What's the difference between democracy and theocracy?

Democracy


Definition:

  • (n.) Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people.
  • (n.) Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.
  • (n.) Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of government.
  • (n.) The principles and policy of the Democratic party, so called.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On his blog, Grillo called the referendum results a victory for democracy.
  • (2) We are deeply saddened," said Nyan Win, a spokesman of National League for Democracy.
  • (3) Despite Facebook's size and reach, and its much-vaunted role in the short-lived Arab spring , there are reasons for thinking that Twitter may be the more important service for the future of the public sphere – that is, the space in which democracies conduct public discussion.
  • (4) UPDATE II [Tues.] Two other items that may be of interest: first, Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger was the guest for the full hour yesterday on Democracy Now, discussing the paper's role in reporting the NSA stories, and the video and transcript of the interview are here ; second, marking our collaboration on a series of articles about spying on Indians, the Hindu has a long interview with me on a variety of related topics, here .
  • (5) Can somebody who is not a billionaire, who stands for working families, actually win an election into which billionaires are pouring millions of dollars?” Naming prominent and controversial rightwing donors, he said: “It is not just Hillary, it is the Koch brothers, it is Sheldon Adelson.” Stephanopoulos seized the moment, asking: “Are you lumping her in with them?” Choosing to refer to the 2010 supreme court decision that removed limits on corporate political donations, rather than address the question directly, Sanders replied: “What I am saying is that I get very frightened about the future of American democracy when this becomes a battle between billionaires.
  • (6) Historical reality suggests the concept of socially necessary risk determined through the dialectic process in democracy.
  • (7) Spain’s constitutional court responded by unanimously ruling that the legislation had ignored and infringed the rules of the 1978 constitution , adding that the “principle of democracy cannot be considered to be separate from the unconditional primacy of the constitution”.
  • (8) These are basic principles of democracy and Israeli law.
  • (9) The values of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights are absolutely fundamental to the European Union.
  • (10) And it means the Foreign Office dealing with those in the Middle East and North Africa who are on the side of democracy and human rights, not sitting down to tea with torturers.
  • (11) The referendum shows that democracy really sucks – that democracy does not deliver stability, prosperity [or] responsible government,” Tsang said.
  • (12) This thoughtful intervention brought new hope to us and others, for the rebuilding of public trust in surveillance conducted with respect for privacy, democracy and the law.
  • (13) "For tax evaders, she should turn to Pasok and New Democracy to explain to her why they haven't touched the big money and have been chasing the simple worker for two years."
  • (14) Secularism is the only way to stop collapse and chaos and to foster bonds of citizenship in our complex democracy.
  • (15) The charity Bite the Ballot , which persuaded hundreds of thousands to register before the last general election, is to set up “democracy cafes” in Starbucks branches, laying on experts to explain how to register and vote, and what the referendum is all about (Bite the Ballot does not take sides but merely encourages participation).
  • (16) The writer John Lanchester concedes that democracies will always need spies, but reading the Snowden documents persuaded him that piecing together habits of thought from internet searches takes things far beyond conventional spying: “Google doesn’t just know you’re gay before you tell your mum; it knows you’re gay before you do.
  • (17) In the wake of her win, Aung San Suu Kyi has written to Min Aung Hlaing, the president, Thein Sein, and the parliamentary Speaker, Shwe Mann, requesting a meeting to discuss the election and “national reconciliation”, according to the National League for Democracy Facebook page.
  • (18) Our later measures – parliament's power to declare peace and war, MPs to be subject to a right to recall, an end to the royal prerogative, an elected Lords – were about a 21st-century democracy, with citizenship to be founded on a new bill of rights and responsibilities and, in time, a written constitution.
  • (19) It won’t happen suddenly, but the most likely outcome for European social democracy is the one being secretly contemplated on the Labour backbenches: a fusion with liberalised conservatism.
  • (20) The genius of a democracy governed by the rule of law, our democracy, is that it both empowers the majority through the ballot box, and constrains the majority, its government, so that it is bound by law.” Turnbull added: “Why does Daesh [another term for Islamic State] hate us?

Theocracy


Definition:

  • (n.) Government of a state by the immediate direction or administration of God; hence, the exercise of political authority by priests as representing the Deity.
  • (n.) The state thus governed, as the Hebrew commonwealth before it became a kingdom.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) On the other hand, the expectation that authority will be bestowed by market forces following a miraculous ‘‘transfer of wealth’’ does suggest an alternative route to normal democratic processes: theocracy via plutocracy.
  • (2) "It doesn't mean we're going to establish a theocracy and force people to obey what they think is God's law."
  • (3) Or, if you believe the other side, Santa Monica has upheld the values of the founding fathers, rebuffed a plot to impose theocracy and scored a victory for reason.
  • (4) Given the unusual grandeur of the Buddhist temples and palaces in the settlement, Mes Aynak might once have been a theocracy like Tibet, with the monks exploiting the copper reserves as a source of power and profit, not unlike the Cistercian monks who dominated the pre-industrial economy in many parts of medieval France and England.
  • (5) In the eyes of Morsi's Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, it was a military coup; to the government's supporters it was a popular overthrow, with a little help from the military, of an administration that had broken its promises on moderation; created widespread discontent; cracked down on dissent, and was dragging Egypt towards a closed-minded theocracy.
  • (6) Within this apocalyptic tradition, Cohn identified the Flagellants who massacred the Jews of Frankfurt in 1349; the widespread heresy of the Free Spirit; the 16th-century Anabaptist theocracy of Münster (though some have criticised Cohn's account of this extraordinary event as lurid); the Bohemian Hussites; the instigators of the German peasants' war; and the Ranters of the English civil war.
  • (7) Antediluvian theocracy has had its day, and thinking Talibs know it.
  • (8) Watching from the front row in late August was Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , in what was seen as an endorsement from the ruling theocracy that had once tried to stamp out all music as a violation of Islamic values.
  • (9) The Dalai Lama himself has managed the very difficult transition of Tibetan exile politics from a theocracy towards something very much like a proper democracy.
  • (10) Our agenda is to preserve and protect the constitution and do everything within the law to prevent them establishing a theocracy over us," said Edwin Kagin, national legal director of American Atheists .
  • (11) The great thinkers of the Enlightenment proposed that if society was to get beyond theocracy, anarchy or despotism, then it had to be underwritten by such a social contract.
  • (12) Ahrar al-Sham Formed by hardliners with Muslim Brotherhood links, who aim to establish a Sunni theocracy in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham fought with Nusra when it was still part of al-Qaida, but rejects international jihad itself.
  • (13) Audiences are surprised because Switzerland is supposedly full of People Like Us: it’s an affluent western European nation, not a sand-blasted theocracy or a dirt-poor African dictatorship.
  • (14) In recent years a more assertive Iran, run by a Shia Muslim theocracy, has mounted multiple challenges to Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia’s role as guardian and leader of the Islamic world.
  • (15) Iran is a proud nation of 80 million mostly Muslim people, one of many Asian and African states struggling between theocracy and democracy, tradition and modernity.
  • (16) For years, detractors have accused the Dalai Lama of scheming to retake Tibet and restore the old feudal theocracy, in spite of his public statements in favour of secular, democratic government.
  • (17) A year after the elections Iran is still an illiberal theocracy, it is no closer to halting its uranium enrichment program, it still plays king maker in Iraq, and the fate of the Strait of Hormuz still rests on a hair trigger.
  • (18) The scale of his victory provides a strong platform to challenge hardliners who still hold ultimate control in a Iran’s unwieldy hybrid of theocracy and democracy.
  • (19) Iranian dissidents, who oppose the theocracy's drive to get the bomb, turned up to protest.
  • (20) Like any theocracy, this one would select a few passages from the Bible to justify its actions, and it would lean heavily towards the Old Testament, not towards the New.