Democracy

Voting is one of the most significant ways for individuals to make a say in the government’s decision-making. A ballot is the bedrock to democracy which may be also argued as a formal expression of choice for a candidate or a proposed solution to an issue. The low turnout rate in the recent Malaysian by-election in Johor, Malacca and Sarawak as well as the 15th General Election (GE15) has led to the discussion on the rights to vote and not to vote. The primary issue to be addressed in this article is whether the right not to vote violates morality in the political context and whether or not such a right constitutes freedom of expression. Furthermore, the relationship between the state and the people will also be studied further in order to determine the responsibilities of the people. The primary objective of this article is to determine the relationship between low voter turnout rates from certain groups of communities and the validity of their decision to vote or not to vote in a legal and moral paradigm. The authors will collect data from primary and secondary sources such as books and journals related to the right to vote and not to vote in different political systems. The authors will also analyze data from books, journals, articles and more to make reasonable comparisons between the democratic system in Malaysia and in other countries that discuss the right not to vote. 

Historically, the United Nations Security Council has been the dominant international venue for discussing on matters relevant to the maintaining of global security and peace. The term “rule of law” refers to a political and social structure in which everyone is held to the same legal standards. On the other hand, the concept that everyone is equal before the law is undermined when the veto power gives the Permanent Members the opportunity to disregard its accountability. This article aims to overview the use of veto powers in the United Nations Security Council that reflects the Rule of Law. Due to the fact that this method of research is qualitative, the data that was gathered and analysed came from non-numerical sources such as journals, articles, and news reports. The goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the conventional notions of Rule of Law as well as the ways in which the veto system is in opposition to Rule of Law. According to the findings of the research, there is a contradiction between the veto system and the Rule of Law, notably the notion that all individuals ought to be treated with equal regard to the law.     

In the burst of sophisticated platforms, it reached its peak where people worship and preach their rights of freedom of speech.  We witnessed a subsequent arose issue where people questioned the imposed restrictions on them in the realm of social media platforms by the authority. Nonetheless, the merely conferred freedom of speech will bring public disharmony. It was because people are exposed to and choose to be permeated by personal media applications. Thus, via the platforms, people are inclined to voice, issue and navigate their statements based on feelings, thoughts, and opinions without contemplating the effects and rationale of it. Normally, the statement is controversial while dripping at the edge of the sensitive topic while creating social disharmony and triggering social bonding. Thus, principle of Social Contract was brought in order to justify the restrictions imposed by the authority. At the same time, people used Social Contract as a defense to uphold their rights. Nevertheless, it may lead to numerous problems with the absence of restrictions. Besides, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and etc. were the examples of personal media platforms the writer referred to. Thus, the thrust of the paper is to examine to what extent the government may impose restrictions on their citizens via personal media platforms in relation to Social Contracts and the right of freedom of speech. Thus, the writers will conduct the paper through a qualitative approach which is a pure literature review. The gist of limitation is where the personal media platform would be focused, and restrictions referred to which were imposed by the governmental authorities instead of the personal media administrator. The The paper suggests that, notwithstanding the conventional Social Contract theory, the writers argued that the restrictions shall be imposed on personal media users.

The Malaysian judiciary is deeply connected with political influence in reality. Malaysia’s democratic system follows upon a government in charge of administration of the country, and has rights to take part in amendments and legislating process of constitutional provisions. Furthermore, the 1988 crisis marked the beginning of the judiciary’s darkest path where the Lord President, Tun Salleh Abas was being removed for the sake of the ruling party at that time. In 2008, the Malaysian government under the former Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad influenced the judicial institution through constitutional amendment. This paper seeks to address the issues arised through judicial decision making by influence of politics, in ethics, jurisprudence theory and critique on its appropriation to allow political judgement and how Malaysia has overcome the crisis of judicial independence. Our findings conclude that Malaysia has made proper attempts to combat corruption and political influence in the judiciary institution. Although public perception has yet to prevail, in years to come the integrity in the judiciary will increase as the current judicial administration under Yang Amat Arif Tun Tengku Maimun binti Tuan Mat illustrates an honest and fair view of the law for all.

The political thought of the contemporary Arab thinkers can be formulated in the relation between tradition and modernity. Struggle with modernity and return to the tradition of the Salafist minds, the possibility of rejuvenation of tradition by some other intellectual thinkers, the acceptance of modernity and putting the tradition aside, and the combination and compromise between tradition and modernity, are various forms of this ratiometric that can be beneficial in understanding the political thought of many contemporary Arab thinkers among the Sunni community. Meanwhile, the Council is a key word considered by many scholars from different Sunni countries, especially in the post-Ottoman Empire era, a good starting point for achieving a desirable political system. The type of impression of these thinkers from the council and the meaning given to this key sign from different perspectives, forms the mindset of many of these thinkers: reducing the meaning of council to the level of consultation and monistic view of it, the unanimity of the council with the resolution and community, the belief in the council as a society of Muslim citizens and the Islamic Ummah, and the promotion of the council from democracy are different aspects of contemporary thinkers. The result of this new look can be found in the neglect of the capacity of tradition, including the council, to systematize politics in the modern era with a thinker such as Ali Abdul Raziq, an attempt to revive the council in the new caliph-lovers, such as young Rashid Reza, and the link between Shura(council) and democracy in the moderate school of eastern scholars such as Rashid Reza Pir, Gharzavin and Ghonoushi, and finally believing in the superiority of the council to democracy under Mohammad Tofigh al-Shavi. This paper, by a documentary method, and expressing conceptual framework and different narrations of the concept of the council, seeks to reconsider the position of the council to the aforementioned thinkers.

 Religion has always been an inseparable component of political, social, and cultural life of Iranian people. Democracy as a western phenomenon has also been theoretically and in spoken as well as written form publicized in Iran for 100 years. The present article is an attempt to show to what extent religion has served democracy in Iran and vice versa. Elaborating on the type of interaction between religion and democracy in Iran, this article concludes that religion has believed democracy more than the latter having served the former. As a result, if religion had not entered the field of politics in Iran, it was quite likely that there would not have been any manifestations of democracy here.

The question of dominance in human thoughts was associated with the formation of the first governmental organizations in the history. In this direction, a fundamental question that emerged in political and legal realm is search for the origin of power and sovereignty of government. There are two viewpoints on this matter, namely the perspective of God's sovereignty and the viewpoint of people's dominance. This paper will study the concept of sovereignty along with its impressions, beside explanation of the meaning of political sovereignty, and theories related to it in the constitutional laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The idea of religious democracy as emerging from the thinking style of leaders of the Islamic republic, is going to create an ideal relationship between democracy and religion. The present paper will explain the religious democracy in the ideologies of leaders of the Islamic republic of Iran (Imam Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei), within three theoretical, principles and components of religious democracy, and practical realization principles of religious democracy areas. In the thoughts of Imam Khomeini and ayatollah Khamenei there is a firm link between religion and politics, and democracy originates from religion. Since democracy is in the length of God's leadership, and people have chosen religion as their democracy framework, the link between Islam and democracy materializes. The leaders of the Islamic republic believe in human dignity and in the role of public participation of all men and women in realization of democracy. For them, participation in elections and political issues is both, a right, and an obligation. Thus, it can be claimed that elections have a key position in the realization of democracy. In fact, even the protector of the Islamic juristics who in the thought of Shiism and during the absence of Imam Zaman is in charge of religious affairs is elected through the votes of the Constituent Assembly (who are elected by people). Therefore, in the thoughts of leaders of the Islamic republic there is a link between the components and bases of Islam and democracy.

One of the most important concerns of Islamists in responding to the retardation of Islamic societies is the issue of government. This concern became more evident in the new wave of popular uprisings in Arab countries in 2011. In Tunisia, with the collapse of Ben Ali and the power of Al-Nahda under the leadership of Rashed Ghannouchi, various theoretical analyzes of the future of the political system and the ideal government in this country became the focus of political attention. This paper seeks to address the question of “what is the conceptual transformation of a ideal government in the political views and ideas of Rashed Ghannouchi?” In order to answer this question, this paper has used intentionality hermeneutics method of Skinner in analyzing political thought.The findings indicate that the ideal government in Ghannouchi’s political thought has undergone a conceptual transformation in three periods: In the first period, he seeks for Islamic-based democracy. In Second period , after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, he seeks Islam as a specific social agenda for governance. In the third period after 2011, Ghannouchi’s ideal government transformed from Islamic democracy to Muslim democracy.

This paper discusses some key points in the philosophical, political and economic thought of the famous Indian Muslim poet Dr. Mohammad Iqbal. Iqbal sought to reform the Muslim identity and the wider Islamic world in order to deal with the Western challenge. He was deeply perturbed by the ideological domination of the East by the West in the political, cultural and social spheres. His political and economic perceptions, as indicated in his poems, seek to revive the self-confidence and creativity in the Muslim Ummah (Community). Iqbal exhorts the Muslims to realise their identity and selfhood (Khudi) to confront the Western challenge. Iqbal’s politico-economic thought is tinged with his dislike of capitalism and colonial rule. As an anti-dote to these elements, Iqbal speaks positively of socialism and its main proponents in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century although he rejects the atheistic form of socialism. Iqbal also purposes a reconstruction of Islamic thought in order to make it compatible with the demands of the modern world. All in all, Iqbal’s philosophy reveals an eclectic mixture of Islamic modernism, anti-imperialism, pan-Islamism and a desire for a socially equitable society within an Islamic framework. 

In the religious democracy system, the election is the area of power generation and its continual. In the electoral realm, the people fulfill the democracy by choosing the rulers, and since Islam forms the essence and framework of people’s movement and life, in Islamic democracy, the executives, candidates, and supervisors of election, people, and more than others, the electoral candidates must realize the Islamic ethical principles. Politics serves morality and religion in the religious democracy. The present article evaluated some of the coordinates and requirements of electoral ethics in the religious democracy system. Using a descriptive-analytical method, this essay described some basic principles of the electoral ethics charter, which should be considered by those involved in the election process, including voters, candidates, executives, supervisors and observers, and the media.

What is the state of democracy today? In the Western world, people often take the meaning of this term for granted, but do they genuinely know what democracy is? In this sense, how can we define democracy in today’s digitalized world? What is the relationship between democracy and information? Furthermore, do we really live in a democratic world? In Infocracy: Digitalization and the Crisis of Democracy—the 2022 translation of the original German book Infokratie. Digitalisierung und die Krise der Demokratie, published in 2021 by MSB Matthes & Seitz Berlin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH—Byung-Chul Han reflects on these and other related issues. Han’s analysis of the current political, social, and technological situation indicates that a profound democratic crisis is emerging. The loss of interest in truth, the end of grand narratives, the replacement of reason with data analysis (even in philosophy), the fragmentation of the population due to digitalization, and the predominant role of information in everyday life are all symptoms of a radical transformation underway in Western society, with severe consequences for democratic stability. In these terms, Han’s vision, at times excessively pessimistic, orients us on the crucial issues of our time.

The analysis of the relationship between the people and the government and their roles and positions in governance is an age-old issue, with each school of thought and consequently each thinker presenting a framework for it. The people's political approach to governance in the context of the theory of religious democracy is both a product of the discourse of the Islamic Revolution and the lived experience of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Considering the governance experience of these two main theories in Iran, comparing their perspectives is key to solving many problems. By employing a selected theoretical approach and using a descriptive-analytical method, the authors have concluded that while there is a common discourse and approach between Imam Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei, the theoretical development of this concept and the elaboration of its operational details are distinctive features of the Ayatollah Khamenei 's perspective on Imam Khomeini.