The Role of the State Divisions in National Development: Case Study of Iran

Abstract

The states division system is the basis of managing a territorial or administrative apparatus by dividing its area into smaller units or lateral administrative jurisdictions. Similarly, the states division system determines the shape of the regional and local governments within the political domains which are the units of development hence; there exists a close relationship between the division of state and national development.

Up till now, the division of Iran has been based on the population density indexes as well as application of inductive method. As such, continuity of this process has played roles in dividing the political units into the smaller units, increasing government employees and their expansion and growth in the public budget expenditure.

The present paper aims to analyze the role of state division in the national development especially during the last decades when the fragmentation of territory led into unstable and inefficient smaller units. As a result, the system of division of present Iranian state is an impediment to the national development. Given this precedence and its basis, the paper also tries to analyze this particular system of division and its consequences. Utmost, the paper presents two methods for amending this system in Iran that includes: 1) Classification of divisions at the levels of counties and townships, and 2) application of deductive method for dividing the state into macro-regions.

The current research is descriptive-analytical in nature which has focused more on survey and documentation with respect to the problems before the Iranian system of the state divisions.

Keywords: State division, national development, hierarchical system, inductive and deductive methods, promotion of state division level.