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The sociological study of the impact of the clergy's approaches, on the transition to democratic procedures of governing the society, has many advantages over the theological study of relationship between religion and democracy. This impact can be inferred and began from social movements of the first half of 20th century in Iran. The most appropriate approach for investigating this issue is comparative-historical analysis, and three democratic transitions in three historical periods- Constitutional Movement, the Nationalist Movement in the first cabinet of Mussadegh, and the Nationalist Movement in his second cabinet- are appropriate for comparison. Theoretical studies in the areas of cultural change (Secularization theories regarding modernity and religion), social change (world-system theories and social movements), and political change (transition theories), provides a useful theoretical framework from which it can be extracted a model to explain the transition in Iran, according to the conditions of Iran's history and the world during the period. This model will be on the basis of historical comparison of the three democratic transitions, and will be examined by method of agreement, Boolean analysis and ordinal comparison. In this scientific test, accurate understanding of causal factors in the transition to democracy in Iran will be provided. Theoretical and practical revisions of religious elites in the face of the modern world, as well as, contexts, causes and political consequences of the transitions will be clarified by narrative analysis, and finally, the position of the clergy's approaches among the causal factors of the transition will be understood. Religious leaders were influenced by macro transition contexts, and they created relatively stable and unstable changes in religious institution. Their appropriate and inappropriate positions to the transition process and their effective functioning in transition process are usually important to the transition.

Keywords: the clergy, religion institute, democratic procedures, Constitutional movement and Nationalist movement, comparative-historical analysis

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