Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
Department of Sociology, Bu.C., Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, Iran
2
Department of Sociology, Ney.C., Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran
10.22034/jsc.2026.560428.1898
Abstract
A B S T R A C T
The primary objective of this study is to identify and meticulously analyze corruption-prone contexts within the municipalities of Bushehr Province. Utilizing a qualitative approach, the research aimed to delineate the prerequisites for achieving good governance and sustainable urban development. The statistical population comprised all managers, deputies, and expert staff with over 15 years of service across seven selected municipalities in Bushehr Province (including Bushehr, Borazjan, Khormuj, Deyyer, Asaluyeh, Deylam, and Ganaveh), constituting an aggregate population size of 470 individuals. From this population, 15 key experts in urban management were selected through purposive sampling until theoretical saturation was reached. Data were collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews and analyzed using qualitative content analysis techniques facilitated by MAXQDA 2022 software. The findings revealed six major corruption-prone domains within the province’s urban management, ranked by significance: Economic-Financial (e.g., inadequate salaries and heavy reliance on unsustainable revenues), Administrative (complex bureaucratic processes and the phenomenon of “golden signatures”), Political (arbitrary interference by city councils and frequent managerial turnovers), Social (nepotism, ethnic pressures, and the precedence of personal relations over regulations), Cultural (normalization of misconduct and the justification of illicit payments), and Technical (weak supervisory systems and the issuance of fraudulent certificates). The near-unanimous consensus among experts on these factors indicates a deep systemic entanglement within the municipal structures. The study concludes that without simultaneous structural reforms in the “primary triangle” (economic, administrative, and political domains) and dedicated attention to reinforcing factors, ad-hoc anti-corruption measures will remain ineffective
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Administrative corruption is one of the most complex and persistent challenges facing contemporary systems of governance, with consequences that are evident across economic, social, political, and cultural dimensions. This phenomenon not only leads to the diversion of public resources and a decline in the efficiency of governmental organizations, but also undermines social capital, public trust, and institutional legitimacy. In the field of urban management, administrative corruption becomes even more sensitive, because municipalities, as the closest executive institutions to citizens, are responsible for providing essential and everyday services, and their decisions directly affect the quality of urban life. Issuing building permits, land-use changes, implementation of urban development projects, contracting with private contractors, collecting municipal charges, managing public properties, and enforcing urban planning regulations are among the areas that involve both substantial financial flows and broad decision‑making authority. In the absence of strong oversight mechanisms and institutional transparency, such characteristics can create fertile ground for various forms of misconduct, including bribery, collusion in tenders, abuse of legal authority, issuance of illegal permits, and non‑merit-based recruitment. From the perspective of sustainable urban development, administrative corruption constitutes a serious obstacle to achieving spatial justice, economic efficiency, and social cohesion, because it diverts the distribution of urban resources and services from rational and equitable paths and places public interests at risk. Therefore, the accurate identification of corruption‑prone contexts within municipalities is not only a managerial necessity but also a prerequisite for achieving accountable and sustainable urban governance.
Bushehr Province, due to its geographical position, economic structure, and distinctive social characteristics, represents a notable case for studying corruption in urban management. The province includes seven active municipalities in the cities of Bushehr, Borazjan, Khormuj, Dayyer, Asaluyeh, Deylam, and Genaveh. In recent years, these cities have experienced significant economic transformations driven by the expansion of oil and gas industries, port activities, and the rapid growth of urban construction. At the same time, the revenue structure of municipalities in the province largely relies on unstable sources, particularly fees generated from issuing building permits and penalties imposed by commissions dealing with construction violations. Such a structure can strengthen financial dependence on construction activities and encourage revenue‑oriented decision‑making. Moreover, the social fabric of the region, which is partly shaped by ethnic and kinship relations, may in some cases influence recruitment, appointment, and supervision processes and can contribute to the formation of informal networks of power. Frequent managerial changes resulting from municipal council cycles and political interventions in managerial appointments further reduce organizational stability and encourage short‑term and non‑strategic decision‑making. Despite these conditions, no comprehensive study has yet examined the corruption‑prone contexts across all municipalities of Bushehr Province in a simultaneous and comparative manner. Most existing studies have either focused on national‑level analyses or concentrated on large metropolitan areas, and many have adopted quantitative approaches that are often unable to reveal the hidden and context‑dependent dimensions of administrative corruption. Accordingly, the present research adopts a qualitative approach and draws upon the lived experiences of experienced managers and experts in order to identify, classify, and analyze the structural, institutional, and cultural contexts that contribute to the emergence of corruption in the municipalities of Bushehr Province, and to provide an analytical framework for anti‑corruption policymaking in urban governance.
Methodology
In terms of purpose, this study is applied, and in terms of nature it adopts a qualitative design based on an inductive content analysis approach. The choice of a qualitative method was motivated by the complex, multidimensional, and often hidden nature of administrative corruption, as understanding such phenomena requires access to the deep experiences of organizational actors and insight into institutional and cultural contexts. The statistical population consisted of all managers, deputy managers, and experts with more than fifteen years of work experience in the seven municipalities of Bushehr Province, whose number was estimated at approximately 470 individuals. Sampling was conducted using a purposive approach based on the principle of maximum variation in order to include perspectives from different managerial levels and cities within the province. The selection process continued until theoretical saturation was achieved, meaning that after fifteen interviews no new concepts or categories emerged and the extracted patterns began to repeat. The final sample included two former municipal managers, two former deputy managers, and eleven senior experts with extensive professional experience. The main data collection tool was semi‑structured interviews designed on the basis of the preliminary theoretical framework and a review of the relevant literature. These interviews included one general question regarding the factors shaping corruption and six specific questions related to social, cultural, economic‑financial, administrative, political, and technical contexts. Interviews were conducted either face‑to‑face or online after obtaining informed consent from participants and ensuring the confidentiality of their information. All interviews were recorded and fully transcribed, with an average duration of approximately seventy‑five minutes. Data analysis was carried out using MAXQDA 2022 software. In the first stage, open coding was performed to extract initial concepts, which resulted in the identification of 487 codes. These codes were subsequently organized into subthemes based on conceptual similarities and ultimately categorized into six main contexts. To enhance the credibility of the findings, validation strategies such as source triangulation, member checking, and peer review were employed to ensure analytical coherence and the reliability of the results.
Result and Discussion
The analysis of interview data revealed that administrative corruption in the municipalities of Bushehr Province is the result of the interaction of several structural and contextual conditions that operate in an interconnected network. Among these contexts, the economic‑financial context received the highest level of importance, with an average score of 4.73 out of 5. Participants emphasized that the relatively low salaries and benefits of municipal employees compared with their level of responsibility and work pressure strengthen economic incentives for accepting informal benefits. In addition, the heavy dependence of municipalities on revenues derived from building permits and construction‑related penalties encourages decision‑making structures oriented toward short‑term revenue generation. Under such conditions, increased construction activity or even construction violations may become sources of income, creating a conflict of interest between the municipality’s supervisory role and its revenue‑generating function. The presence of intermediaries and brokers in licensing processes and collusion in some procurement procedures were also identified as components of this context. The administrative context ranked second with an average score of 4.60 and included factors such as lengthy bureaucratic procedures, the existence of multiple “golden signatures,” concentration of authority at limited levels, and incomplete implementation of e‑government systems. The complexity of procedures creates decision‑making bottlenecks that increase the possibility of informal bargaining and the receipt of payments outside the legal framework.
The political context ranked third with an average score of 4.47 and included the intervention of city councils in executive affairs, pressure to appoint specific individuals, and frequent managerial changes. Such managerial instability weakens long‑term planning and reinforces informal relationships. The social context referred to the influence of nepotism, ethnic pressures in recruitment processes, and silence in the face of wrongdoing by acquaintances or relatives. The cultural context involved the normalization of informal payments, traditional justifications for such practices, and reduced ethical sensitivity toward administrative misconduct. Finally, the technical context included weak field supervision, the issuance of nominal or formal compliance certificates, and the exploitation of legal capacities for revenue generation. Overall, the findings indicated that the economic‑financial, administrative, and political contexts constitute the core drivers of corruption, while the remaining contexts function as facilitating and reinforcing factors. This interconnection highlights the structural nature of corruption within the municipalities of the province.
Conclusion
The findings demonstrate that administrative corruption in the municipalities of Bushehr Province cannot be explained as a single‑cause or purely individual phenomenon. Rather, it has a structural, institutional, and multilayered nature that emerges from the simultaneous interaction of economic motivations, administrative opportunities, and political interventions, and is further reinforced and reproduced within social and cultural contexts. This finding suggests that corruption within these municipalities is not merely a sporadic deviation but rather a pattern that has become embedded in certain organizational processes. The dependence of municipalities on unstable financial resources—particularly revenues from construction permits and penalties related to building violations—has created a structural conflict of interest, whereby the institution responsible for monitoring violations may simultaneously benefit from their occurrence. This situation places economic incentives alongside administrative opportunities and political facilitation, generating a dysfunctional cycle that reproduces corruption. Under such circumstances, focusing solely on disciplinary actions, managerial replacements, or stricter punishments is unlikely to produce sustainable reduction in corruption, because the roots of the problem lie within institutional structures and decision‑making mechanisms. The findings indicate that unless simultaneous reforms are undertaken in the economic, administrative, and political domains, anti‑corruption measures will largely remain reactive and symbolic.
From an analytical perspective, the economic‑financial, administrative, and political contexts were identified as the core pillars of corruption in the municipalities of the province. The economic‑financial context provides motivation, the administrative context creates opportunities, and the political context provides a form of informal protection or justification for the continuation of certain practices. Alongside these three main pillars, social and cultural contexts further reduce ethical sensitivity toward misconduct by normalizing certain informal practices. When unofficial payments are redefined through concepts such as “gratitude,” “appreciation,” or “facilitating services,” the boundary between legal and illegal behavior becomes blurred in the minds of both employees and citizens. Moreover, kinship and ethnic pressures can decline oversight mechanisms and discourage the reporting of misconduct. Consequently, combating corruption requires a systematic approach that addresses not only formal institutional arrangements but also informal and cultural dimensions.
Based on the study’s findings, three major strategies are proposed to achieve a sustainable reduction of corruption in the municipalities of Bushehr Province. The first strategy involves reforming the municipal revenue structure by creating stable sources of income and reducing dependence on volatile construction‑related revenues. Establishing compensation funds for employees, aligning salaries and benefits with levels of responsibility, and introducing performance‑based incentive mechanisms can reduce economic pressures and limit financial motivations for engaging in unhealthy interactions. In addition, diversifying urban revenue sources through the development of service‑based municipal charges, efficient management of municipal assets, and transparent investment attraction can strengthen the financial independence of municipalities.
The second strategy involves reforming administrative processes in order to increase transparency and eliminate corruption‑prone bottlenecks. Reducing the number of signatures required for issuing permits, standardizing case‑handling procedures, establishing clear response timelines, and fully implementing e‑government systems can reduce face‑to‑face interactions and increase systemic oversight. The establishment of integrated information systems that record and track all stages of licensing, payments, and contracts can play an important role in reducing opportunities for abuse.
The third strategy involves revising oversight mechanisms and strengthening the managerial independence of municipalities. Relative stability in urban management, transparent criteria for appointing managers, and limiting political interference in executive decisions can help prevent the formation of influence networks. Strengthening both internal and external oversight institutions, establishing independent committees for investigating misconduct, and publicly disclosing financial and contractual performance reports can enhance organizational accountability. Structural reforms must be complemented by cultural change and professional ethics promotion. Continuous training of employees on issues such as conflicts of interest, transparency, and accountability, the development of organizational codes of ethics, and the institutionalization of safe and confidential whistleblowing mechanisms can help reduce social tolerance for corruption. Legal protection for whistleblowers and the creation of channels for citizen participation in monitoring municipal performance are also imperative complementary measures.
In conclusion, achieving sustainable urban development in Bushehr Province requires simultaneous reforms in the economic, administrative, political, and cultural dimensions of urban governance. Administrative corruption not only wastes financial resources but also erodes public trust, and without trust the implementation of development policies becomes highly challenging. Therefore, anti‑corruption policymaking should be comprehensive, gradual, and evidence‑based. By identifying six corruption‑prone contexts, this study provides an analytical framework for understanding the relationships among these factors and demonstrates that effective anti‑corruption efforts are possible only through an integrated and structural approach. If the proposed strategies are implemented simultaneously, it can be expected that the conditions facilitating corruption will diminish, organizational efficiency will improve, and the path toward transparent and accountable urban governance will become more attainable.
Funding
There is no funding support.
Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.
Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.
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