Could Iran Become a Democratic Theocracy?
For present purposes, let’s say we all agree that the political process is the process of effecting choices for the community as a whole (i.e., choosing among perceived alternatives and taking action to bring that choice to fruition). As such, the political system is the set of institutions via which that process proceeds. The offices of government form the functional core of the system/process, with the political system including other possible elements, such as a constitution (written or not), (recognized) political rights, political parties, etc.
A democratic political process has freedom of political speech for all citizens. It also has a ‘democratic’ distribution of all (other) political rights: the right to petition the government, the right to (peaceably) assemble, the right to run for office, and the right to vote. A democratic distribution of those rights means that they are available to all citizens, but for universally applicable restrictions that are universally applied. The only indisputably universal restriction is age; over the history of Modern democracy property, gender, and ‘race’ (color of skin) have been abandoned as discriminators because they are not universally applicable.
Today, all theocratic nations are Islamic, and most of those are governed by some form of monarchy. Indonesia is an overwhelmingly Islamic nation that is clearly a democracy (based on the above criteria), as is (‘on paper’) Pakistan. Iraq’s status is a muddle. Meanwhile, Iran exists as a theocratic “Islamic Republic.”
In short, there has never been a theocracy that was also a democracy. The nature of all that is involved in imposing a particular interpretation of a theology on the entire population of a nation seems to have precluded the existence of a democracy.
Still, could such a thing be possible? Iran presents itself, to my mind, as the most tantalizing possibility for a theocratic democracy to emerge.
To be clear, Iran is not a democracy. Freedom of political speech does not exist. Women are barred from holding public office, though they do have the right to vote. Petitioning the government and peaceable assembly are not formally barred, but they are actively discouraged. The powers that be routinely interfere in elections, even imprisoning political leaders who oppose the status quo.
Still, Iran has an intriguing political structure. The Quran is in essence its ‘constitution’. All laws are subject to review by the Supreme Council, which judges their compatibility with the Quran. Like the constitution of any nation, it is open to interpretation — though the utter domination of the Council by the Ayatollah wrecks any parallel with it and a supreme court in a democratic nation.
Even so, the point is that a true democracy could exist in Iran using the Quran as a constitution. There are Muslims who insist that the Quran does not relegate women to being second-class human beings; there is no reason, they maintain, to deny women the right to run for public office. The rights to peaceably assemble and to petition the government needn’t be discouraged.
That leaves freedom of political speech.
One point to make is that political speech is not absolutely free in any nation. In most democracies there are groups who actively seek to discourage political activity of all kinds that they interpret as anti-democratic. There are European democracies that have laws against ‘hate speech’ and German law forbids pro-Nazi speech.
So barring anti-Islamic speech would not be much of a stretch beyond that. After all, in Iran a far higher proportion of citizens self-identify as Muslims than identify as democrats in most democracies: there, it is virtually 100%. Freedom of political speech in Iran would mean freedom for people to interpret for themselves — publicly — the implications of the Quran for individuals and for the laws, programs, and policies of the government. That democracy exists in at least one nation that is overwhelmingly Islamic suggests such a thing is possible — and personal beliefs do inform all people’s participation in any democracy (or for that matter any political process).
Finally, democracy is associated with the meta-ideology of Liberalism. Its conceptual foundation consists of believing in equality and liberty as the ‘twin pillars of justice’ for a just society. Equality is the primary value associated with democracy (though its connection to liberty is every bit as strong). The thing is, beliefs are the same ‘stuff’, be they sacral/theological or secular/ideological. Much of the success of Liberalism can be attributed to the observation that those two societal values are accepted by both secularists and (most of) Christianity. Again, though, the acceptance of the Quran, as the word of God given to The Prophet, is more pervasive in Iran than a belief in equality is in, say, the U.S. So the Quran as the conceptual foundation of governance in Iran is more ‘democratic’, more universal among ‘the people’, than ‘equality’ is in more than one democratic nation at present. (My studies have taught me that the justness of democracy does not depend of any belief, but that is another matter.)
All in all, there is no reason why a theocracy cannot be a democracy at least as validly as any democracy that has existed up till now. The main barrier to such a thing seems to be allowing the citizenry to think for themselves as to the implications of a theology for individuals and the nation as a whole. If that could be overcome and all political rights democratically distributed, a theocracy could be as democratic as any nation on the planet is today — though only in a nation in which virtually 100% of the citizenry voluntarily shared the same, foundational, theology (or at least as much as citizens of Liberal ideocracies have accepted equality and liberty as the conceptual foundation of a just society). Iran would seem to be easily the most favorable candidate for such a thing to come to pass.