A Sociological Analysis of the Gap between Public Policy Formulation and Implementation in Iran: The Role of Power Structure, Social Capital and Institutional Trust

The persistent distance between what public policies promise and what they deliver is one of the most durable problems of governance in developing states. This paper offers a sociological reading of that distance in the Iranian context, arguing that the implementation gap is not primarily a technical or managerial deficiency but the observable outcome of a particular configuration of social relations. Adopting a qualitative, documentary and analytical design, the study synthesises the classical and contemporary implementation literature with institutional theory and the sociology of trust, and reads the Iranian experience through that combined lens. Three explanatory mechanisms are identified and organised into an integrated conceptual model. At the structural level, the concentration of decision-making authority and the rent-based allocation of resources allow formally adopted goals to be quietly redirected during execution. At the institutional level, overlapping and parallel organisations, weak institutional complementarity and low generalised trust produce fragmented implementation structures in which ceremonial compliance replaces substantive delivery. At the level of agency, street-level bureaucrats and target populations respond to this environment with discretionary coping strategies and reliance on informal ties, which further personalises services that policy defines as universal. The three levels are shown to be mutually reinforcing rather than additive: distrust generated at one level supplies the rationale for behaviour at the next. The paper concludes that reforms confined to procedural or legal instruments are unlikely to narrow the gap, and that credible, incremental institutional signals aimed at rebuilding institutional trust constitute a more plausible reform path.

کلیدواژه ها:

implementation gap ، public policy ، political sociology ، social capital ، institutional trust ، governance in Iran