Analysis of Structural Factors Affecting the Institutional Development of Rural Areas of Bouin Zahra and Avaj Counties, Iran

Institutionalism fundamentally addresses the fact that each geographical space has its own institutional and indigenous content and therefore its development path should be separate. The aim of this study was to investigate the structural factors affecting institutional development in rural areas of Buin Zahra and Avaj counties.

This research is a combination of survey and analytical-structural methods. In order to determine the study area, 18 villages were selected from a total of 190 villages with more than 20 households in Buin Zehra and Avaj counties by distributing clusters according to the distance and proximity of the village to the city and the population. The sample size was 378 people by Cochranchr('39')s method. In order to explain and analyze the factors affecting institutional development in the study area, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), structural equation modeling and TOPSIS technique were used.

Satisfaction with the performance of existing institutions in the village, knowledge and awareness of the nature, duties of institutions, institutional trust, social solidarity, human capacity, social networks and incentives and institutional capacity had an important impact on the institutional development of rural areas. There was also a difference in terms of institutional development between villages with high populations; so that, 22.2% (4 villages) were at the privileged level, 33.4% (6 villages) were at the semi-privileged level and 44.4% (8 villages) were at the highly privileged level. The reason for this was the proximity to urban centers after road and population indicators.

Considering the institutional development coefficients, it can be claim that the level of institutional development of rurals decreases from the southeast and the center to the west and away from the city center.