Interpretive Structural Analysis of Policy Making in National-Level Strategic Issues (Case Study of Environmental Issues)

One of the emerging theoretical subjects in the public administration discipline is the strategic public policy that results from the combination of theoretical literature in the two fields of "public policy" and "strategic management". This qualitative research is aimed to structural-interpretative policy analysis in national-level strategic issues. Considering the wide range of issues at the national level, decision making based on environmental issues in the country has been at the center of attention. The main question of the research is that what is the policy making levels in the national strategic issues with an emphasis on environmental issues? In order to answer this question, the combination of qualitative methods of thematic analysis and structural- interpretation modeling has been used. Thematic analysis method through conducting interviews with experts and coding of written data eventually led to the emerging of 13 global themes. Finally, these themes are followed by the steps in structural- interpretive modeling and paired relationship at six levels of problem solving, key actors, independent actors, government actors, citizen actions, global actors & National laws. These levels in fact represent policy making layers on national-level strategic issues focusing on environmental issues.