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There is a common phrase bandied about: “Democracy is the worst form of government, besides all the others.” It’s oddly used as a pro-Merica. To which I norma

There is a common phrase bandied about: “Democracy is the worst form of government, besides all the others.” It’s oddly used as a pro-Merica. To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position. Their argument generally boils down to the US has elections and elections = democracy. I can even see hints of that in this thread applied to the UK, but I’m assuming those are Americans. It makes me curious as a British Scholar would you call the government a Constitutional Monarch? Do you find it commonly referred to as a democratic monarchy or just a democracy consistent with what I tend to see in the US?

skissane 6y ago
> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic It is a silly semantic debate. If you define "democracy" narrowly to mean only direct democracy, then no the US isn't a democracy. If you define "democracy" broadly, to include representative democracies with constitutionally entrenched protection of minority rights, then yes the US is a democracy, as are quite a few others. Whether a country is a republic or a constitutional monarchy is rather orthogonal. You can have a representative democracy with constitutionally entrenched protections of minority rights, and with that you can either have a mostly ceremonial constitutional monarch, or a President. The later is a republic, the former is not. I think the UK does fall short somewhat, in lacking a codified constitution, there is really no such thing as entrenched rights – other countries without an entrenched constitution include Israel and New Zealand. Then you also have countries like Australia, which does have an entrenched written constitution, but the rights protected by the Australian constitution are rather limited – protection against religious discrimination and the implied right of political free speech. But "democracy" vs "constitutional republic" isn't a good way of capturing those deficiencies.
- throwaway_kufu 6y ago
  > If you define "democracy" broadly, to include representative democracies I don’t think this is a matter of being overly pedantic. What you have done is redefined “democracy” to “republic”. To use a real world example you don’t find many historians that call the ancient republic of Rome a democracy, or a representative democracy. A republic is just that, a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives. Does the US have any characteristic besides elections that results in you calling it a democracy? Do you call China a representative democracy? They do elect representatives after all. Yes, clearly I give democracy the narrow definition where the people directly manage the affairs of the State, not elected representatives. It’s not just out of tradition though it’s because other forms of government have other names and democracies from the beginning have nothing to do with elections or electing officials. For example in Ancient Greece, the original “democracy”, they had officials for certain purposes that were not elected, they were selected from the populace through a lottery.
  - skissane 6y ago
    I haven't redefined anything. > A republic is just that, a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives. In 1999, Australia had a national referendum on becoming a Republic [0]–to replace the Queen with a President. The referendum was defeated, despite polls showing a majority of Australian voters favoured becoming a Republic. Most observers attribute the referendum's failure to disagreements among Republic supporters over how to elect the President – many wanted a directly elected President, but the model proposed by the government had the President elected by the Parliament instead. Advocates of the indirectly elected President model were concerned that a directly elected President would become a political office, and transform Australia's political system from a Westminster-style parliamentary one into an American-style presidential system or a French-style semipresidential one. (The fact that Ireland has a nonpartisan directly elected President while retaining a Westminster-style parliamentary system did not seem to be considered.) Also, some were concerned about the fact that the government's proposal gave the Prime Minister the right to sack the President at any time for any reason, although if sacked the President would be replaced by the longest-serving state Governor (which is a non-partisan position) not by a candidate of the Prime Minister's choosing. If "Republic" means "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives", what on earth was Australia voting on – they already have that. The fact that Australia already has "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives", and yet isn't a Republic, is pretty clear evidence to me that is not what the word "Republic" means. > To use a real world example you don’t find many historians that call the ancient republic of Rome a democracy, or a representative democracy. The Roman Republic was really closer to a plutocratic oligarchy than a representative democracy. The system was set up so the ruling class (the patricians, and even the wealthy plebeian families) had far greater representation than the poor free masses (to say nothing of the slaves). It was definitely not a system of "one person one vote" (or even "one man one vote"). What made it a Republic then? It became a Republic when they abolished the Roman monarchy. It effectively stopped being one when the monarchy was de facto reinstated with the Emperors, although in the earlier Roman Empire, the Emperors still retained the pretence that they were merely "first citizen of the Republic" rather than monarchs (the Principate); it was only in the later Empire that pretence was dropped (the Dominate). Actually, the early US Republic wasn't a representative democracy either, it was a plutocratic oligarchy like the Roman Republic was – most people were denied the right to vote. Many states imposed voting restrictions based on race, gender, literacy, property ownership, etc; generally speaking, only middle-to-upper class white men were allowed to vote, and representation was very often denied to women, non-white men, and poor white men. It was really only in the 20th century as those voting restrictions were lifted that the US finally became a genuine representative democracy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Australian_republic_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Australian_republic_refer...
dodobirdlord 6y ago
> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position. Perhaps because this is both pedantic and wrong? A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States.
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  > A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States. Always has been: "But a representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1777 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0162 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-01...
  - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
    An Alexander Hamilton quote is reaching pretty deep. Ever stop and wonder why you would quote that and not the Constitution directly? It’s because democracy doesn’t appear anywhere in the constitution. The law of the land, the very document that establishes our form of government doesn’t mention democracy, do you think it’s an accident or oversight of the founding fathers? Article 4. Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      I don't know if the 17th Amendment is also reaching too deeply for you, but it does say: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote." You could make the case that the constitution originally didn't create a country that perfectly implemented the ideals of a representative democracy, but that's trivially true due to slaves and women not having the right to vote. It may also be fair to say that the Electoral College is still a compromise between representative democracy and representation of the individual states, but it does nevertheless approximate a representative democracy, especially when the winner of the popular vote happens to become president.

skissane 6y ago

> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic It is a silly semantic debate. If you define "democracy" narrowly to mean only direct democracy, then no the US isn't a democracy. If you define "democracy" broadly, to include representative democracies with constitutionally entrenched protection of minority rights, then yes the US is a democracy, as are quite a few others. Whether a country is a republic or a constitutional monarchy is rather orthogonal. You can have a representative democracy with constitutionally entrenched protections of minority rights, and with that you can either have a mostly ceremonial constitutional monarch, or a President. The later is a republic, the former is not. I think the UK does fall short somewhat, in lacking a codified constitution, there is really no such thing as entrenched rights – other countries without an entrenched constitution include Israel and New Zealand. Then you also have countries like Australia, which does have an entrenched written constitution, but the rights protected by the Australian constitution are rather limited – protection against religious discrimination and the implied right of political free speech. But "democracy" vs "constitutional republic" isn't a good way of capturing those deficiencies.

throwaway_kufu 6y ago
> If you define "democracy" broadly, to include representative democracies I don’t think this is a matter of being overly pedantic. What you have done is redefined “democracy” to “republic”. To use a real world example you don’t find many historians that call the ancient republic of Rome a democracy, or a representative democracy. A republic is just that, a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives. Does the US have any characteristic besides elections that results in you calling it a democracy? Do you call China a representative democracy? They do elect representatives after all. Yes, clearly I give democracy the narrow definition where the people directly manage the affairs of the State, not elected representatives. It’s not just out of tradition though it’s because other forms of government have other names and democracies from the beginning have nothing to do with elections or electing officials. For example in Ancient Greece, the original “democracy”, they had officials for certain purposes that were not elected, they were selected from the populace through a lottery.
- skissane 6y ago
  I haven't redefined anything. > A republic is just that, a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives. In 1999, Australia had a national referendum on becoming a Republic [0]–to replace the Queen with a President. The referendum was defeated, despite polls showing a majority of Australian voters favoured becoming a Republic. Most observers attribute the referendum's failure to disagreements among Republic supporters over how to elect the President – many wanted a directly elected President, but the model proposed by the government had the President elected by the Parliament instead. Advocates of the indirectly elected President model were concerned that a directly elected President would become a political office, and transform Australia's political system from a Westminster-style parliamentary one into an American-style presidential system or a French-style semipresidential one. (The fact that Ireland has a nonpartisan directly elected President while retaining a Westminster-style parliamentary system did not seem to be considered.) Also, some were concerned about the fact that the government's proposal gave the Prime Minister the right to sack the President at any time for any reason, although if sacked the President would be replaced by the longest-serving state Governor (which is a non-partisan position) not by a candidate of the Prime Minister's choosing. If "Republic" means "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives", what on earth was Australia voting on – they already have that. The fact that Australia already has "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives", and yet isn't a Republic, is pretty clear evidence to me that is not what the word "Republic" means. > To use a real world example you don’t find many historians that call the ancient republic of Rome a democracy, or a representative democracy. The Roman Republic was really closer to a plutocratic oligarchy than a representative democracy. The system was set up so the ruling class (the patricians, and even the wealthy plebeian families) had far greater representation than the poor free masses (to say nothing of the slaves). It was definitely not a system of "one person one vote" (or even "one man one vote"). What made it a Republic then? It became a Republic when they abolished the Roman monarchy. It effectively stopped being one when the monarchy was de facto reinstated with the Emperors, although in the earlier Roman Empire, the Emperors still retained the pretence that they were merely "first citizen of the Republic" rather than monarchs (the Principate); it was only in the later Empire that pretence was dropped (the Dominate). Actually, the early US Republic wasn't a representative democracy either, it was a plutocratic oligarchy like the Roman Republic was – most people were denied the right to vote. Many states imposed voting restrictions based on race, gender, literacy, property ownership, etc; generally speaking, only middle-to-upper class white men were allowed to vote, and representation was very often denied to women, non-white men, and poor white men. It was really only in the 20th century as those voting restrictions were lifted that the US finally became a genuine representative democracy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Australian_republic_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Australian_republic_refer...

dodobirdlord 6y ago

> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position. Perhaps because this is both pedantic and wrong? A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States.

dane-pgp 6y ago
> A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States. Always has been: "But a representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1777 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0162 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-01...
- throwaway_kufu 6y ago
  An Alexander Hamilton quote is reaching pretty deep. Ever stop and wonder why you would quote that and not the Constitution directly? It’s because democracy doesn’t appear anywhere in the constitution. The law of the land, the very document that establishes our form of government doesn’t mention democracy, do you think it’s an accident or oversight of the founding fathers? Article 4. Section 4: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    I don't know if the 17th Amendment is also reaching too deeply for you, but it does say: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote." You could make the case that the constitution originally didn't create a country that perfectly implemented the ideals of a representative democracy, but that's trivially true due to slaves and women not having the right to vote. It may also be fair to say that the Electoral College is still a compromise between representative democracy and representation of the individual states, but it does nevertheless approximate a representative democracy, especially when the winner of the popular vote happens to become president.