Study on the Locative-spatial pattern of factors affecting institutionalization of public participation in rural areas of Jafar Abad District, Qom Township

Participation, as a purposeful social interaction, is influenced by spatial elements that appear in a society as resources and social, cultural, economic and administrative capital. This study, uses a systematic approach, in the form of a descriptive-analytical correlation, tries to identify local-spatial pattern of factors effective in the institutionalization of public participation of 20 rural settlements in Jafar Abad District in Qom Township. Data were collected from the questionnaires filled out by a sample size of 355 people, and analyzed using appropriate tests in the SPSS software package. Results show that the local-spatial elements effective in participation that appear in the society as social, cultural, economic and administrative capital have emerged as a serious gap in the rural areas, and if any of them were effective, they were based on internal potential of such settlements built without governmental management guidelines. And depicted as an incomplete and partial image of public participation. Based on student t-test, the level of participation in most of the indexes, especially items reflecting official participation in organized institutions was less than expected. In ranking the local-spatial factors effective in public participation, indexes like social relations among people, tribal differences in a village, asking after people, mutual respect among people, dispute over agricultural issues, following other's advice, trusting one another among the people, etc., with regard to size had the largest role in explaining the level of participation, which reflects the informal and typical nature of spatial elements affecting rural participation. The results of multiple regression showed that social capital with a coefficient of determination of 0.743 had the greatest effect on the participation in rural areas.