Public Policymaking and Development in the New Industrialized Regions:a Case Study of Oil-Rich Regions in the South of Iran

In 1908, when the first oil field explored in Masjid-e-Soleiman, in the south part of Iran, nobody believed that this commodity will play a critical role in all political, economic, cultural and social aspects of the life in this region. However, the development of energy industry in this region gradually established a kind of industrial civility among the natives and the people who immigrated to the region from different parts of the country. This new phenomenon created a new identity which was a mixture of different cultures and traditions of the people with some elements of modernity. In fact, the new social identity in the industrial regions of the Khuzestan province was completely different of the other parts of the country. The author, who has worked on the effects of the oil and gas industries on the social life of people in the south part of Iran for two years, has tried to analyze the different ways of public policymaking and social institutionalization for a balanced development in the new industrialized regions in this article.