Understanding and Categorizing the Intervention Dimensions and Change Theories in Community-Based Development Based on Social Capital

In recent years, social and human aspects of development are more taken into considerations in Iran as a result of the people-oriented and community-based discourse in the country, confronting the mainstream economic and top-down approaches. In this discourse, the stress is put on strengthening social capital to empower the civic associations to become the main agent of development. In this qualitative research, five cases in community-based interventions in Iran are studied by deep interviews with their main practitioners. After coding the interviews and other related reports using Thematic Analysis, the 'intervention dimensions' emerge and the cases are compared in each dimension. Then, the similar issues in community-based development in Iran are identified and compared to the usual approaches in development programs in the country. Finally, it is shown that despite the similarities, each case has adopted its own specific issues and theory of change that has not been mentioned explicitly in the existing literature.