Sajjad Fattahi

The combination of systems engineering and sociology has shaped Sajjad Fattahi’s analytical approach to the study of governance and sustainability. From ۱۳۹۴ to ۱۳۹۹, he worked as a senior analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies of the Iranian Presidency and contributed to national reports, including provincial issue-mapping reports on Iran and reports on national sustainability and governance systems.

His main areas of research include sustainability, quality of governance, structural crises, social development, the environment, urban studies, public policy, and the design of decision-making systems. He examines the problem of contemporary Iran through the relationship among society, the state, the environment, institutions, and the capacity to confront crises. In his work, sustainability is understood not merely as an environmental or economic issue, but as a broad question of governance, institution-building, and national destiny.

Fattahi uses systems theory and the study of complex systems to connect social-scientific concepts with concrete problems of policy-making and macro-level management. He emphasizes the idea that one of the main functions of political systems is to increase the sustainability of the geopolitical territories under their administration. From this perspective, weaknesses in institutional design and decision-making systems can lead to the erosion of social capital, crises of legitimacy, and threats to sustainability. In his more recent work, the concept of the transition period has gained special importance: a sensitive phase in which the quality of institutional design and crisis management can shape the future path of society for years.