A Study of the Differences in Economic Factors, Political Competition and Foreign Intervention in the 1997 and 2009 Presidential Elections

Introduction One area of human activity that requires decision-making and selection is political participation. This is a voluntary activity through which members of a community participate in the affairs of their neighborhoods, towns and villages and directly and indirectly contribute to shaping their social and political life. Voting is the most effective and most practical means for citizens to give and apply their opinions and ideas in the management of public and social affairs. Among all elections held in Iran, the presidential election of 2009, though was held according to previous elections, the electoral behavior of people brought many problems. In this period, some of the people came to streets to protest election results and protests turned into violent acts, causing confrontations among the main political figures, scholars, academics, and many state agencies. Thus, the main question of this research is that why in the similar presidential election of 1997, the electoral behavior was non- violent but in 2009 it became violent. (Similarity of the two elections was in this respect that in both 1997and 2009, elections were held in a competitive spirit and the main competition revolved around two candidates). Materials and Methods The research method is a causal - comparative survey in which two presidential elections in 1997 and 2009 are compared. Research population includes Shiraz administrative elites who have been employed for a period of at least 20 years and have experienced at least one period of managerial position at various levels of the organization in which they have been working. Because of the lack of formal data on the population, using exploratory study, the population was estimated to be around 250 individuals, of whom 149 cases were selected to enter our sample size, using Krejcie and Morganâs sampling table and random multi-stage sampling method. The measurement tool is a researcher-made questionnaire using 5-point likert scale, including 30 items in the frame of three dimensions including economic (10 items), political completion (10 items) and foreign intervention (10 items). Validity of the scale was measured using content validity and the reliability was measured using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. Discussion of Results and Conclusions In total, 482 respondents including 128 (85.3%) males and 21 (14%) females answered our questionnaire. In this study, the age of respondents was between 40 to 60 years old and their average was