Evaluating the Performance of Urban Local Government in Unitary Political Systems Case Study: Islamic Councils of Iran's Cities

The local government is one of the structural elements of governing the state in the modern age. The performance of it depends on different factors that the political system is the most important effective factors on local government in each country. Generally, political systems are divided in to there groups: single party states, federal states and regional states. Iran has unitary political system and the Islamic Councils of the city have been defined as the symbol of local government in this structure and in the constitution. But in practice, the Islamic Coucils have been faced with a great deal of problems and their operaing limit are controlled by the power and political system of Iran. On this basis, this research aims to study the effect of unitary and single party political systems on the Islamic Councils of the cities in Iran. To this end, in this study, the system of the Islamic Councils of the cities of Iran based on the constitution laws, common laws of the Islamic Councils and its revisions, documents and comments of Guardian Council have been studied. Research data has been gathered by library and documentary method and was analyzed by content analysis method. The results showed that the political system affects on the statute, the degree of independancy and the decision making of the local government and has caused a little improvement in the efficiency of the local government.