In interactive, collaborative or open policy, stakeholders are engaged in different aspects of policy process from problem definition to decision making. Main objectives of this approach are enhancing transparency and mutual responsibility as well as formation and development of civil culture. Moreover, some recent trends have made adoption of this approach as a necessity, e.g., increased power of citizens, more horizontal society, more access to information due to IT developments, significance of citizens’ collaboration in the implementations, and formation of new domains requiring more information about citizens.
Such policies can be initiated top-down by government or bottom-up by civil societies and local institutions. In such setting, the role of the government is to establish required infra-structures and to open space for collaboration, while civil societies and public institutions should work on raising public awareness and capacity building. These would result in effective engagement citizens in the policy process. Nonetheless, collaboration mechanisms are not well-developed and suitable instruments for interactive decision making are not in place. In the 40s of the Islamic Revolution, when sanctions are at their extreme level to hit the Iran society, policy making has to reform. Hence this year’s conference is titled: “Open Policy: Interacting Society, Elites and State”.
