Social Sciences

Abstract Although all contemporary governments can be considered bureaucratic in a certain sense, experience has shown that bureaucracies exhibit varying qualities across different societies. Achieving a high quality of bureaucracy especially in developing countries requires the presence of diverse social, economic, political, and cultural conditions. This study, employing a comparative-qualitative approach and utilizing fuzzy-set logic methodology, investigates the causal conditions influencing the quality of bureaucracy across twenty developing countries worldwide. The findings from the necessity and sufficiency tests indicate that accountability, transparency, and oversight as components of political development alongside administrative reformism constitute sufficient conditions for attaining the quality of bureaucracy in developing nations. Bureaucratic autonomy, as a component of a capable state, is identified as a necessary condition for realizing this goal. Additionally, the results of the conjunctural causality test reveal that the combination of oversight, economic globalization, and the absence of a rentier economy along with either administrative reformism or bureaucratic autonomy forms a strong causal configuration for achieving the quality of bureaucracy. The consistency and overall coverage scores for this configuration were 0.95 and 0.62, respectively.

Abstract Utilizing big data available in cyberspace, this article employs a framework to measure governance social capital. The computational social science method has examined the perceptions of the statistical population of users on Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram across four periods in the year 1401 , addressing the challenges to governance social capital during the Iranian protests.
The results indicate that this composite index underwent a sharp declining trend coinciding with the protest events, decreasing by 11.46 percent within a 0 to 100 range in terms of sentiment analysis. The findings are consistent with theories that frame protests as a signal of reduced trust and institutional weakness in the performance of governance values, as well as a violation of the social contract. The study identifies seven key challenges to governance social capital in the context of the 1401 protests in Iran: disruption in the public sphere, structural inefficiency and recourse to expediency in crisis, an ambiguous and unpromising future horizon, reduced public resilience, the activation of social fault lines against the government, a crisis of the intermediary class and civil society accompanied by diminished participation, the discrediting of the benevolence of officials, and the devaluation of shared values and national identity.

Abstract پدیده خودکشی در کشور به نسبت میانگین جهانی در وضعیت نرمالی قرار دارد؛ اما به نظر می‌رسد واریانس آن در بین گروه‌های اجتماعی و به ویژه استان‌های کشور بالاست. به طوری که نرخ خودکشی در برخی از استان‌های کشور همچون کرمانشاه، لرستان، کهگیلویه و بویراحمد و ایلام بالاتر از نرخ‌ کشوری است. علاوه بر این، میزان گسترش این پدیده در مناطق حاشیه‌نشین بالاتر است و نرخ شیوع آن طی سال‌های اخیر چشمگیر بوده است. بر این اساس، پژوهش حاضر به دنبال آن بوده است تا به فهمی در خصوص وضعیت و دلایل خودکشی در محله‌های حاشیه‌نشین شهر کرمانشاه دست یازد. روش پژوهش حاضر ترکیبی و فنون گردآوری داده پرسشنامه و مصاحبه هستند. نتایج نشان می‌دهند که: 1. از اواسط دهه 40 خورشیدی تا کنون، 34 محله حاشیه‌نشین در شهر کرمانشاه به وجود آمده‌اند که بالغ بر 30 درصد جمعیت شهر را تشکیل می‌دهند؛ 2. نرخ گرایش به خودکشی در محلات حاشیه-نشین، در سه بعد تفکر، قصد و اقدامات ناموفق خودکشی زیاد است؛ 3. وضعیت یاد شده متأثر از حاشیه‌نشینی، مشکلات اقتصادی و احساس نابرابری است؛ 4. حمایت اجتماعی به میزان زیادی مانع اصلی و بازدارنده خودکشی در میان افراد است.

Abstract The present study aims to identify the factors involved in intensifying inter-ethnic conflict from the perspective of the Baluch minority. To this end, a theoretical model is proposed based on the research framework to examine the impact of evaluating government ethnic policies, feelings of discrimination, ethnocentric actions of ethnic elites, and national, ethnic, and religious identities. Data were collected using a survey method with a structured questionnaire. The sample consisted of 250 individuals selected via cluster sampling proportional to size. The collected data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The results indicated that the evaluation of government ethnic policies (0.63**), evaluation of ethnic elites' ethnocentric actions (0.38**), sense of discrimination (0.27**), and national (-0.52**), religious (0.41**), and ethnic (0.34**) identities have a significant effect on inter-ethnic conflict from the perspective of the Baluch. Furthermore, among all significant variables, the evaluation of government ethnic policies had the strongest impact, while the feeling of discrimination had the weakest effect on inter-ethnic conflict.

Abstract This article investigates the social, cultural, and gendered mechanisms that reproduce exclusion and shame among the Roma residing in Ilam City. . Findings reveal that the Roma body functions as a “mobile marker” in urban spaces, rendering difference hyper-visible and activating exclusionary mechanisms. These markers persist within unequal structures—such as educational systems, healthcare services, and everyday interactions—producing experiences of non-acceptance in schools, humiliation in clinics, and discrimination in access to social resources. Social exclusion is reproduced not only at the macro level but also within micro-social relationships, where objects, utensils, and food carry connotations of “symbolic pollution,” silently reinforcing the boundary between “us” and “them.” In response to this multi-layered exclusion, a hidden, shame-laden identity emerges, driving many Roma to retreat, remain silent, and at times conceal their identity altogether. Ultimately, this article demonstrates that Roma identity is not stigmatized merely because of cultural difference but through unequal power relations that inscribe exclusion both symbolically and materially—transforming the Roma into a silenced, shameful subject who nevertheless strives to carve out pathways for survival and meaning within the margins.

Abstract In contemporary Iran, transgender life is caught in a paradoxical state of “legal acceptance” and “social exclusion.” The dominance of the medical-legal perspective has created a profound gap between “formal knowledge” (based on pathology) and “lived experience.” Thus, this research analyzes the social construction of the transition process within this gap to understand how social actors narrate and experience this path. Conducted within the framework of critical constructivism, the study employs a two-phase qualitative methodology: reflexive thematic analysis of over 100 hours of Persian podcasts and participatory ethnography in Isfahan based on 80 hours of in-depth interviews with 15 transgender individuals and 5 specialists. Findings indicate that while public self-narratives formulate transition in a linear, five-stage model (disruption, translation and naming, institutional bargaining, temporary accommodation, re-creation), field evidence reveals lived reality as continuous structural suspension. Finally, drawing on critical symbolic interactionism, the study argues that this linear model is a symbolic struggle by the subject to impose order on chaos and achieve “legibility”- an effort that, paradoxically, leads to the reproduction of the linear logic desired by formal institutions.