Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Constitutional theocracy

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was No consensus to delete, Keep. Petros471 11:25, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Constitutional theocracy

This page should be deleted; it is nothing more than an attempt to define a buzzword used to discredit political groups/parties based on abject speculation of their aims. michael ^talk 01:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, first I can see the nom's point as to where this might be going POV-wise, but aside from that, it seems to me that if the author cannot come up with even one example of this putative political setup then it is a neologism. --Deville (Talk) 02:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, expand it is more than just a buzzword. It seems to have the same relationship to a theocracy that a constitutional monarchy has to a monarchy. See this list of political parties that advocate a constitutional theocracy.[1]. (Prior sentence struck as it appears to be an out of date Wikipedia "mirror".) It is a key word for this journal published academic paper.[2]. This appears to be a newspaper article using the term.[3]. TIME magazine had an article in its Nov. 24, 2003 issue that used the term. GRBerry 02:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment The analogy above doesn't seem to be true. A constitutional monarchy is de jure a monarchy, but de facto a democracy (generally). The current article describes a de jure theocracy in which the officers of government are not part of the theocratic hierarchy. If it were truly analogous to a constitutional monarchy, it might be used to define the later Prince-Bishops, or the status of Andorra, where the Bishop of Urgell is co-head of state. Choess 22:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Borderline transwiki candidate, but a search on Google Scholar turns-up six hits on "Constitutional theocracy", mostly referring to historical examples (Massachusetts Puritan colony, Iran circa 1988, etc). -- MarcoTolo 03:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep based on the excellent research done by the keepers above. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 04:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and Deville. This looks like an article that has little use but to mislable political opponents. The research above seems to indicate a term that is largely unknown and unused. --Ajdz 06:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or send to Wiktionary. This turns up 8 times at Google Books If it's a sloppily-used buzz-phrase, an intelligent explanation of it on Wikipedia could be valuable.--HJMG 07:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per HJMG. Reyk _YO! 07:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete at this stage if only 8 books refer to it, because it isn't even a rock solid definition. If 8 books referred to a rock-solidly defined concept or theory then it might make it.ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! - review me 08:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, nn, 8 books only? That means we have very few sources to rely on and its non-notable. --Terence Ong 10:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as per the above. It seems to define precisely what is happening in Iraq today and is likely to become a widespread term. Wouldn't object to seeing it in the wikitionary thingy. JBEvans 12:05, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - Might I note that there is a real danger of 'Constitutional Theocracy' eventually being absurdly defined in the article as religious political parties operating in a non-religious political system. If used appropriately 'Constitutional Theocracy' would be used to describe a country like Iran or to a lesser extent, Israel. It is of my opinion that if this article is kept it will simply be used for Original Research to discredit certain political parties and lobby groups through the pages of wikipedia. michael ^talk 12:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Neutral, leaning transwiki. It can be applied as a theory, and may have been applied to some regimes, but is it a notable, defined system? The links above (from an academic paper with less than 1000 views, and a baptist news agency) don't really move me too much. Might be a good one to WP:CHILL on until it is actually an accepted term in the mainstream media for a system of government. Deizio 12:28, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. The concept appears to be notable enough, wheras the article is somewhat lacking... Jude (talk,contribs,email) 13:30, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep The article could use some sprucing up, though. Checkerpaw 19:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep It has potential. Kirbytime 20:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete The term doesn't appear to be well-defined as yet. It can be re-created if scholarly use develops. Choess 22:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Most references in google are just copies of this page or other worthless stuff. Looking at the history page, the author listed the Constitution Party as one advocating a Constutional theocracy, a blatantly false statement. To me, that says that there is little of value here - this article is just going to be glorified name-calling and wishful thinking. BigDT 02:22, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. This article does nothing but define the meanings of constitutional and theocracy, then smush them togther into one phrase. Adds about as much to the article on theocracy as an article entitled Red Pen would add to the article about Pens. Tomb Ride ^{My Talk} 04:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I've added material to the article which I hope illustrates some of my reasons for voting "keep".--HJMG 07:40, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - If the article were only going to be about Iran's system of government, that would be a no-brainer to keep ... but judging from the history of the article, it's begging to be an edit war article where anyone to the right of any particular editor will be branded as a Constutional Theocrat. BigDT 22:59, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment - I'll have to agree there. While HJMG's edits solve the present problem with the article, it could be too easily open for misuse.

Comment - If you are concerned about it becoming a problem, keep it on your watch list. That appears to be the spirit of sofixit. GRBerry 16:48, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as above. The two words have been used together by various people over the years (although not necessarily in English), but this hardly means there is a clearly defined term. ProhibitOnions 12:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep JeffBurdges 15:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
• Merge I would merge it into Theocracy. Midnightcomm 03:04, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: It's a weak article (it doesn't explain the constitutional part), but the topic is perfectly valid. Peter Grey 07:39, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
• weak keep The title isn't POV. Nor would I call it origonal research. Roodog2k 02:55, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
• keep It's a valid and rather interesting concept in political science. Actually, it would be a core term, and I'm changing my "weak keep" to "keep", as we should have an article by that name. Not much done with it in this article but certainly encyclopedic in nature, and I don't see any POV problems difficult to overcome. Apollo 10:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.