بهرام صمدنیا

After approximately three decades of implementing population control and family planning policies, Iran's population policy underwent a significant reversal with the announcement of general population policies in 2014. This shift experienced many fluctuations, ultimately leading to a complete change marked by the enactment and implementation of the “Youthful Population and Family Protection Law” in 2021. This study aims to address the question: "Why and how did the national population policy in Iran change?" The study analyzes the policy change process using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), adopting a post-positivist philosophical orientation, a qualitative research paradigm, and a case study strategy. Utilizing this framework can help improve, strengthen, and address its shortcomings, contributing to the theoretical development of policy studies. The findings revealed the formation of two advocacy coalitions within Iran's population policy sphere: (a) the coalition of population control and family planning advocates, and (b) the coalition of population growth and childbearing advocates. Additionally, the policy shift from population control and family planning programs to the enactment and implementation of the Youthful Population and Family Protection Law can be attributed to the causal mechanisms of this framework, namely "policy-oriented learning," "external shocks," "internal shocks," and to a lesser extent, "negotiated agreements".  Policymakers should aim to improve their understanding of the policy-making process in Iran, recognizing the role and importance of coalitions, and draw lessons from both successful and un successful experiences in policy-making.

In Iran, a number of studies have been conducted on population policies in recent years. By examining these studies, it is evident that no review study has examined these studies and provided a clearer picture of the state of population policy studies. Most of the articles were written in documentary and descriptive form and in some periods (2010 and 2015) were more published, which can be caused by the persuasion of researchers through some factors such as the desire of politicians to change the population policy and also communicating the general policies of the population. The conflict of opinions in population policy approaches in Iran is evident, most of the studies have agreed to increase the population policy in the target period. Analyzing the reason for this difference of opinion, the discourse of each of these approaches, and conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses about population policies as well as designing the optimal model of population policy-making in can be suggested