A Comparative Study of the Sphere of Political Action in Ayatollah Khamenei's Theory of Religious Democracy and Habermas’s Deliberative Democracy

The growing importance of paying attention to people and the inefficiency of liberal democracy led theorists to critique this political paradigm and offer alternative paradigms. One of the most important models presented in the Western world is Habermas's deliberative democracy, and in the Islamic world, Ayatollah Khamenei's religious democracy. Both models are based on the critique of liberal democracy and the emphasis on the position of the people in the political system and the reconstruction of various arenas of political action. This study tries to answer the following question using the documentary method “What is the sphere of political action in Ayatollah Khamenei's theory of religious democracy and Habermas's deliberative democracy?” The findings of the research indicate that both theories, while criticizing liberal democracy and considering the instrumentalization of the role of the people according to their different semantic systems, have revived various areas of political action in the spheres of establishment, participation and supervision.