The alternatives to theocracy around the world don't work

Question: Is theocracy good?
Position‹3 of 3: Theocracies can be implemented in different ways
Argument‹4 of 5›: The alternatives to theocracy around the world don't work

While there are many systems of governing aside from theocracies, they are not preferrable.

The argument

North Korea, USSR/Russia and China have little religious influence. In fact they have a history of suppressing religion. In some countries, there is a political ideology sponsored by the government that may be called political religion. For example the North Korean government has promulgated Juche as a political alternative to traditional religion. The doctrine advocates a strong nationalist propaganda basis and is fundamentally opposed to Christianity and Buddhism, the two largest religions on the Korean peninsula.

Premises

[P1]The main secular alternatives to theocracy—North Korea, the USSR/Russia and China—have little religious influence and long histories of actively suppressing religion. [P2] Yet these states still install government-sponsored ideologies that function as a political religion, such as North Korea's Juche, which carries strong nationalist propaganda and opposes established faiths like Christianity and Buddhism. [C] Because even avowedly secular states end up adopting a quasi-religious state doctrine, theocracies can be implemented in different ways.

Counter-arguments

The argument does not support the position it is filed under. Its content concerns states that suppressed religion and installed substitute ideologies, which is a claim that secular alternatives fail — an argument about the merits of theocracy, closer to the first sibling position — rather than an account of the different ways theocracies can be implemented. No theocracy is described here at all, and no variety of theocratic arrangement is set out. The sample is also selected. North Korea, the Soviet Union and China are three authoritarian states, and comparing them with theocracy omits the many secular states with strong records on stability and rights, among them most of Europe, Japan, and India's constitutional secularism — so what the comparison identifies belongs to authoritarianism rather than to the absence of religious authority. The Juche example cuts against the intended point in a further way worth drawing out: if a nationalist state ideology can function as a political religion, complete with veneration of a leader, a canon of texts and the suppression of rivals, that suggests the theocratic form is defined not by belief in a deity but by unaccountable authority claiming a sacred warrant — which is the second sibling position's objection to theocracy rather than a defence of it. And "the alternatives don't work" is comparative, so it requires evidence about how theocracies themselves have performed, which the argument never supplies.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Citing three authoritarian states that suppressed religion establishes something about authoritarianism rather than about secular government, since the many stable secular states in Europe, Japan and elsewhere go unmentioned. [Rejecting P2] Juche's functioning as a political religion suggests the theocratic form is defined by unaccountable authority claiming a sacred warrant rather than by belief in a deity, which supports the objection to theocracy rather than a defence of it. [Rejecting P3] The argument describes no theocracy and no variety of theocratic implementation, so it does not support the position it is filed under, and a comparative claim that the alternatives fail requires evidence about theocracies' own record.

The argument

Premises

Counter-arguments

Rejecting the premises

Further reading