Hossein Shirazi
Abstract
It is a common assumption that the government’s responsibility in policy-making is to formulate official policies and pave the way for achieving specified objectives. However, little attention has be paid to encouraging citizen participation and inspiring an individual sense of responsibility towards ...
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It is a common assumption that the government’s responsibility in policy-making is to formulate official policies and pave the way for achieving specified objectives. However, little attention has be paid to encouraging citizen participation and inspiring an individual sense of responsibility towards achieving large-scale policy objectives. In fact, most policy objectives cannot be achieved—at least not efficiently—without an individual sense of responsibility on the part of citizens. The question is, how can the government increase citizen participation and help them take on responsibility towards achieving policy objectives? To answer the question, this article argues that the government has to empower citizens. Empowered citizens are able to make optimal decisions under different circumstances, which can improve the quality of one’s life and society. In this respect, this paper recognizes the key role of behavior change policy-making which refers to government interventions to empower citizens and encourage citizen participation. Behavior changes policy-making influences citizens’ beliefs, awareness, and behavior, making them compatible with large-scale government policies. The present study argues that citizen empowerment through behavior change policy-making can get citizens to take on responsibility towards achieving large-scale policy objectives. Besides large-scale policy-making in various areas, it is thus necessary for the government to consider behavior change policy-making in order to get citizen participation in achieving the objectives in a given area. The present study employed rational choice theory as the theoretical framework as research on behavior change emphasizes that an individual acts based on cost–benefit analysis.
Hossein Shirazi
Abstract
As a concept that has spread from economics to other fields, Regulation refers to sovereign interventions aimed at the realization of the public interest. The present article focuses on the clarification of the concept of regulation in reforming the policy approach to the status of public libraries. ...
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As a concept that has spread from economics to other fields, Regulation refers to sovereign interventions aimed at the realization of the public interest. The present article focuses on the clarification of the concept of regulation in reforming the policy approach to the status of public libraries. The key question of the research is, from a policy-making perspective, in the conceptual bipolar framework of regulation and tenure, what is the relationship between the public libraries institution and the Tehran municipal libraries (which is a larger set of entities)? In this regard, the research has investigated the structural interaction of Tehran Public Libraries and Municipalities with the theoretical framework of institutionalism and qualitative content analysis method. At present, the public libraries institution is a policy maker, an administrator, and a supervisor of public libraries. In such circumstances, such affairs as obtaining a license and the duty of the municipality to pay half of its revenue to public library associations, which of course refuses to pay, has become a serious challenge between the two institutions. This study argues that even if the institution's wishes are met, a larger problem persists, and that the institution's tenure may not give a good prospect of achieving its goals. What the libraries institutions is pursuing is having hundreds of libraries with thousands of executive officer that would then be left out of their policymaking and supervisory duties. The policy-making proposal of the paper is to harmonize the integrated network of national libraries, to define the role and position of policymakers at different levels, and to distinguish the role of policymaking from implementation for public libraries. In this way, the movement of public libraries towards regulation in the role of policymaker and supervisor can serve the intended purpose. In this case, the municipality will play the role of the executor of the institution policies within the framework of the integrated urban services system.
