• rhombus
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    1 year ago

    There are a couple definitions. One I’ve heard most is a republic has a citizen as head of state, which disqualifies both monarchies and military dictatorships. Another is that the head of state is elected or nominated, which disqualifies non-representative systems entirely.

    • sugar_in_your_tea
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      1 year ago

      I’ve always heard that a Republic is one where power rests in the people and is exercised through their representatives. So more the latter than the former.

      And it’s convoluted because governments are weird. For example, the UK is not a Republic, it’s a monarchy, though it’s effectively a Republic because the monarch has only symbolic power. To change the UK to a Republic would only require changing the position of head of state to an elected or appointed position subject to Parliament or the people (either one), which is largely a name change. On the flipside, Iran is a Republic, and it’s certainly less representative of the will of the people than the UK.

      So using terms like “Republic” or “Democracy” by themselves isn’t interesting, what’s interesting is what level of control the people have over their own government.