Social Problems of Iran

The Problems of Charities in Relation with the State and the Market

Authors

Hamzeh Nozari 1
Alireza Eskandarinejhad 2

1 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

2 PhD student of Cultural Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.61186/jspi.15.2.269
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the problems of charities in relation and interaction with the state and the market. This study is based on the theory of appropriate configurationsss between the three arenas, which explains the interaction and communication between civil society, the state, and the market, and tries to provide a different explanation from the two competing approaches. In this approach, charities are non-governmental and non-market organizations that can be understood in their relative independence and the way they interact and relate with the other two arenas, and their issues can be seen. In addition, these types of organizations have economic and welfare goals and functions that they try to do differently from the state bureaucracy and the market. The method of this study is of qualitative type and semi-structured interview with 129 people who are involved in charitable institutions in Iran, which was conducted during one year. The findings show that the most important problems of these organizations in relation to the state are: govtization of charities as much as possible, lack of effective laws, competing ideas of big charities, lack of integrity of authority in licensing and supervision. The main challenge of these organizations in relation to the market is the indifference of economic enterprises towards social responsibility and charity organizations. With such problems, charities become cogs of the state bureaucracy, which only have obligations and responsibilities to the state, and their function has only a relief aspect, which is the beginning of their decline.


Keywords

Charities
Civil society
Charities Market
state
Configuration
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  • Receive Date 08 June 2026
  • Publish Date 08 June 2026