Adopting Local Self-Governing Strategies of Iranian Provinces

Decentralization is an effective effort in the development of countries thus Iranian upstream laws emphasize decentralization at provincial level. In this research, the establishment of local self-governing of the provinces is considered as a decentralization pattern due to the compliance with the constitution in preserving integrity of the Iranian governance as well as achieving the goals of a 20-year Perspective Document of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Due to the lack of appropriate strategies, the implementation of decentralization policies at the provincial level has faced many problems. So the study aims to develop appropriate strategies for the establishment of a local self-government in the provinces based on the SWOT analysis model. According to 16 expert interviews which have been conducted through directed (qualitative) analysis, out of a total of 1258 initial codes, 15 pros and 33 cons including five categories such as legal identity, democracy, government duties, decision making authority and public organizations were identified as well as 18 opportunities and 17 threats which include three social, political and economic categories. Strategic position of the self-governing of provinces was identified as a conservative region through weighing up the pros and cons as well as ranking opportunities and threats through questionnaires. Finally, out of the 64 developed strategies, 10 main strategies were chosen based on scores of internal and external factors.