Introduction 
Participatory planning and budgeting, as the most fundamental axis of local community participation in governance decision-making, provides an opportunity for stakeholders to jointly agree on what, how, and where their resources should be spent. Given the complexity of the process of effective participation of local communities in governance decision-making, numerous attempts to respond to this need have failed. In examining the reasons for the failure of participation in different regions, the neglect of governance is raised. Participatory governance, by strengthening the communication and reflective capacities of public institutions, attempts to overcome the limitations of effective participation. The present study analyzes the governance system of urban planning and budgeting using the methodology of social network analysis. Social network analysis is a systemic approach to assessing complex communication networks and creating tools to facilitate future collaborations between actors across institutional boundaries, as well as an innovative approach to analyzing governance structures. The present study is an application of social network analysis in analyzing the participatory governance system of urban planning and budgeting. In addition to analyzing the governance structure based on the legal power of actors’ participation, it also identifies areas for improving the system in institutional and legal design with a focus on the participatory planning and budgeting process and provides policy recommendations in this regard.
Materials and Methods
The present study has analyzed the participatory governance system of urban planning and budgeting using the social network analysis approach. This approach studies social structures using graph theory, and its most important concepts are: network, node, and edge. A network is a set of at least three nodes and a number of edges that indicate the presence or absence of a connection between nodes. Nodes can be individuals, groups, units, or organizations. The most important index of network analysis is the centrality index; in general, centrality has a broad concept that is used to identify and determine key actors or connections in a network. The value of the degree centrality of each point is obtained by counting the number of its neighbors. The higher the degree of a point, the more central it is considered to have access to resources. Other network analysis indicators include the geodesic distance index, which measures the speed of cooperation and the circulation of resources and information in the network, and identifies vulnerable parts of the network. The geodesic distance index in social network analysis is defined as the shortest path between two nodes in a network. This concept is taken from mathematical geometry and is used in social sciences to measure the distance between individuals or entities in a network. The geodesic distance between two nodes is equal to the minimum number of edges that must be traversed to get from one node to another. If there is a path (direct edge) between two nodes, the geodesic distance is equal to one, and if there is no path, the calculation is made based on the shortest indirect path. Given that the law on the organization, duties, and elections of Islamic councils in the country is considered the basis for the legal power of activists, in this study, social network analysis data were extracted and analyzed using legal provisions related to the duties of city councils. In accordance with the review of the National Council’s Law, 47 legal themes in the field of urban planning and budgeting were extracted, and 19 involved institutions were identified as system actors. The legal themes were classified according to six areas of participation, including awareness, decision-making, institutional agreement, implementation, and monitoring. Next, by forming a governance network matrix, the legal position of actors was analyzed based on the degree centrality index and geodesic distance. 
Findings
The focus of the legal contents of the councils on the participation of actors in planning and budgeting is in the field of participation in decision-making with 38 legal contents, monitoring with 25 legal contents, implementation with 23 legal contents, and decision-making with 24 legal contents, and participation in the fields of awareness-raising with only one legal content and institutional agreements with only two legal contents, despite the emphasis they have on the formation of participatory governance in planning and budgeting, has been neglected in the current structure. In order to analyze the structure of participatory governance, 19 cooperating actors were identified, and the legal contents related to each of the actors were also determined. Following the identified legal themes, the actor institutions were considered as rows and the participation fields as columns of the governance network structure matrix. Considering the distribution of the number of themes of each actor in the six participation levels, the values of the cells of the actor-participation network matrix were entered into the calculations. The degree centrality of the network was calculated using Ucinet software, and then the relevant networks were drawn using NetDraw software. In the participatory governance network, the City Council (ORG 02) and, by a long way, the Municipality (ORG 03) have the most significant legal power to participate in city planning and budgeting. Relevant Agencies and Legal Authorities (ORG 18), the Ministry of Interior (ORG 04), and People (ORG 01) are in the following ranks, which shows the legislator’s belief in government and public participation in urban planning. However, the private sector (ORG 12), non-governmental organizations (ORG 13), and NGOs (ORG 10) have the weakest legal power in the participatory governance structure.
Conclusion
According to the findings, in the current system, the legal power of decision-making and oversight is concentrated in the city council, and the areas of awareness and empowerment of local communities and institutional agreements have been neglected. In addition, given that the current governance structure focuses only on the participation of the city council and the municipality, and local communities and other actors are far removed from legal power, the success of implementing participatory planning and budgeting approaches in the current system cannot be assured. In this regard, strengthening the legal relationship of the city council with other actors and creating an integrated urban governance structure, redesigning the urban planning and budgeting system, planning a comprehensive participatory budgeting system for capital projects, strengthening interactive and consensual approaches in screening and prioritizing capital asset acquisition plans, strengthening the participation of the scientific elite network in the needs assessment and initial feasibility of development plans, activating the citizen selection mechanism to manage the portfolio of regional projects, presenting a plan to implement the Public-Private Partnership model in urban capital projects, having a mechanism for local communities to participate in the implementation of regional projects through co-creation models, strengthening public trust through financial transparency and attracting participation in paying legal fees, strengthening relations with the media and educational institutions in order to raise awareness and social empowerment, and strengthening public monitoring mechanisms, receiving feedback and accountability from city managers from the areas of institutional and legal development of the participatory planning and budgeting governance system.