The role of electronic parliament and citizen participation in the legislative process of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Citizens' participation in legislation is the ideal goal of democracy, which in the past could be achieved through elections and face-to-face meetings. However, with the advent of information and technology, people's participation in legislation took a big leap. Now, distance, the number of audiences, and time no longer have an effect on citizens' participation in legislation. This has even been emphasized in the guideline of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The main question of this is that what are the barriers and facilitators for representatives to use cyberspace, and what are the capacities of citizens' participation in legislation in the Islamic Consultative Assembly? For this research a qualitative method of grounded theory has been used. The participants were parliamentarians, and the sample, according to theoretical saturation, was 45 interviews. These interviews were analyzed using AtlasTI software. The open axes in this study were converted into eight axial codes. These codes were then categorized two main components: facilitators and barriers to the use of cyber space. The axes of network awareness, information recovery, information dissemination, and coordination were identified as facilitators. On the other hand, the axes of infrastructure weakness, inability to use, propaganda attacks, and the one-sided approach were identified as barriers. The results of the study show that in the field of official communication, parliament's website lacks the indicators considered by the World Inter-Parliamentary Union. Additionally, the official interactive facilities connected to organizational communication are not embedded within it. In the public virtual space desired results are still unreachable due to objections from the representatives.