https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/ Journal of Governance and Public Policy en daily 1 Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0330 Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0330 https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5327.html Modern governance in contemporary political systems requires more than ever a redefinition of concepts such as justice and people-centeredness in the process of public policy-making. The administrative approach of Martyr Ayatollah Raisi, as a concrete example of executive governance in the Islamic Republic of Iran, offers significant analytical potential for illustrating a justice-oriented and people-centered governance model. The aim of this study is to analyze the components of justice-orientation and people-centeredness in Martyr Ayatollah Raisi’s administrative approach and to examine their role in enhancing the efficiency and legitimacy of public governance.This research is qualitative and analytical–theoretical. Data were collected through a documentary–library method, including speeches, performance reports, policy documents, and related scholarly sources. Data analysis was conducted using qualitative content analysis in an inductive–interpretive manner to identify and categorize the concepts of justice-orientation and people-centeredness in the administrative approach.The findings indicate that justice-orientation in Martyr Raisi’s administrative approach functions not only as an ethical value but also as a practical policy-making criterion and a tool for equitable distribution of resources and opportunities. People-centeredness, through direct interaction with citizens, field visits, and responsiveness to public demands, has enhanced accountability, public trust, and governance capacity. The combination of these two components provides an operational model of justice-oriented and people-centered modern governance.The analysis of Martyr Ayatollah Raisi’s administrative approach suggests that justice-orientation and people-centeredness can serve as both a theoretical and practical framework for improving the efficiency, legitimacy, and effectiveness of public policies in Iran. This model demonstrates how normative values in policy-making can be translated into practical mechanisms, offering a successful example of modern governance. https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5276.html This research examines the effectiveness of Iran's foreign policy in the hydropolitical dispute over the Helmand water rights and its implications for the Taliban. It evaluates the interaction between hydro diplomacy and public governance using an analytical research approach. The importance of this research lies in the fact that the governance of transboundary water resources has not only environmental and livelihood consequences, but can also impact border security, local migration, and regional stability. Considering the historical developments of the 1973 Treaty of Helmand and the changes that followed the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the primary question of this research is to what extent Iran's foreign policy has been able to ensure Sistan's water security, manage border tensions, and translate hydro diplomacy into tangible results. The research method is based on the analysis of documentary content and the study of articles, books, and reports from think tanks to examine the effects of Iran's policies on the implementation and interpretation of the Helmand Treaty, as well as the environmental and social conditions of the region, utilizing both historical and contemporary data. The findings indicate that Iran's foreign policy over the last decade has successfully maintained diplomatic channels and technical dialogue, thereby preventing the escalation of the border crisis. However, the full implementation of the treaty and the sustainable provision of rights have not been achieved until recent years. Additionally, geopolitical developments following the Taliban-Pakistan conflict in 2025 have presented opportunities to leverage diplomacy. https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5355.html The concept of governance, while widely popular, suffers from profound conceptual ambiguity. This article explores this issue and argues that the ambiguity of governance is not a defect or an obstacle, but rather an inherent feature that reflects the multifaceted, context-dependent, and dynamic nature of the phenomenon of governance in contemporary societies. The roots of this ambiguity lie in conflicting definitions (from government-centric definitions to broader network definitions), multiple typologies (hierarchy, market, network), and competing explanatory theories. By accepting this ambiguity as a structural reality, it can be transformed into an opportunity for enriching discourse: creating an interdisciplinary conceptual bridge, allowing for flexibility and contextualization, stimulating rethinking of fundamental concepts such as government and power, and enabling institutional innovation. This perspective has important implications for research (hybrid methodologies, practical theorizing) and practice (designing hybrid architectures, inventing new forms of accountability, expanding governance literacy). The result is an invitation to constructively manage ambiguity rather than trying to resolve it. https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5336.html This research explores the "soft capacities" of Islam for policy understanding through an institutionalist approach rooted in Islamic jurisprudence and ethics. Drawing on the ontological belief in the "unseen world" (Alam al-Ghayb), the study proposes an extension to Sohail Inayatullah’s Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) and Jin Zhouying’s concept of "soft technology." Sadra’s rationality, particularly as developed by contemporary Neo-Sadrian thinkers, provides the necessary epistemological foundation for this expanded framework. The methodology of this study is comparative, analytical, and intuitionist. The paper explains how Islam not only shapes the worldviews and metaphors of Muslims but also provides an institutional bedrock for social synergy and progress through its practical (Fiqh) and ethical rulings. By acknowledging the profound connection between human actions and external world events, the research introduces a fifth layer—the "Sacred Layer"—to the CLA model. Furthermore, as this dimension transcends the conventional dichotomy of soft and hard technologies, the term "Sacred Technology" is coined to integrate Quranic concepts into the established framework of the philosophy of technology. Finally, the proposed framework is applied to the classic problem of Bangkok’s traffic, a case study previously analyzed by UNESCO and the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF). The application demonstrates the framework's merit in achieving a multi-layered understanding of reality and a more holistic approach to policy issues. https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5420.html Background and Aim: Economic corruption, as one of the most significant challenges facing legal and governance systems, leaves destructive consequences on social justice, economic efficiency, and public trust. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the government's criminal policy in combating economic corruption and to offer suggestions for improving Iran's criminal policymaking in this area. The research was conducted based on the theoretical framework of participatory criminal policy and theories of situational and social prevention, which emphasize the necessity of integrating criminal and non-criminal strategies.‬Research Methodology: This research is descriptive-analytical and was carried out using library resources, laws, and legal documents related to the fight against economic corruption in Iran. Data analysis was performed qualitatively with the aim of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the existing criminal policy.Findings: The research findings indicate that the dominance of a purely repressive approach, inflation and dispersion of criminal laws, weak prevention mechanisms, and lack of coordination among responsible institutions are among the main factors reducing the effectiveness of criminal policy in combating economic corruption. These factors have led to the rate of corruption not significantly decreasing despite the severity of punishments.Conclusion: A fundamental revision of the current criminal policy and a move towards a balanced and preventive criminal policy is an unavoidable necessity. Such an approach, aimed at eradicating the root causes of corruption and reducing opportunities for its commission, instead of merely resorting to repressive reactions, can lead to strengthening the health of the administrative system, enhancing social capital, and increasing the efficiency of the fight against economic corruption.‬ https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5434.html The political representation is a pattern of democratic power in pluralist situation that will possible the differentiation movement by providing the possibility of change within the political life. By destabilizing the masculine power, such a critical thought has removed the challenges of delayed thought and will bring about the possibility for maneuvering the social forces within the politics of pluralist order. Women have paved the way of operation in the land of representative politics based on radical criticism of the status quo as an acute force. So, recognition of women redistribute the political scheme in the process of representative politics. The appearance of such gendered relation is resulted from the collective attitude to governance attempting to prevent the reduction of politics to a governance. Accordingly, the main research question on this paper is whether turning the electoral activities of women to a resistance technology will recede the justification power of masculine politics and provide the possibility of returning the gendered balance to the politics? According to the main hypothesis, all the employed strategies regarding to women is a saturation without parity that will not end to gendered equilibrium by respecting the employment of women on electoral and party positions. https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5356.html Considering the paramount importance of foreign policy as the most significant mechanism for effective communication between states and their surrounding environment within the framework of the international system, the present study endeavors to analyze the foreign policy of the Thirteenth Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the presidency of Seyed Ebrahim Raisi. Although certain foundational principles governing the foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran have remained constant within dominant discourses, variations in Iran’s foreign policy orientations and decisions have been observed with the advent of successive administrations. During the tenure of the Thirteenth Government, the emphasis on active engagement with other nations, the maintenance and enhancement of relations with international actors, playing a proactive role in Regional and International Organizations, and particular attention to regionalism, all signify a simultaneous composition of continuity and change in this administration’s foreign policy. Accordingly, this article, employing an analytical approach and utilizing James Rosenau’s theoretical framework, examines the foreign policy of the Thirteenth Government. By posing the central question: ‘In light of James Rosenau’s theory, which factors have exerted the most significant influence on the adoption of the Thirteenth Government’s approach in the foreign policy domain?’, this research endeavors to evaluate and test the extent of efficacy, impact, and interaction of each of these variables in shaping Iran’s foreign policy. https://jogappolicy.uk.ac.ir/article_5506.html Natural gas is one of the most critical energy inputs for Iran’s energy-intensive industries, and its pricing policy has significant implications for industrial competitiveness, government fiscal sustainability, energy security, and national consumption patterns. Despite the large body of literature on natural gas pricing, many existing studies are either limited to narrow economic dimensions or fail to adequately address the institutional, political, and structural characteristics of Iran’s economy. This study aims to identify the methodological limitations, research gaps, and policy deficiencies within the existing literature through a critical review approach. To achieve this objective, 30 domestic and international studies on natural gas pricing in industrial sectors were systematically analyzed and compared based on pricing models, analytical approaches, levels of analysis, and policy implications. The findings indicate that most existing studies lack a localized and multidimensional perspective and pay insufficient attention to the interactions among economic, industrial, social, and environmental dimensions of gas pricing policies. In addition, limited use of dynamic and scenario-based modeling approaches, weak long-term analysis, and the absence of policy-oriented analytical frameworks are identified as major shortcomings in the literature. Accordingly, this paper proposes the development of localized system dynamics models, integrated policy analysis frameworks, and multi-actor scenario-based studies as key directions for future research. The results of this study can contribute to the design of more realistic and sustainable natural gas pricing policies in Iran.