International Journal of

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There are studies about interlocal relations of local governance, but it would be unique to explain these in urban management mechanisms of unitary country in Middle East, like Iran. One of the important issues for the city's urban management system is its state actors’ interrelations and probable challenges of this process, which mentioned by terms like inter-local, intergovernmental, or inter-organizational relations and is the main issue of this article. Present study aims to find the main challenges in the iranian multi-level intergovernmental relations, especially in local-level urban management of small cities. After a review of conflicts among local actors in iranian town’s administration, the contradictory components are summarized in the propositions. In order to better explain findings and utilize the opinions of local decision makers of Natanz city (the study case in Iran), the importance of existing conflicts and challenges was measured via questionnaire and interview. Through factor analysis method, such propositions as lack of updated plans and programs (prepared at national level but for local level), and the unbalanced proportion between scope of duties and authority at local level, are among the most important concerns of them.

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The life of Towns has become more important and greatly emphasized in recent years and this heralds the arrival of a new era when this type of settlements is introduced as major living and investment capacities. Therefore, it is necessary to study the different aspects of towns in order to plan and manage their development and answer the question about different decision-making mechanism in them. In the present study, after explaining the place and role of towns in the development transition period, the local governance mechanism is introduced as the main issue of such cities through a qualitative radial model literature review. By examining several recent studies on towns, it is found that the type of relations between individuals and actors on the one hand, and the impact of their activities and functions on the decisions made on national and regional scales on the other hand, create a different form of local governance mechanism in these cities than in large cities. Accordingly, the existing recognition and analysis processes and tools, that are primarily designed to assess the conditions of large cities, cannot be used. According to the present study, the decision-making mechanism can be an appropriate structure for expressing the complex relationships between actors in towns. As a result, a relational framework can be introduced to explain the decision-making mechanism in the local governance process of towns. This framework is designed based on the general international literature and experiences and can serve as a preliminary tool used for the identification and examination of the administrative mechanisms in towns and be modified and improved in various fields through future researches.