Governance Foresight, a Concept Development and Future of Tehran Metropolitan Governance

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Planning, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Geography and Planning, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran

2 PhD in Geography and Urban Planning, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Geography and Planning, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran

3 Professor of Geography and Rural Planning, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Geography and Planning, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran

4 Associate Professor of Urban Planning, Faculty of Art and Architecture, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
Governance foresight in scientific literature has its root in social foresight. At the operational and executive level, policy making based on foresight is a branch of foresight which has been related with foresight of governance. The results of a governance system are the policies and programs resulted from. In a lower level of governance pattern, the pattern of decision making and policy making can be foresight-based. Policy oriented foresight attempts to see public policy making in long term and also refuses to predict. Furthermore, policy oriented foresight is based on this assumption that governments have the potential to influence the future. They consider the alternative ways of changing society by using foresight methods in order to that each of them needs different requirements and demands which needs different ways. The evolution of technology and rapid growth of physical-economic cities along with rapid changes in life style and relationships among citizen together in one hand and relationships between citizens and urban management in another hand show clearly the importance of the future of urban governance. In foresight literature, the future of management was discussed by researchers in the form anticipatory governance and governance foresight theories, but among these researches there are few cases which have considered the future of metropolitan’s governance.  
The future of Tehran as a metropolitan and capital is dependent upon drastic changes in macro trends of environmental, political, social, economic and technological conditions. Among these drastic changes, the structure of governance in Tehran won't be an exception; there are many future possibilities ahead. Accordingly, this future needs to be identified and discussed in order to determine an optimized path to tolerate such changes. The principles and concepts of foresight have been discussed and the scenarios of Tehran governance in 2040 horizon have been plotted and explained in this research.
Methodology
The nature of this research is descriptive-analytical and exploratory. It is exploratory because it doesn't follow the confirmation or rejection of the relationship between two variables and its goal is not test of a hypothesis, but it follows to recognize effective driving forces on the future of Tehran' governance and explore scenarios for future. The time horizon of the research is 2040 (1420) and this emphasize on the time horizon when asking from the experts about the degree of its effectiveness and uncertainty. In order to know effective deriving forces on the future of Tehran, first of all the global driving forces have been recognized by environmental scanning in form of STEEP method. In the meantime, the review of urban foresight experiments and using interview with mayors of different cities of all around the world about macro trends and effective driving forces on the future of the cities are the most  important references. In order to completion and localization of identified deriving forces, the method of real-time Delphi (RTD) has been used. After the preparation of final list and the localization of driving forces, in order to recognize critical uncertainties, the ideas of 32 experts have been considered about the degree of driving forces' effectiveness and uncertainty  on the future of Tehran' governance. Therefore, the scenarios are identified and 3 critical uncertainties are the basis for the scenarios. The incompatible scenarios have been removed by morphology analysis method and finally three scenarios are remained and the story of them is presented.  
Results and discussion  
Based on real-time Delphi results, the driving forces make major reforms in structure of the country administration and forming federalism in country, globalization and its influences on Tehran and participation status of NGOs and civil institutions in governance have the most degree of effectiveness and uncertainties. Based on three identified critical uncertainties and its combination overall 8 possible scenarios are created by the research. After internal incompatibility of scenarios the removing, 5 scenarios are remain as compatible ones and in following, the story for each of them is presented. Each of these scenarios will have different effects on urban governance and strengthening or weakening indicators of good urban governance on Tehran metropolis. In part of scenarios analyzed and explained about the effectiveness of every scenario on urban governance indicators.  .
Conclusion
The results of the research show the future of Tehran governance won't be like the past, it’s also not so ideal that all obstacles to governance will be eliminated overnight. After reviewing scientific literature and based on the results of  real-time Delphi it is clear that the future of Tehran governance is under the influence of a set of economic, political, natural, social and technological (overall 32) driving forces. The forces will be effective on the Tehran governance in their own style. In the meantime, 5 possible scenarios are applied in Tehran governance. Two of them at the two end of spectrum show the best and the worst possible status of key challenges and opportunities of Tehran governance.
The first scenario (governance at world class) is along a series of opportunities to improve the structure of Tehran governance. If the capacities of this scenario will be used in the best way, so the optimal pattern of urban governance will be possible and its major obstacles will be eliminated. However, in the third scenario (hard times of Khosrowan) the occurrence of negative defaults of critical uncertainties has made very difficulties to remove the obstacle. It also will have a series of new problems. In other scenarios, there are a combination of capacities and obstacles of urban governance; they make the managers to the possible futures. Thus, urban managers must be prepared to use each of the capacities with the knowledge and obstacles of scenarios and at the same time they must be prepared themselves for new obstacles and won’t rely only on limited methods to reform metropolitan governance structure.  

Keywords

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Geographical Urban Planning Research (GUPR)
Volume 7, Issue 3
October 2019
Pages 431-453

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