Study of barriers to political development in Iran with emphasis on non-participation of academic elites Case study: Professors of Larestan universities

The aim of this study is to investigate the barriers to political development in Iran with emphasis on the lack of participation of academic elites (Case study: professors of Larestan universities). This work is a fundamental and applied research in terms of purpose. Regarding the data, this qualitative study was conducted by using the phenomenological method. In this research, information was collected through interviews. Using purposive sampling method and theoretical saturation technique, key informants (including 20 professors) were selected to identify barriers to political development. The tool used was a semi-structured interview. The data collected from the interviews were analyzed by content analysis method.Based on the results of content analysis in this piece of work, ten basic themes include: Cultural and educational failure, distortion of people's attitudes toward development, inadequate media information, employment and inefficient economic policies of governments, feelings of relative deprivation, weak capital Social, historical factors, weakness of civil society, and political factors were obtained. Finally, four organizing themes including cultural barriers (: Cultural and educational failure, distortion of individuals' attitudes toward political development and weakness of media information), Economic barriers (employment situation and inefficient economic policies of governments)and Social barriers (feelings of relative deprivation, weak social capital, and weak civil society) and structural barriers (historical and political factors)