Philosophical and Religious Doctrines of Rule

Doctrines of rule grounded in philosophical or religious tradition rather than in modern constitutional theory. An entry belongs here when its cited source describes a body of thought that prescribes how rulers should govern, from the moral cultivation and ritual propriety of Confucianism, to the emphasis on law, administrative technique and state power in Legalism, to the Shia doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih, under which a qualified Islamic jurist holds guardianship over political affairs. The group is a browsing convenience that places classical Chinese statecraft beside a modern religious-legal doctrine of government, and the entries differ in era, tradition and claim to authority.