Democracy in the Political Thoughts of Dr. Shariati

Democracy is one of the most challenging words in politics in the globalization era, because every scholar of 21st century has his/her own definition of it. Also, in the recent decades, other aspects of democracy has been explored by theorists including cosmopolitism democracy, social democracy and emotional democracy. In this survey, we have discussed a new definition of democracy based on the notions of Dr. Shariati, a religious savant. He introduces two types of democracy: liberal democracy and committed democracy. In liberal democracy, power is determined by people's vote and is only committed to what people want. Committed democracy is formed after a revolutionary change and is the ruling of a group of elite who are committed to a certain ideology. Dr. Shariati believes that real democracy is not a constant form of ruling and is actually one of the levels of any society's development and becoming independent.