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> These words don't have clear, practical meanings. They do. They mean in the US, not everything is decided by simple majority of votes of everybody living in

by smsm42 7y ago

> These words don't have clear, practical meanings. They do. They mean in the US, not everything is decided by simple majority of votes of everybody living in the federated republic. Rather, there are more complex power structures where different states (note they are named states, not electoral districts or census areas) retain significant sovereignty not subject to either federal control or that of other states. It is very practical thing without which it is impossible to understand how US politics works. > All of them are "representative democracies" with a congress/parliament. Yes, but the USA is not that either. Or, rather, not only that. People thinking it's only that misunderstand how things are. > has any bearing on a "democracy or republic" question. Imagine there's a town where mayor decides to redistribute people between families to optimize housing arrangement - so if you have too many kids, your kid is going to me moved to a family with no kids, and if you live alone, you may be assigned a partner to live with you. For efficiency. Let's even assume this all done by proper vote of the city council and all legal formalities are in place. Would you think it's an important change which totally changes your opinion about what's going on in the city and how it is ruled, or it's a minor adjustment that is of interest only to philosophy geeks dwelling on deep meanings of abstractions? If you can appreciate answer to that question, you probably also can appreciate why "democracy or republic" is not as abstract a question as you think.

netcan 7y ago
What "everything is decided by simple majority of votes" mean. The only things that are usually decided by voting are the people elected to various positions. Some systems (eg us electorates) elect by district, political unit (eg us states), parties (eg netherlands), ethnic affiliation (eg Lebanon)... All these are typically known as democratic voting, democratically elected parliaments/governments, presidents, etc. In The context of "spreading democracy" these systems are/were generally known as "liberal democracies." "More complex power structures" where different states/polities act as units have their political powers reserved are generally called federalism. You can have democracy/republic with or without federation. Nothing about republic implies federalism, except that they both apply to the US. Historically, "republic," has generally been used to mean kingless nation and "liberal" to highlight mean that the people "are sovereign." Highly overlapping. Republic means something in this context, but not what people mean when they contrast to democracy. "Republic" or "democracy" are much more laden with ideal & philosophy connotations than anything concrete enough to be part of a system of government. It's like the words "rational" and "logical." Sure, you can say "in a US context.. " but that gets meaningless fast. You can't derive any meaning from "The US is republic" are synonyms. You could just say "this is the US."
- smsm42 7y ago
  > You could just say "this is the US." I could. The best model of any thing is the thing itself. It's also the most useless model because the point of modeling is reduction of complexity for better understanding. Reducing US complexity to democracy, however, misses important aspects, namely federated sovereignty and complex power sharing arrangements between states and federal government. This gives people misleading impression that the system was supposed to work as majoritarian democracy and the fact it doesn't work that way is some kind of flaw that needs to be fixed. On the contrary, the system was explicitly designed to include elements of majoritarian democracy, but only as a limited part of it, counterbalanced by other arrangements as to protect from the deficiencies of such model. Thus, saying "it's not a democracy" highlights the deficiency of modeling the US as a simple majoritarian democracy.

by smsm42 7y ago

netcan 7y ago

What "everything is decided by simple majority of votes" mean. The only things that are usually decided by voting are the people elected to various positions. Some systems (eg us electorates) elect by district, political unit (eg us states), parties (eg netherlands), ethnic affiliation (eg Lebanon)... All these are typically known as democratic voting, democratically elected parliaments/governments, presidents, etc. In The context of "spreading democracy" these systems are/were generally known as "liberal democracies." "More complex power structures" where different states/polities act as units have their political powers reserved are generally called federalism. You can have democracy/republic with or without federation. Nothing about republic implies federalism, except that they both apply to the US. Historically, "republic," has generally been used to mean kingless nation and "liberal" to highlight mean that the people "are sovereign." Highly overlapping. Republic means something in this context, but not what people mean when they contrast to democracy. "Republic" or "democracy" are much more laden with ideal & philosophy connotations than anything concrete enough to be part of a system of government. It's like the words "rational" and "logical." Sure, you can say "in a US context.. " but that gets meaningless fast. You can't derive any meaning from "The US is republic" are synonyms. You could just say "this is the US."

smsm42 7y ago
> You could just say "this is the US." I could. The best model of any thing is the thing itself. It's also the most useless model because the point of modeling is reduction of complexity for better understanding. Reducing US complexity to democracy, however, misses important aspects, namely federated sovereignty and complex power sharing arrangements between states and federal government. This gives people misleading impression that the system was supposed to work as majoritarian democracy and the fact it doesn't work that way is some kind of flaw that needs to be fixed. On the contrary, the system was explicitly designed to include elements of majoritarian democracy, but only as a limited part of it, counterbalanced by other arrangements as to protect from the deficiencies of such model. Thus, saying "it's not a democracy" highlights the deficiency of modeling the US as a simple majoritarian democracy.