Democracy and republic

There is a point that very often comes back on these forums, usually as a threadjacking side-discussion. It's about "democracy" and "republic". More often than not, a guy talks about the country not being a "democracy" but a "republic", usually because there is no direct vote on all the political subject.

So I thought it was time to make a thread precisely on the subject, and to stop the misuses of the words

"republic" is often wrongly used for "democratic republic".
"democracy" is often wrongly used for "direct democracy".

So let's back to the definition of the word :

Republic : A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.

Democracy : Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

As you can see, "republic" only speaks about who is the head of state, and democracy speaks only about where the power of the state comes from. The two are completely separate concepts.

To illustrate it more clearly :

- Iraq, Chili under Pinochet, Brazil under the rules of the army, Argentina under the rules of the Colonels, were all republic : they had no monarch.
But the people didn't had the power, as this power was in the hand of the army or a dictator : they were not democracies either. They were authoritarian/dictatorial republics.
- UK has a monarch. It's not a republic, it's a monarchy. But the power lies in the people, who can elect its representative. It's then a democracy. Same for Holland, Belgium, Spain, Denmark or Sweden. All these countries are monarchies, NOT republics, and still you would be hard pressed to say they are not democracies.
- USA has a president, not a monarch. It's a republic. The power does come from the people, via elections. It's also a democracy. Just like France, Israël, Germany and India. They are all democratic republics.

Actually the US, Germany, and India are federal republics. looking at your definitions then i guess you could say the US is a democracy or a republic. this is one of the issues that will never be solved but good definition and examples. also you may want to put the Soviet Union under republics showing that even communist states can be republics.

Blackbird_SR-71 said:

Actually the US, Germany, and India are federal republics. looking at your definitions then i guess you could say the US is a democracy or a republic. this is one of the issues that will never be solved

Click to expand...

Wrong. It is both a democracy and a republic. You not only can say either, you have to say both.

And a federal republic is just one form of republic, the same way a parliamentary democracy is just one form of democracy.

Blackbird_SR-71 said:

Actually the US, Germany, and India are federal republics.

Click to expand...

True, too. But that's yet another layer of information, not a replacement
"federal" is an information about the organization of the country, not about where the power (ultimately) comes nor who is the head fo state.
France is a centralized democratic republic. USA/Germany are federal democratic republics.

looking at your definitions then i guess you could say the US is a democracy or a republic.

Click to expand...

Not "or", but "and". The USA is BOTH a democracy (because the power comes from the people) AND a republic (because the head of state is not a monarch).

this is one of the issues that will never be solved but good definition and examples. also you may want to put the Soviet Union under republics showing that even communist states can be republics.

Click to expand...

Yes, the Soviet Union was a federal authoritarian republic

This is a matter of semantics, but you missed one of the definitions for "republic" offered by dictionary.com.

dictionary.com said:

A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.

Click to expand...

According to dictionary.com (where you got your first definition), a republic also means that the citizens vote for representatives, meaning that all modern democracies are actually republics. Since this definition is nearly identical to the one for "democracy," you could actually say that they are interchangeable, meaning that all of these states are "democratic republics" or vice versa. It really doesn't make any difference. On the other hand, democracy (in ancient times) was supposedly a system where you voted often on what to do, via referendum e.g., rather than have officials decide for you.


Either way, it's really just semantics and inconsequential.

Definitions have changed a lot so you can't really say what the true definiton of a republic and democracy is but Akka was pretty close as his made sense.

I didn't "miss" any definition, but I restricted myself to the very first one, which is usually the "truest" (original meaning of the word).
Additionnally, I have to point that the definition you present talk about a "body of citizen", which can be very restrictive. Soviet union and communist China, for example, functionned exactly like this, with the members of the party voting to elect their leaders. It was far to be a democracy (the party, in China, is only about 4 millions people big, so it's not even 0,5 % of the population), but it IS a body of citizen electing their representatives (about 2000 members in the assembly) that hold all the power.

In its truest meaning, "Republic" imply a non-hereditary power, where there is not a single person who have all the power. Oligarchies, juntas and others authoritarians and non-democratic regimes can be republics.

It must be the Iraqi invasion that got Americans talking about there "freedom"...that or Mr Moore's indisputable facts about Mr George W Bush, too sarcastic?...nah

People who think the term democracy refers to some sort of strictly defined form of government piss me off. Especially when that leads to phrases like "the US is a republic not a democracy".

Akka said:

I didn't "miss" any definition, but I restricted myself to the very first one, which is usually the "truest" (original meaning of the word).
Additionnally, I have to point that the definition you present talk about a "body of citizen", which can be very restrictive. Soviet union and communist China, for example, functionned exactly like this, with the members of the party voting to elect their leaders. It was far to be a democracy (the party, in China, is only about 4 millions people big, so it's not even 0,5 % of the population), but it IS a body of citizen electing their representatives (about 2000 members in the assembly) that hold all the power.

In its truest meaning, "Republic" imply a non-hereditary power, where there is not a single person who have all the power. Oligarchies, juntas and others authoritarians and non-democratic regimes can be republics.

Click to expand...

Maybe the best definition is this: to be a republic, the leaders must be elected, but, to be a democracy, the leaders must be elected by the general populace.

Never mind.

[Edited]

Well done Akka!

Yom said:

Maybe the best definition is this: to be a republic, the leaders must be elected, but, to be a democracy, the leaders must be elected by the general populace.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the clarification Akka, and thanks for the simplification of the clarification, Yom.

The US is essentially a Federal Democratic Republic, but since the communist countries of the Cold War insisted on calling themselves People's Democratic Republic of Gooberville, it lends the wrong air to the term now.

I thought perhaps it had something to do with Republicans vs Democrats. With Akkas clarification in mind, most Democrats are probably republicans and most Republicans are democrats. Actually, Republicans seem to be conservative, which could mean that some of them could prefer a monarchy.

For quite some time I thought that a thread like this was needed. Well done Akka.

There is also another definition of a republic, the classical one, (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_definition_of_republic ). This would be roughly something part way between oligarchy and and democracy (somewhat different then the classical definition, but sort of an evolved form of it). The USA, France, Australia all fall here, because they're not quite democratic, but they're still close.

As for why they're not democratic, the definition of a democracy is government by the people. The electoral systems, political system, power structures, etc. in those countries (and others, such as Canada) is such that the will of the people isn't accurately conveyed into the government. So it's not goverment by the people, but rather by some of them.

All made more complicated by the fact that the word "democracy" is frequently also used to mean the basic concept of people having any kind of voting rights at all. How did it come to be "democracy" and not "republicacy" or "republicy" or "republicanicacy" or something????

Hem, no.
"democracy" doesn't mean "government by the people", but "POWER to the people".
"kratia" is "power". It's "archia" that means "government" (like in "monarchy", ie "government of one").

It's precisely this misconception I'm trying to deter with this thread : "democracy" means that, ultimately, it's the people that has the power. Be it in direct democracy, parlementiary democracy or federal democracy, the fact is that, in the end, it's always the people that hold the power.

The United States is not a democracy It's a republic.

article 4 section 4 of the US consitution

Section. 4.

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Click to expand...

If you say the pledge of alliegance you will also hear the word republic, but not the word democracy.

It guarantees no monarchs, which makes sense given that the weren't exactly popular in America when the U.S. was founded.