Islam is the final religion and the last law of Allah, which was revealed to Muhammad, peace be upon him. This great religion regulates human life from birth to death with detailed rules and general rules. Nothing happens in human life unless it is ruled by Islam. This ruling is either explicitly stated or obtained by ijtihad from the general rules and basic concepts of religion. On the other hand, democracy is a method discovered by humans to transfer power and prevent the tyranny of rulers. In the meantime, some people have added some personal circumstances to it. According to this method, people have the right to choose their rulers, they also have the right to remove them and use various freedoms.
In other words, Islam is a way of a complete life, of which government is also a part; But democracy is a way to solve one of life’s problems, which sometimes affects some aspects of human life. Therefore, comparing democracy with Islam and their duality plan is very incorrect and far from the truth. Islam is more complete and inclusive than solving a partial problem. But the fundamental basis of democracy is that the government belongs to the people and the people are the source of power. This is in conflict with the theory of Muslims who say: “Government is from Allah”. This will be discussed in the future.
In this note, the important principles of democracy and its types are discussed.
Before discussing the types of democracy, we will explain some important points so that the readers can better relate to the topic and make it easier for them to understand the topic.
The main powers of government are divided into three categories:
1. Legislature; The main duty of this legislative branch is to make decisions about laws and approve the budget, etc. This authority executes its duties through the parliament.
2. executive branch; The implementation of laws and administration of internal affairs, foreign relations, etc. is the responsibility of this authority. This power performs its duties through the government cabinet, the prime minister
and ministers in the parliamentary system, or the president and his ministers in the presidential system.
3. judiciary; This branch resolves judicial issues through courts. In the past, in Europe, these three powers were under the control of one person or one device; Therefore, in order to stabilize freedom and prevent tyranny, they thought of separating and separating them, so that each of them is under the authority of one authority. This process is called separation of powers.
Based on the type of separation of these, different types of government are formed:
1. collective government or parliamentary government
There are very few examples of this type of government. In this type of government, the legislature and the executive are completely mixed. The parliament itself, as the legislative branch, has chosen the executive branch and the main power rests with the same parliament.
2. presidential system
The president is the head of the executive branch and the parliament is also the legislative branch, each of them is elected separately. In this type of government, there is no prime minister and the president has the main power. America is an example of this type of government system. In this system, the separation of powers is stronger; Because the president can dissolve the parliament, but the parliament cannot vote to dismiss the president, and this is exactly against the parliamentary system.
3. Parliamentary system
In this system, the people elect the members of the parliament, and the party that gets the most seats in the parliament forms the government (cabinet), which consists of the prime minister and the ministers of the president or the king (if the government is a monarchy). The head of this government is the executive branch; The role of the president or the king is symbolic and the main power rests with the prime minister.
Of course, this classification is theoretical and many changes have been made in these systems over time; For example: France, which implemented a parliamentary system, after 1958, its government system became a mixed system, or in other words, a semi-presidential or semi-parliamentary system.
Mentioning the above content was necessary to familiarize dear readers with these concepts; Because in this series of notes, they will be mentioned in abundance.
Now let’s talk about the following types of democracy:
1. direct democracy; Such a diet has a history in ancient Greece. If all the citizens apply the government directly or at least directly manage its main duties, it is called direct democracy. In the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau raised the issue of direct democracy and played a great role in the establishment of people’s rule and direct democracy by proposing the theory of public will. Today, due to the system of division of labor, the spread of the population and the vast area of the territories, it is not possible to implement the people’s sovereignty directly.
2. Indirect democracy (representation); In such regimes, instead of the people directly applying the rule, they apply it through their representatives. The idea of representation and indirect (mediated) democracy is more compatible with today’s large and populous societies. In this type of government, people take over the administration of public affairs by electing their representatives in the form of electing the ruling power, especially the parliament. The ruling idea in this regime is that sovereignty belongs to the nation; Therefore, the parliament and other government institutions are considered the representatives of the nation.
3. semi-direct democracy; It comes from the combination of direct and indirect democracy. In this type of regime, governance is implemented with the direct participation of the people and the decision of the rulers. Of course, even in this form, the principle is based on the existence of legislative assemblies and decision-making by people’s representatives; But the citizens themselves have also been given the right to directly exercise political power and sovereignty according to rules. So, in a way, it can be said that semi-direct democracy is a branch of indirect democracy.
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