Political Thought
Kioomars Ashtarian
Abstract
Analyzing the structure of Constitutional law in the Islamic Republic of Iran can be used to identify the capacities of amending the Constitution and redefining the Iranian governance system. This article, with an institutional-normative approach, seeks to show the theoretical capacities of the constitutional ...
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Analyzing the structure of Constitutional law in the Islamic Republic of Iran can be used to identify the capacities of amending the Constitution and redefining the Iranian governance system. This article, with an institutional-normative approach, seeks to show the theoretical capacities of the constitutional movement on the one hand and the capacities of Mantaghato-laugh (Free area of Islamic regulation) on the other hand to review the Constitution of the Islamic Republic. In Iranian governance, the distortion of the national division of institutional tasks in the form of bureaucratic-tribal monarchy has been widespread in the governance structure. As such, the structural differentiation of social spaces, which leads to the logical separation of religion from public policies, has been ignored. This is while the concept of a “Free area of Islamic regulation” gives general directions to public policies that can return powers and duties to the people, to the government, and the parliament without compromising the legitimacy of the political regime. This article has several theoretical pillars that are used synthetically in connection with the main finding of the article. 1) order and power, 2) separation of powers, 3) legitimacy, 4) unity of religion and politics, and 5) constitutional orientation of public policy making. The main point of the article is that the theoretical capacities of these 5 pillars can be useful for analyzing the structure of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Constitution and revising it. First, with a normative approach, we have discussed the right to exercise power and the separation of powers (the first and second theoretical pillars). The fact that the constitution guides the operation of political societies is born from the idea that the government must protect the fundamental rights of individuals. The fundamental rights have a technical dimension that organizes the exercise of power and therefore creates limitations for the exercise of power. That is why separation of powers is considered a tool against abuse of power, prevention of tyranny, and a factor of national self-actualization, and according to Montesquieu, there will be no freedom without separation of powers. In terms of the third theoretical pillar of this article, it has been discussed that the relation of legitimacy and efficiency are closely intertwined in Iranian governance. In the Constitution, there are several principles that not only determine the direction of the policy-making systems but also lay the foundations of an interventionist government with full responsibility for the welfare of the citizens. As a result, public policies take into account the legitimacy of the political system, and in practice, the legitimacy of the political regime depends on its efficiency. This phenomenon has found an ideological facet in the shadow of the theory of Unity of religion and politics. With regards to the relationship between religion and politics in the Islamic Republic (the fourth pillar of the article), we are facing two aspects of political jurisprudence theory and legal tradition, which appear to be aligned but at the same time can be contradictory. On the one hand, legitimacy refers to the divine sovereignty over the world, and it is embodied in the Islamic Republic's Constitution. On the other hand, for some “official” theorists of the last two decades, this divine sovereignty has led to the acceptance of an approach called the theory of “discovery” and “designation”, which we call "revelation legitimacy". This revolutionist approach, in its essence, makes the legal processes of the constitution irrelevant, which means that at first, it reduces the role of experts to a passive role in the designation of Leader. The fifth pillar of the article deals with the "basic rules of public policies" and the issues of political structure related to public policies. The importance of this article is that it allows freedom of public policy-making to the citizens.
Public Policy
Yasser Roostaei Hosein Abadi
Abstract
The theory and practice of policy making in today's world has found a very vital role because the legitimacy of governments which is measured by the ability to solve public problems through public policy. If the government lacks the ability to solve public problems, no other element can legitimize its ...
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The theory and practice of policy making in today's world has found a very vital role because the legitimacy of governments which is measured by the ability to solve public problems through public policy. If the government lacks the ability to solve public problems, no other element can legitimize its continued rule. From perspective of public policy making discipline, there is no achievement for any public policy unless policy makers and citizens have active and intense participation in the policy making process as well as policy implementation. Because in a public policy making relationship, one side as a policy maker is obliged to solve the problem of the other side. This relationship, as one of the most influential relationships on people's life quality, needs to be carefully regulated and guaranteed. The law, as a normative discipline is supposed to regulate relations between these two agents. In the initial conception of representative democracy, as a legal and political frame work of governing society, people were completely removed from political and policy-making processes by electing representatives and were only subject to the decisions of their representatives. In other words, in classic version of representative democracy, almost all of political power is in the representative bodies’ hands. It is possible that minority and pressure groups try to present their issues as public problems by influencing such institutions. In democratic age there is a political and legal tendency to maximizing the role of citizens in policy making process in order to prevent any legitimation's crisis which may be raised from representative democracy shortcomings. The mentioned weakness can be considered as systematic and deep corruption in a decision-making system. In order to fix this weakness, the basic step is to redistribute powers and jurisdictions between different actors of the process of policy making, because studies on current democracies demonstrate that, the first step in policy making process, i.e., recognizing the public problem, is the most important, critical and crucial one. In other words, if the people do not have any role or influence in the first step of public policy making, the whole process will be at a very serious risk. This paper, using descriptive and analytic approach, criticized legal framework of recognizing the public problem in Iran. In Iran, due to the great legal authority and authority of the legislative body, such mechanisms have not been foreseen for the people and even other institutions. Even a powerful institution like the presidency cannot resist the decisions of the legislative body. So, it seems democracy in Iran is still very similar to the classical type of representative democracy and needs to be revised and accompanied by recent developments in the knowledge of politics and law. By distinguishing between representative-centered and citizen-centered approach to policy making, the author, proposed a shift from former approach to latter, in interpretation of legal documents specially Iran's constitutional law. The shift will lead to participatory democracy and multi-level policy making. This new approach, by emphasizing the role of people as diagnosers of public problems, reduces the risk of semi-public problems being included in government programs and policies. The proposed approach says no problem is a public problem unless it affects the ordinary life of reasonable number of citizens. Before reaching to this stage, the government should not allocate any budget to solve it. The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran has provided the possibility of interpretation in favor of the proposed approach in many parts considering the decisive role of the people, including in Article No.: 59. Creating mechanisms to realize such a role for the people is one of the necessities of Iran's current decision-making system. By considering the countries experiences such as Italy and USA, suggestions such as veto rights for the people regarding the issues raised in the policy-making institutions, and the right to raise the issue for them to be discussed in the same institutions can be proposed as necessary mechanisms. In these countries, at the request of the people and upon reaching a certain number, the legislative assembly will be required to remove an issue (a semipublic-problem) from the agenda, or put an issue on its agenda.
Valiallah Vahdaninia; Masood Darodi
Abstract
The characteristic of classical public policy was the will to power by a government that authoritatively and centrally formulated its policies and implemented them in the society under its control. With the increase of emerging problems and challenges that are affecting other problems in a complicated ...
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The characteristic of classical public policy was the will to power by a government that authoritatively and centrally formulated its policies and implemented them in the society under its control. With the increase of emerging problems and challenges that are affecting other problems in a complicated and rhizome- like way, the complexity of the government's actions and their consequences has doubled as governments are forced to make changes in the nature of their public policy. This paradigm shift aimed at enhancing the capability and promoting government action in policy design and implementation implies a decentralized and network approach rather than a centralized and government-based one, an approach that focuses on a broad set of policy tools or technologies for public action, rather than the "institution" and "program", to solve public issues. More recent experiences are more inclined to the topic of 'policy baskets' or the arrangement of tools in 'policy blends' that form the content of a toolbox from which governments can choose and construct public policies. The present article, by adopting an epistemological approach, narrates the dimensions of this paradigm shift in identifying new public policy approaches; an attempt to understand the late logic of public policy knowledge based on the recreation of the role of government that has led to the emergence of new forms of network, multilevel and multipurpose governance.
