Theocracy is distinct from other secular forms of government that have a state religion or are influenced by theological or moral concepts, and monarchies that are held “by the grace of God.” In the most common use of the term, some civil rulers are rulers of the dominant religion (e.g., the Byzantine emperor as patron and defender of the official church); The government proclaims that it governs in the name of God or a higher power, as prescribed by the local religion, and with the divine approval of the institutions and laws of the state. These characteristics also apply to a cesaropathist diet. However, the Byzantine Empire was not theocratic, since the patriarch answered to the emperor, and not the other way around; Similarly, in Tudor England, the Crown forced the Church to secede from Rome so that the royal (and especially later parliamentary) power could take full control of the now Anglican hierarchy and confiscate most of the Church`s property and revenue. This system is based on religious teachings as inscribed in religious scriptures. Islamic law, Sharia, is the most widespread religious legal system in the world today. It is based on morality and not on the business demands of human behavior in all aspects of a person`s personal and social life. Islamic law is based on the Holy Book of Islam, the Qur`an and the interpretation of the practices and statements of the Prophet Muhammad. Theocratic movements exist in virtually every country in the world, but the true contemporary theocracies are found mainly in the Muslim world, especially in Islamic states governed by Sharia law. Iran and Saudi Arabia are often cited as modern examples of theocratic governments. Between 1533 and 1535, the Protestant leaders Jan Mattys and Johann von Leiden established a short-lived theocratic kingdom in the city of Münster.
They created an Anabaptist regime with chiliastic and millenarian expectations. Money was abolished and violations of the Ten Commandments were punishable by death. Despite the pietistic ideology, polygamy was allowed and von Leiden had 17 wives. In 1535, Münster was reconquered by Franz von Waldeck, ending the existence of the kingdom. In practice, the term refers to a government run by religious authorities who claim unlimited power in the name of God or supernatural forces. Many government leaders, including some in the United States, invoke God and claim to be inspired by God or obey God`s will. This does not make a government a theocracy, at least not in practice and alone. A government is a theocracy if its legislators believe that rulers are governed by God`s will and that laws based on that belief are written and enforced. Like Allen, Mark Haugaard argues that the same central processes for governing are also conditions for empowerment (Haugaard, 2020). Haugaard argues that it is important to distinguish between sociological and normative demands to power. With this distinction, he theorizes the four dimensions of power both sociologically and normatively. As with Clegg, the first dimension corresponds to the ability to act.
Haugaard expands the notion of authority in a way reminiscent of Bourdieu. In essence, he argues that all social positions, with the remarkable exclusion of slavery, are positions of authority that make some actions and resources happy and others do not. As in Barnes, authority is rooted in common sense. The second cycle concerns structural distortions (as in Bachrach and Baratz) as well as the idea of structural conflict. Haugaard argues that social interactions are characterized by two forms of conflict: superficial conflicts that reproduce existing structures and meanings, and deeper conflicts over structures. For the most powerful, if they want to move beyond coercion, they have a stable system of power relations, an incentive to turn violence into authority. Coercion generates potentially revolutionary resistance. On the other hand, authority implies consent and is therefore more stable. Historically, the progress of modernity has been motivated by the danger of deep conflicts that lead to constant concessions on the part of elites, culminating in social democracy.
Slowly, as coercion gives way to authority as a key resource, power becomes less zero sums and more positive. The third dimension concerns the means of stabilizing structures, of avoiding structural conflicts, through reification processes. Starting from Luke, Bourdieu (symbolic violence) and Foucault (power/knowledge), Haugaard argues that social structures are stabilized by objectifying them, which happens through a number of methods: structures are made sacred, the natural order of things, or they are linked to fundamental claims of truth. The fourth dimension of power concerns the creation of a social subject with certain predispositions. According to Foucault (1979), this may include discipline that leads to docile subjects, reinforcing dominance. From a normative perspective, however, these predispositions can also be enabling for the purposes of meritocracy and democracy. The Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace in the 1860s Qing China was a heterodox Christian theocracy led by a person who said he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, Hong Xiuquan. This theocratic state fought one of the most destructive wars in history, the Taiping Rebellion, against the Qing dynasty for fifteen years before being crushed after the fall of the rebel capital Nanjing. But even if the law is distinct from informal social control, religion, planning and diktat, the legal profession must become a commodity. Most societies value meaning and salvation (religion), health (medicine), physical well-being (technology), even financial security (accounting) rather than justice (which is inherently ambiguous – justice of one is outrage of the other).
The knowledge professions promote their professional project by conquering important fields: church, hospital, factory, stock exchange, tax administration, court, document register. (This favors advocacy over transactional lawyers.) Potential clients must be persuaded to buy someone else`s services rather than represent themselves, as we do when we respect or circumvent the law, mobilize or resist (Kritzer 1998). The division of labor makes generalist consumers dependent on specialized producers (although some societies may resist it in the name of revolutionary ideology or religion, e.g. Wahhabi Islam). Lawyers resort to the means of other professions – ritual, clothing, esoteric language – although they lack some of the most effective (technology, scientific validation). Legal knowledge can flourish (like science) and break down (like religion). Although the law is spreading, its techniques have been challenged by economics and its legitimacy by legal realism and critical legal studies (including feminism, anti-racism, and queer theory). The knowledge to be marketed must balance technicality and indecision (Jamous and Peloille 1970): too technical and it becomes an algorithm that consumers execute themselves (ATMs replace bank machines); Too vague and the only performance criterion is artistic taste. This balance between theory and craftsmanship, symbolic and practical mastery, is linked to the tension between study and teaching (Schön 1987). Information technology is restoring some advocacy functions for better-educated consumers (individuals and businesses). The ever-changing knowledge base influences career and turnover, the professional division into sub-fields, and the relationship between knowledge producers (teachers and researchers) and consumers (practitioners). The common law is based on past traditions, practices and precedents created by the courts through the interpretation of statutes, legal statutes and previous judgments.
The common law seeks to “interpret by previous decisions of superior courts interpreting the same statutes or applying established and customary principles of law to a similar situation.” Among the possible explanations for the rise of radical and sometimes revolutionary political expressions of Islam, political scientist Samuel Huntington postulated that the end of the Cold War would lead to a “clash of civilizations” in which culture and religious values would be the new axis of the fundamental global conflict. This interpretation has been supported by the analysis of cross-national value surveys (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005; Welzel, 2013), which revised modernization theory to focus on the ways in which national cultural traditions have shaped attitudes and values toward emancipation. Others have seen the Islamist phenomenon fueled by several factors, including a backlash against globalization and the corresponding spread of Western culture; moral outrage against corrupt and oppressive regimes in the Arab world; frustration among educated and unemployed youth; and a rejection of US hegemonic claims in general and Middle East policy in particular. All individuals have access to cognitive systems that contain both allocentric and idiocentric cognitions, but they diminish them with varying probabilities depending on the situation. For example, when the ingroup is attacked, most individuals become allocentric. In the company of other allocentrics, allocentric norms of behavior become important and individuals are more prone to allocentric cognitions. Some situations provide very clear standards for appropriate behaviour (e.g., in a place of worship), while other situations do not (e.g., at a party). Individuals will be more allocentric in the first situations than in the second.
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