and politics. However, understanding the nature of politics and bureaucracy and their interrelationship is difficult, as each can influence the other. This paper aims to separate the concept of politics from bureaucracy to better understand the extent of their influence. This influence can have positive or negative consequences, depending on the conditions and contexts of different societies. In practice, however, distinguishing between administration and politics is very difficult, and some theorists believe that separating these two concepts is not feasible in practice. Furthermore, this relationship may differ in developed and developing countries, taking on a distinct form. The aim of this paper is to examine and study the relationship between politics and bureaucracy in the public administration of Iran.

Design/ methodology/ approach: 

The current research adopts a qualitative approach. To achieve the defined objectives, research data were collected through purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews with 11 executive experts from the Ministry of Energy. An inductive thematic analysis method was used to analyze the data and address the research question.

 After collecting and analyzing the data, 95 initial codes were identified. These were categorized and re-examined to extract 24 basic themes, ultimately leading to the identification of 7 organizing themes and a network of themes. The organizing themes include the dependency of decisions on personal opinions, consideration of political power in decisions, nepotism in selecting bureaucrats, the short-term nature of bureaucrats' service, the presence of formalism in selecting bureaucrats, the weakness in utilizing scientific findings and experts, and the weak connection between experts and decision-makers. The findings indicate that the public administration and bureaucracy in Iran have deviated from Weber’s ideal bureaucracy. Previous research has shown that most developed countries have closer alignment with Weber's ideal bureaucracy in their public administration, implementing structural features such as administrative hierarchy, specialization, and meritocracy. Studies have shown that better results in public administration can be achieved if politicians' decisions and policies can be separated from the execution and administration of public affairs.

Limitations & Consequences:

 The final model presented by the researcher may not be generalizable to all public sector organizations.

Practical Consequences: 

The findings of the current research are based solely on one ministry due to the broad scope of the topic, which may pose limitations in terms of generalizability.

Innovation or value of the Article:

 Most studies and research conducted to date on the relationship between politics and administration have been focused on developed countries, and the existing literature is predominantly related to developed countries and modern states. Therefore, the results of studies conducted in developing countries can offer both theoretical and practical innovation. The current research examines the relationship between politics and administration in the public administration of Iran, which, as a developing country, allows for deeper and more precise studies. Ultimately, the results can be used to reform the administrative and political systems. Additionally, this research can help address existing challenges in the country's public administration from a comparative studies perspective.

The purpose of the present study was the interpretative structural modeling of citizen-centered development indicators in Zanjan Municipality. This study is based on the practical purpose and from the perspective of the method, it is in the field of mixed studies with the inductive-deductive approach. Identification of citizen-centered development indicators was done through semi-structured interviews based on theoretical saturation with professors and specialists in policy making, public administration and urban administration. The validity and reliability of the interviews were confirmed by the method of relative content validity and Cohen's kappa index, respectively. In order to model citizen-oriented development indicators, the opinions of managers and employees of Zanjan municipality, numbering 61 people, were used with the convenience sampling method available and with the help of a questionnaire. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed using content validity and test-post-test method. The coding of the resulting data using the 2020 MaxQda software led to the identification of 13 citizen-oriented development indicators. Modeling of the identified indicators with interpretative structural method led to the formation of eight levels, where attention to public interest was the most effective and synergy between citizens and local governments was the most impressionable factor.

The dynamic process of governance, management and carrying out the public affairs of the society requires the provision of expenditures that are referred to as "public expenditures" of the country, because these expenditures can be considered as facilitators for the realization of the purposes specified in the country's constitution. Undoubtedly, every country resorts to various theories to determine the form and content of these expenses. In the existing literature of public expenditures, there are four main theories that governments use to manage their public expenditures: macroeconomic performance theory, public economic theory, general theory of political systems, and budget goals theory. These four theories claim that the decisions of governments and governments regarding public expenditures are made according to economic considerations, economic relations between the government and citizens, the influences and concerns of political actors, and the goals included in the country's annual budget document. However, in Iran, other theories can have an impact on the justification and allocation of government expenditures, because the the government is Islamic. The purpose of this article is to reflect on these theories and suggest strategies to reduce the costs of state management.

Artificial intelligence and technologies based on it can affect all areas of human life. Undoubtedly, the process of governance, management, and current operations, which is called statesmanship, will also be affected by this huge progress of this century. The great achievements of this technology have been studied by many scientists around the world. Any technological phenomenon, including artificial intelligence, can also have dark areas. In this article, some of the challenges caused by the emergence of artificial intelligence in the process of governance will be explored.

The Administrative and Recruitment Affairs Organization of Iran is responsible for reforms governance in various dimensions of the public sector, including structural, process, human resources, cultural, technological, and managerial aspects, as well as the optimal level of political presence in administration and local government. Therefore, according to these reform axes, it has designed vice-chairs in its structure. The Administrative and Employment Affrias Organization has an irreplaceable role in the transformation of the country (governance, administration, and running operations). Although these reform transformations in the structure of the public sector have been considered in different governments, it seems that several reform axes have been seriously considered by this organization, which, if realized, can lead to a huge change in the “thought, dialogue, and administrative behavior” of the Iranian public sector, which I will talk about in this article.

In the past two decades, interest in the concept of complexity science and its research has increased in public administration. Complexity science (CS) is the interdisciplinary investigation of, and attempt to explain and understand, complex systems. Public Administration (PA) as administrating complex systems in the public sector has been the focus of several studies. However, scoping reviews of CS research in PA have not been conducted to guide further research in this area. The purpose of this scoping review is to describe and analyze studies focusing on CS in PA to elicit an overall picture of the research in this field. A scoping review methodology guided by Arksey and O'Malley and Levac et al. was used. Studies were identified by conducting electronic searches on 5 Research Databases. Of 32 articles matched the inclusion criteria. CS is a topical research area that has been explored with different methods and outcomes, in different environments, and has mainly been perceived positively. Novel perspectives and more diverse methodological approaches paying attention to issues affecting the generalizability of the findings could expand our knowledge in this area.

In the last two decades, complexity theory has become more of a theory-in-use in PA although it remains some way from the mainstream or fully accepted. Despite, there is neither a comprehensive image of the functionality of CS nor its application in PA. However, there were some efforts to show the contribution of CS in PA and to enumerate useful key concepts of it in public management.
This study aims to describe and analyze studies focusing on CS in PA to elicit an overall picture of the research in this field. There is no review study in this scope of PA to conduct scholars in their way of researches.

The statistical population of the study is all articles were published in 6 scientific databases between 1999 and 2019.

Since past decades progress has been made by adopting useful complexity concepts not previously used or well understood in PA such as adaptation, self-organization, coevolution, emergence. Other scholars have pursued a path of comparing extant theories with complexity theory, for example, network governance and institutions, to show how complexity theory might work in concert with the better-established theory. A third path also appears to have merit and could work alongside both the former. It aims to identify implicit or explicit use of complexity concepts in extant theories and show how complexity theory concepts can provide some coherence across these theories at a metalevel. In this vein, complexity theory offers new insights into areas commonly focused on by PA scholars: the roles of actors, policy processes, and decisions. In addition to theoretical usage of CS studies, there are various efforts to provide some practical tools for extending the domain of CS scope in PA.
This scoping review was conducted to provide an estimation of the breadth and scope of available research literature and to gain main findings and foci of done studies to guide further researches in the scope of CS and PA and to increase our knowledge in this area.

A scoping review methodology guided by Arksey and O’Malley and Levac et al. was used. Scoping reviews can be undertaken to examine the extent, range, and nature of research activity by mapping all relevant research literature. Arksey and O’Malley’s methodological framework outlines a five-stage approach for conducting scoping reviews as 1. identifying the research question, 2. identifying relevant studies, 3. Study selection, 4. charting the data, and 5. collating, summarizing, and reporting the results.

In the range of 20 years of study selection, there are 32 articles with 5566 citations that matched with research criteria. Britain and the U.S have the main contribution in article publication by publishing 30 articles. Public Management Review is the main journal by publishing 9 articles. Most of the studies are conducting by a qualitative research design.
Mainstreams of studies’ foci are the proximity of methodology of studying PA and complexity’s phenomena, application of complexity theory in terms of a practical and theoretical tool for modeling PA issues, studying nature and reasons of complexity in the process of decision making, codification, execution, and assessment of policymaking in PA.

CS has been explored in different environments with different methods and outcomes, but it has been perceived mainly positively. Mainly the focus of the studies was on finding associations between CS and PA in a practical and theoretical term. The strongest empirical evidence was in linking the CS with network governance, self-organizing in the public sector, coevoluting between social complex systems and external actors, and adapting in different layers on governance system.
Methodologically, more attention should be paid to issues that strongly affect the generalizability of the findings. In this respect, also the systematic use of power analysis in estimating required sample sizes is justified depending on the sampling method. Moving forward to more sophisticated research designs such as to cause–effect estimation would provide knowledge for targeted development projects in areas that need improvement. Simultaneous use of different instruments would provide a deeper understanding of concepts in CS and how these concepts relate to each other. Different qualitative approaches, such as ethnography, critical theory, case studies, or authors network analysis would provide new, deeper knowledge of experiences related to CS and PA which could contribute to the development of new instruments to measure CS in PA.

The aim of this study, as mixed research, is to analyze and design a model of public service culture. The ultimate goal of conducting this research is to design and evaluate the public service culture model.

In the first stage, to identify the components of the public service culture model, the researchers conducted 18 in-depth interviews with connoisseurs, including managers and experts in the research topic, and also reviewed the research literature. At this stage, the thematic analysis method was used. The components of public service culture were extracted and categorized into three main themes, 26 sub-themes, and 201 concept codes. A questionnaire related to the components of public service culture was distributed among 392 public and private sector employees to assess the current situation and rank them.

According to the responses of the participants, the only theme that scored above the average in the component of public service motivation, was “compassion”. Also, in the component of public service values, four themes including “politeness”, “decency”, “benevolence”, “philanthropy” and “God-centeredness” scored above the average. In the component of public service symbol, only the theme of “appearance and clothing” in the current situation scored above the average. The scores of other themes of all three components were lower than the average. Finally, using the collected data, the themes related to each of the components were ranked.

The results of this study showed that the participants considered the components of good public service culture among employees and public organizations to be weak. This indicates a failure in providing effective services by Iran's public services that are responsible for implementing policies, decisions, and regulations of the public sector.

Iran's administrative system is influenced by the management paradigms governing administrative communities, i.e., traditional public administration (public affairs administration), modern public administration and good governance. Each of these paradigms has merits and demerits that prevent its absolute use in the administrative system. These paradigms have elements that can be used in research to infer the administrative system from the perspective of Islamic teachings. The main question is that based on Islamic teachings, what kind of infrastructure does the administrative system have? The main goal is to present the basics of Islamic administrative system. In this way, it is clear how much of the existing paradigms in the administrative system are consistent with Islamic teachings. In this research, the size and extent of government involvement (maximum or minimum), the position of the structure and managers and the nature of administrative positions, human nature, the position of people, the position of productivity, the importance of each of the processes and outputs, the position of controlling processes and outputs, concentration and lack of concentration is somewhat defined in the administrative system. The research method is analytical and inferential based on Islamic sources and teaching strategy.

A significant part of academic studies in the field of public administration is devoted to the evolution of public sector movements in this field. These movements, sometimes referred to as movement, pattern, model, approach, paradigm, or quasi-paradigm, have their own theoretical and ontological, epistemological, anthropological, methodological, and axiological fundamentals. Paying attention to these fundamentals will help us to gain a deeper understanding of public sector movements. Public administration in a comprehensive and collage-like approach requires a simultaneous understanding of the philosophical fundamentals of public sector movements. Government officials in different societies need to have a clear understanding of these fundamentals in order to make the most effective decisions possible. The result of the dialectical contradiction between the traditional public administration (thesis) and the new public administration (antithesis) was the formation of killer syntheses, including new public management, new public services, and public value management. The present article surveys the evolution of public sector movements, seeks to categorize their philosophical fundamentals, and finally, in a table, provides a framework for a better understanding of them.

In the contemporary literature of organization and public administration, the values ​​that guide organizational and managerial behaviors in the public sector have received much attention. This article seeks to assess the real (existing) status of public service values ​​as well as identify and rank the ideal public service values ​​for government and public organizations.

The research method used in this research was a descriptive survey which was collected through the questionnaire of opinions and views of 721 employees of public and private organizations who were selected by purposive sampling. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the demographic characteristics of the respondents and inferential statistical methods were used to analyze the data.

The findings showed that the public service values reflecting the traditions of public administration in the current (real) situation are lower than expected. Competence, Responsiveness, rule of law, transparency, accountability, integrity, productivity, preserve the public interest, equality and social justice and entrepreneurship were among the ten important values ​​that should be current and institutionalized in the minds of participants in government and public organizations.

Public administrators should periodically evaluate the values ​​of real public services in government and public organizations and, with the necessary planning, streamline and institutionalize the values ​​of public services expected and desired by citizens in government and public organizations.

The present study is aimed at the pathology of administrative reform programs in Iran through the analysis of laws, programs, and policies related to administrative reform in Iran. This study was conducted using a systematic literature review and also conducting field interviews and analyzing them using thematic analysis method. Thus, in the first step, documents, laws, policies, and programs related to the administrative system reform before and after the Islamic Revolution were identified. In the second step, using the policy documents and scientific resources as well as interviewing experts, the damage and challenges of administrative reform programs were extracted. The damages of the administrative system in this paper were divided into four categories: Major damages affecting the administrative system, formulation damage, Implementation damage and damage to the evaluation of administrative reform programs. In the end, solutions are presented such as the use of incentive and punitive instruments in programs, the design of a comprehensive information system, considering the conditions of the political, cultural, social and economic systems of the country in the formulation of programs, etc.

Keywords:Public Administration, Administrative System, Development Programs, Administrative Reform Program.

In the recent decades extensive studies have been conducted about compiling a desired model of governance in the deferent countries. These type of studies have been conducted to identify and measure the quantity, quality and know-how the public policy and administration of affaires. Deferent approaches have been applied regarding governance. Unfortunately there is not a suitable model in the Islamic republic of Iran for administration of affaires although there are a three decades of knowledge experiences accumulation about compiling governmental documents and macro public policy making. This research aimed at identifying and illustrating conceptual explanation of governance and the characteristics of I.R.I. In this research it has been tried to make a comparison and integration between deferent theories to deliver a conceptual model of governance. Then efforts have been made to indigenization of the model regarding to the conditions and requirements of I.R.I. Based on the governmental documents including constitution, 1404 vision of the country and the general policies of first to sixth development plans; the dimensions, categories, indices and characteristics of the government model have been explained. Research Findings show that governmental documents not only have concentrated on the main points and indices of good governance but also have paid a big attention to the governance theory. The comprehensiveness of findings, based on the study of governmental documents by the conceptual model of governance, show the obvious failure of the total analogy of governance by the good governance approach. Finally it is recommended to the country’s researchers to use experiences offered by this research and try to improve the governance theory of I.R.I.

Efficieny and effectiveness of public administration, is dependent on Strengthening the weak link of it. One of this weak link is the lack of native model of public administration. This model is necessary for implementation of 1404 vision. Ignoring this critical need, decreases the function of imitative model. Based on contingency theory, there is no best model for public administration, therefore recognition of proper public administration model consistent with the condition of country, is possible. In this research four model of public administration for realization of the vision of 1404 are evaluated from the expert’ views. The results show that, first, the six features including justice, law, participation, value oriented, development and accountability, allow the governance of the 1404 vision.Second, from the expert’ views, implementing an integrated model for realization of vision is necessary.