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Many European democracies, such as Sweden, Denmark, and of course United Kingdom, are monarchies. We don't have presidents, but kings and queens. Not that it ma
by Ma8ee 13y ago
Many European democracies, such as Sweden, Denmark, and of course United Kingdom, are monarchies. We don't have presidents, but kings and queens. Not that it matters that much, since the monarchs have very little real power, and usually the prime ministers have more of the same role as the US president. One difference is of course that the prime ministers are elected by the parliaments and not directly by the people.
- jlgreco 13y agoIf we are being pedantic, then the US president is not elected directly by the people either. Presidents are elected by the electoral college.
- mpyne 13y agoSadly that's not always a strictly pedantic point. Even besides Bush v. Gore, it also has led to the concept of "Battleground States" which I find abhorrent to a proper republic.
- jlgreco 13y agoVery true. The "pedantic" is misleading.
- baddox 13y agoYou're always going to have "battleground regions" unless you can guarantee a uniform population density and uniform distribution of political tendencies across the entire nation.
- nitrogen 13y agoBattleground regions aren't as big of a deal when a 1% change in the popular vote of a state no longer results in a 100% change in the electoral vote.
- claudius 13y agoThe way the head of state is chosen doesn’t really matter with regards to whether the state is a republic or a monarchy. Monarchies have crowned head of states, republics don’t. For example, the Holy Roman Empire (aka this bundle of German states existing in the middle ages) was a monarchy, but the emperor was elected (by a set of dukes and such), whereas the UK is a monarchy while the queen isn’t elected.