Revisiting Laws and Institutions in Iran’s Energy Operational Governance: From Policies to Implementation on the Path to Sustainable Development (in Persian)

Purpose: The primary objective of this article was to revisit the laws and institutions governing operational energy management in Iran to identify the underlying causes of the country's failure to achieve a desirable status in sustainable development. Methodology: A qualitative and documentary approach was employed to examine the state of policymaking in Iran by analyzing energy-related laws. Based on the theoretical framework of the Hill and Hope matrix, the implementation of these policies was assessed under the concept of energy operational governance. Findings: The findings indicate that attention to sustainable development indicators in policymaking has existed to some extent in the country over past years. However, the main challenge preventing the achievement of desirable outcomes in the energy sector relates to the implementation of policies, or operational governance of energy. The results show that in the production sector, the government has adopted an operational governance approach by enhancing the role of the private sector; nevertheless, in other areas, the influence of civil society and the private sector has remained limited. Furthermore, the findings reveal that Iran’s gap from sustainable development indicators stems from a resource-oriented approach in the implementation of laws and policies. This has led to an unbalanced advancement of indicators, resulting not only in the failure to achieve sustainable development goals but also in the emergence of new problems. Originality: This study presents a framework based on operational governance theories and energy-related variables. These variables, which involve the interaction between the roles of actors at different performance levels and various processes of the energy industry, add a new dimension to the operational governance model that has not been previously examined with such differentiation in earlier studies.