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‘We don’t have a democracy’: why some Oregonians want to join Idaho
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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Just a technicality: Not all republics are democracies. A republic could be an oligarchy or a theocracy. The main division is between monarchy and republic.
If the people don't elect their representatives and president then it's not a Republic. The DPRK, for example, is not democratic and is therefore not a Republic. Autocracies are republics in name only.
I suppose it does depend on which definition one is using. The more academic definition puts them as contrasting with monarchies. With that, the DPRK and other autocracies world not be a republic, not due to a lack of democracy but due to a lack of representative-based government. "Representative" here meaning multiple individually who are ostensibly representing the public interest (frequently, this is someone that they fail to do).
What makes a republic democratic or not is HOW the representatives are appointed. In a theocratic republic, they could be appointed by the state church, for example.
The key factor is the supreme power the people exercise. No democracy, no supreme power of the people, no Republic.
No. That's the defining factor of democracy which is derived from the Greek words "demos", meaning "the people", and "kratos", meaning "rule". That is "the people rule" or "rule of the people".
Republic is derived from the Latin phrase "res publica", meaning public affair. A republic does not, by definition, need to be democratic, just a form of government where representatives hold the political power to conduct affairs for the people, rather than being explicitly granted it by heredity or "divine mandate".
That is not to say that non-democratic republics are a good, desirable, or have any sort of track record suggesting that they are good for their citizens. Just that the semantic meaning of words is important.
Could the US, and conservatives have been bleating for decades be a republic and not a democracy? No. The US Constitution clearly lays out that the system is intended to be a government of the people, for the people, making democracy a required component under the US Constitution.