A Meta-analysis on Urban Governance Researches in Iran

In recent years, due to inefficiency of tradition tools and methods of urban management, the importance of models of transition from centralized and hierarchical government to good, decentralized and democratic governance models have increased. Growth, abundance and variety of published scientific researches in this field is another indication of the need for further research in this field. Therefore, this research reviews scientific researches in the field of good urban governance using meta-analysis method and revisal approach in order to emphasis on their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. The domain of the current research spans researches published in Iranian scientific journals on good urban governance. Results show that researches on good urban governance using descriptive methodology are developmental and applied, thus these researches have been steered to theory-testing. Moreover, the abundance of qualitative and descriptive-analytical methods has increased the use of deductive methods in the analysis process. In conclusion, the evolution of research in urban governance was initiated by descriptive methodology and in a limited scale, have experienced a period of quantitative analysis in metropolises of Iran. Thus, in spite of some applicable and creative proposals in published papers, it is necessary to use local approaches along with emphasizing on social and philosophic theories, and explanative and providential models, if we want these researches to be effective for cities and their management.