Imamate and Elements of Democracy

Imamate is the fundamental base of the political thought of Shi’ite and all theorizations regarding the Shi’ite’s political system during the absence period will become meaningful in relation with it. On this basis, analyzing the concept of democracy and explaining its essential and contextual elements, I will try to compare Imamate with the mentioned elements. From the perspective of the present article, Imamate is consistent with the essential elements of democracy but isn’t consistent with its contextual elements. Therefore I will explain in two separate parts what I mean from essential and contextual elements and on the basis of conceptual analysis of democracy I will do the mentioned comparison.