آسیب‎شناسی تعاملات شوراهای اسلامی شهر و شهرداری‎ها (مورد مطالعه: شهرهای استان لرستان)

Dysfunctional interaction between municipality and city council can significantly undermine the performance of both institutions and thus the quality of urban management. This significant effect highlights the necessity of local studies on the pathologies of this relationship. The present research aimed to identify and rank the pathologies of the interactions between municipalities and city councils in one province of Iran. The research was carried out by the use of exploratory mixed methods in the framework of taxonomy development model. In the first phase of research, 51 council members and mayors in the studied province, who were selected by typical sampling, were interviewed. The findings revealed 31 pathologies in 6 major categories. Then, a questionnaire prepared for pairwise comparison of found pathologies was distributed among 64 mayors and councils members in the studied province. The results of the AHP technique showed that among the major pathologies in the municipality-city council interactions, insufficient institutionalization of municipalities and councils and legal gaps are the most prominent. Among the miner pathologies, deficiency of council and municipality laws, deficient expertise and experience of some council members and mayors, and absence of a coherent training program for council members in relation to their duties were found to be the most important factors undermining the interactions of city councils with municipalities in the studied realm.