Evaluation of the place of institutionalized social participation in the 6th development plan and ways to improve it in the 7th development plan

Institutionalized social participation provides the context for the individual's interaction with others in the society in a systematic structure under the name of popular organizations.This participation leads to an increase in social vitality,social capital and social cohesion, and in addition,the target groups of the organizations, such as the deprived classes and the environment, benefit from their activities.The main responsibility of governments towards these groups is to regulate and support their activities.Development plans in Iran are the most important rules for regulating governance in five-year periods.Four levels of decision-making,monitoring,demanding and implementation for social participation are defined in the international models and the Iranian constitution.In this article,the state of social participation in the6th Development Plan and the country has been investigated with a descriptive-analytical method and finally, suggestions have been made to promote institutionalized social participation in the 7th Development Plan based on successful global experiences and the views of social thinkers.In the 6th plan,the three basic levels of participation, i.e. decision-making, monitoring and demanding are weak, and people's organizations have not received proper regulation and support.Pushing participation to the level of its implementation with economic incentives, without proper strengthening and structuring of the public sector,will lead to serious challenges in the country's social structure.To solve these problems, the political and legislative logic of the popular sector and the pattern of its relations with other sectors must be determined.In addition,public education for informed and purposeful participation and helping to institutionalize the public sector should be considered as a prelude to participatory governance,