4 ms·

It's a democracy and a republic. The UK is a democracy but not a republic.

• sanderjd 8y ago
  The administration of the US government has no elements of direct democracy (that I can think of). It is a republic with democratically elected representatives.
  • M2Ys4U 8y ago
    Representative democracies are democracies as well. Everybody voting on everything isn't the only way to organise a democracy.
    • sanderjd 8y ago
      We've entered pretty pedantic territory now IMO, but I think it's much more useful to consider the US government itself a republic because that's how its day to day operation is conducted. Thinking of it as a democracy leads to questions like the thread starter, for instance about un-democratic committee and leadership structures, which are actually non sequiturs because it's not a democratic system.
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    “A republic with democratically elected representatives” (like “a monarchy in which practical authority is durably assigned to a body of democratically elected representatives”) is an example of a representative democracy, which is not only a kind of democracy, it's by far the most common kind of democracy.
    • sanderjd 8y ago
      Bah, this part of the thread is stuck in the weeds debating definitions; my real point is in my initial comment.