Evaluation and Analysis of Comprehensive Index of Political Competition in Iran’s provinces (2000-2019)

Document Type : Research

Authors

1 Ph.D student of Economics, Department of Economic, Management and Administrative Sciences Faculty, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran.

2 Associate Professor in Economics, Department of Economic, Management and Administrative Sciences Faculty, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran.

Abstract

Abstract
Political competition is one of the important factors in the improving society economic performance; the growth of political competition increases the possibility of the presence of elites in the political system and by limiting political rents and dominating special groups over economic resources, forces politicians to adjust economic policies to increase citizen’s welfare. Accordingly, it is argued that increasing political competition improves economic efficiency. Such an approach has attracted government attention to the development of political competition. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relative position of the country's provinces in terms of political competition indicator and also to examine its changes at the provincial level to evaluate the status of political competition indicator as an important component in the regional economy performance.
The hypothesis of research is that, firstly, there is a considerable dispersion among different regions in terms of political competition, and secondly, the performance of this type of competition in the country has not been as expected. In this regard, first, based on different indicators of political competition, a comprehensive index of political competition based on the Root Mean Square method is introduced and measured. Then, the status of the political competition index in the provinces during the years 2000 to 2019 will be evaluated. The estimation results show that firstly, there is a considerable dispersion among different regions in terms of political competition index so that the country provinces can be divided to three levels of political competition as low, medium and high. Secondly, the average trend of political competition index is generally declining in the provinces of the country in the 20-year period, whereby it is necessary to create the necessary policies for growth of political competition at the national and regional levels, given the role of political actors in regional performance.

Keywords

References

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International Political Economy Studies
Volume 4, Issue 2
December 2021
Pages 625-659

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History

  • Receive Date: 12 July 2021
  • Revise Date: 05 December 2021
  • Accept Date: 06 December 2021

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