Distinguish Between Republic And Democracy Essay Research

Distinguish Between Republic And Democracy Essay, Research Paper

Republic (government) (Latin res publica, literally “the public thing”), form

of state based on the concept that sovereignty resides in the people, who

delegate the power to rule in their behalf to elected representatives and

officials. In practice, however, this concept has been variously stretched,

distorted, and corrupted, making any precise definition of the term republic

difficult. It is important, to begin with, to distinguish between a republic and

a democracy. In the theoretical republican state, where the government

expresses the will of the people who have chosen it, republic and

democracy may be identical (there are also democratic monarchies).

Historical republics, however, have never conformed to a theoretical model,

and in the 20th century the term republic is freely used by dictatorships,

one-party states, and democracies alike. Republic has, in fact, come to

signify any form of state headed by a president or some similarly titled

figure, and not a monarch.

II REPUBLICAN THEORIES

Much of the confusion surrounding the concept of republicanism may be

traced to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Plato’s Republic presents an

ideal state or, more accurately, an ideal Greek polis (”city-state”). Plato

constructed his republic on what he considered the basic elements or

characteristics of the human soul: the appetitive, the spirited, and the

philosophical. Accordingly, his ideal republic consisted of three distinct

groups: a commercial class formed by those dominated by their appetites;

a spirited class, administrators and soldiers, responsible for the execution of

the laws; and the guardians or philosopher-kings, who would be the

lawmakers. Because Plato entrusted the guardians, a carefully selected few,

with the responsibility for maintaining a harmonious polis, republicanism is

frequently associated with ends or goals established by a small segment of

the community presumed to have a special insight into what constitutes the

common good.

Aristotle’s Politics provides another republican concept, one that prevails in

most of the Western world. Aristotle categorized governments on the basis

of who rules: the one, the few, or the many. Within these categories he

distinguished between good and perverted forms of government?monarchy

(good) versus tyranny, aristocracy (good) versus oligarchy?the main

difference being whether the rulers governed for the good of the state or

for their own interests.

Most relevant to republicanism in the Western world, however, is Aristotle’s

distinction between democracy, the perverted form of rule by the many,

and its opposite polity, the good form. He believed that democracies were

bound to experience turbulence and instability because the poor, who he

assumed would be the majority in democracies, would seek an economic

and social equality that would stifle individual initiative and enterprise. In

contrast, polity, with a middle class capable of justly adjudicating conflicts

between the rich and poor, would allow for rule by the many without the

problems and chaos associated with democratic regimes.

James Madison, often called the father of the U.S. Constitution, defined a

republic in terms similar to those of Aristotle’s polity. In his view, republics

were systems of government that permitted direct or indirect control by the

people over those who govern. He did, however, warn against the effects of

“majority factions” and emphasized the rights of minorities.

The Madisonian concept of republicanism parallels Aristotle’s vision of polity

in many important dimensions, and both are essentially different from

Plato’s. Madison and Aristotle were concerned with the means by which just

and stable rule by the many could be secured. To this end Aristotle relied

on a predominant middle class, Madison on an “extended” republic, in which

varied interests would check and control one another. Madison also

emphasized election of representatives by the people. These

representatives, he believed, would be less likely to sacrifice the “public

good” than the majority of the people. “Pure democracies,” in which the

people ruled directly, Madison wrote, “have ever been spectacles of

turbulence and contention.”

III REPUBLICS IN HISTORY Some scholars regard the

ancient confederation of Hebrew tribes that endured in Palestine from the

15th century BC until a monarchy was established about 1020BC as an

embryonic republic. That would make the ancient Israelite commonwealth

the earliest republic in history and one of the oldest democracies; except

for slaves and women, all members of the community had a voice in the

selection of their administrators and were eligible for political office. For

several hundred years after the early 8th century BC many of the

city-states of Greece were republican in form. Carthage was likewise a

republic for more than 300 years until its destruction by the Romans in

146BC. For nearly 500 years Rome itself was a republic in which virtually all

free males were eventually franchised.

The oldest extant republic is the state of San Marino on the Italian

Peninsula, about 225 km (about 140 mi) north of Rome. According to

tradition, it was established as a republic in the second part of the 4th

century AD.

In medieval times the Icelanders established (930) a republic with a more

or less democratic form of government that lasted for more than 300 years.

The powerful and independent commercial city-states of northern Italy,

ruled by the rising bourgeoisie, also found the republican form a more

suitable political instrument than the monarchic state controlled by the

feudal nobility and the Roman Catholic church. These Italian republics were

for centuries disturbed by power struggles between the aristocracy and the

commercial bourgeoisie, in which the latter represented the cause of

democratic government and the former that of feudal conservatism. A

parallel process took place in the commercial and handicraft communes of

the Low Countries. The Hanseatic League was nominally a form of

international republican government and a limited democracy. Republican

elements were also characteristic of the league of Swiss cantons that

eventually formed the Swiss state; the founding of the Swiss republic may

be dated in 1291.

Republican sentiments were cherished by many leaders of the Reformation.

Geneva, under the rule (1541-64) of John Calvin, was republican in form,

although virtually a theocratic state. Reformist religious and antimonarchic

doctrines were also contributory factors in the establishment of the Dutch

Republic of the United Provinces (1648-1747) and the short-lived

Commonwealth (1649-60) of England, Scotland, and Ireland under Oliver

Cromwell.

IV MODERN REPUBLICS The era of modern

republicanism began with the American Revolution of 1776 and the French

Revolution of 1789. Elements of republican government were present in the

administrative institutions of the English New World colonies, but

republicanism did not become dominant in American political thinking until

the colonists declared their independence. The establishment of the United

States as a federal republic with a government made up of three coordinate

branches, each independent of the others, created a precedent that was

subsequently widely emulated in the western hemisphere and elsewhere.

The French Revolution also created a republic based on suffrage?the first

national republican state among the powers of Europe?and like its

American predecessor it enunciated fundamental principles of liberty.

Although this first French republic was short-lived, its impact on French and

European society was virtually continuous. In the view of many historians

the Napoleonic Wars that followed were essentially a military extension of

the political assault on the remnants of the Continent’s feudal structure and

eventually resulted in a new era of republicanism.

During the 19th century republics were established in most instances where

revolutionary struggles were waged outside Europe. Thus, all the Latin

American republics were products of revolutionary struggles for national

independence; many of these governments, however, became military

dictatorships. Two African republics, the South African Republic (1852) and

the Orange Free State (1854), were finally annexed by Britain after the

Boer War (1899-1902). Both in the United States and other republics,

however, the passage of the century was generally marked by

democratization of the electoral process through the enlargement of the

electorate.

Two waves of new-state formations occurred in the 20th century?the first

one after World War I, the second after World War II. Most of the newly

independent states established themselves as republics, although some of

those created in the first wave began monarchies.

A new chapter in the history of republicanism began with the Russian

Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent transformation of the Russian

Empire into the USSR. The development of the Soviet Union into a

one-party totalitarian state demonstrated once more that republic and

democracy are not synonymous, a fact that became even more obvious

after World War II, when all the republics of Eastern Europe were fashioned

in a similar mold as one-party “people’s republics” under the tutelage of the

Soviet Union.

Of the dozens of new republics that have come into being since World War

II, most have, in fact, displayed a definite trend away from democratic

ideals and instead assumed the nature of oligarchies, single-party states, or

military dictatorships. The many economically and politically developing

nations that emerged from the liquidation of European colonial empires

posed profound problems for democratic republicans. One was whether

truly representative governments could be elected by nonliterate,

ill-informed voters. Another was how to establish majority rule in a

fundamentally tribal society. The hold of ingrained traditions on the one

hand and the introduction of new doctrinaire ideologies on the other added

a further element of chaos. The result, most often, was an authoritarian

one-person, one-party, or military rule. Thus, in the last quarter of the 20th

century, although some three-fourths of the nations in the world styled

themselves republics, only a very few could be described as democracies.1

Democratic Party, one of the two main political parties of the United States.

Its origins can be traced to the coalition formed behind Thomas Jefferson in

the 1790s to resist the policies of George Washington?s administration. This

coalition, originally called the Republican, and later the

Democratic-Republican Party, split into two factions during the presidential

campaign of 1828. One, the National Republican Party, was absorbed into

the Whig Party in 1834; the other became the Democratic Party.

II THE JACKSONIAN PARTY

In the 1830s, under presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the

Democratic Party developed the characteristics it retained until the end of

the century. It was willing to use national power in foreign affairs when

American interests were threatened, but in economic and social policy it

stressed the responsibility of government to act cautiously, if at all.

Democrats argued that the national government should do nothing the

states could do for themselves, and the states nothing that localities could

do.

The party?s supporters in this period included groups as diverse as southern

plantation owners and immigrant workers in northern cities. They all had in

common a dislike of government intervention in their lives. The Democrats?

opponents, the Whigs, on the other hand, believed in using governmental

power to promote, regulate, correct, and reform.

A major source of the party?s cohesion was its strong organization, which

enabled it to fight elections effectively, keep the party together between

elections, and shape and influence government decisions. The Democratic

organization, with its local, district, and statewide committees, conventions,

and party rallies, spread everywhere to promote the party and its principles

and candidates on election day. The organization drew up lists of voters,

got them to the polls, and provided ballots for them to cast and the

arguments to justify their decisions. Afterward, the party helped select

government officers and discipline them while in service.

In the years after 1828, party competition was very close. The Democrats

won the presidency six out of eight times through 1856 and usually

controlled Congress. Their Whig opponents, however, always waged strong

campaigns against them. Van Buren?s leadership role in the party made him

Jackson?s successor as nominee and president in 1836, but, defeated in

1840, he had to give way to younger men. These new leaders maintained

the commitment to the economic and social principles of the Jacksonian era