Theocracy is a form of government in which official policy is governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or is pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religion or religious group.

From the perspective of the theocratic government, "God himself is recognized as the head" of the state, hence the term theocracy, from the Greek θεοκρατια "rule of God", a term used by Josephus for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. A theocracy may have an administrative hierarchy of the government identical with the administrative hierarchy of the religion, or it may have two 'arms,' but with the state administrative hierarchy subordinate to the religious hierarchy.

Taken literally or strictly, theocracy means rule by God or gods and refers primarily to an internal "rule of the heart", especially in its biblical application. The common, generic use of the term, as defined above in terms of rule by a church or analogous religious leadership, would be more accurately described as an ecclesiocracy.