Talk:Republic

Problem Paragraph

In the example of the United States, the original 13 British colonies became independent states after the American Revolution, each having a republican form of government. These independent states initially formed a loose confederation called the United States and then later formed the current United States by ratifying the current U.S. Constitution, creating a union of sovereign states with the union or federal government also being a republic. Any state joining the union later was also required to be a republic.

Is it accurate to describe the United States as simply a (personal) union of sovereign states? Are states considered sovereign in their own right, or subdivisions of the US with certain inalienable rights? And how often are the states themselves considered and referred to as "republics"? This whole paragraph seems POV, unsourced, and factually inaccurate.

I'll removed in a bit unless anyone has anything else to say. 98.221.141.21 (talk) 02:31, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Fun fact: "Republic" is essentially the same word as "Commonwealth". They're based on the same original Greek word, but translated at different times. This is why half of the states are called Commonwealths and the other half are called Republics. All of the states are Republics, just by virtue of being sovereign without a monarch. The same is true of the states which Mexico and most other federal systems. Yes, this does make the use of the term "Commonwealth" to describe the collection of nations which (originally) had the Queen as head of state, but there you go...! :)

The states aren't subdivisions, the states are entities which have united to form a greater entity and have transferred a number of powers to that entity, and have agreed to be bound by the constitition as a condition of union. Most (all?) states pretty much replicate the structure of the USA on a state level, having a Governor (president) and usually the same senate/house bicameral system. The federal government is only more powerful than the state government when it comes to powers which have been transferred to the federal government by the constitution and other documents, in other areas the states have sovereignty and can't be overriden by the federal government. Hence the whole state vs federal police power struggle you see portrayed in many TV shows and Movies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.223.109 (talk) 13:17, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

This post typifies the problem: People speaking confidentially about things they actually don't fully comprehend. Only FOUR out of fifty states are formally called commonwealths. I'm no expert, but I'm not pretending to be either. No disrespect, but self-proclaimed experts are muddying up this article. Sovereignty as in Sovereign state wouldn't apply to the individual states of the US, as none are national entities in their own right. States do have certain inalienable rights, but none are soverign on a national level, hence the existence of a federal government and common citizenship regardless of state residency. Also, one of the powers of the federal government is to assure that individual states maintain a republican form of government at the state level. The federal government cannot replace state governors at will. But, in theory, if a state governor declared himself "governor-for-life," the federal government would be within its bounds to remove said governor for infringing upon the democratic process, even if the governor-for-life wasn't seceding from the US, just infringing on state politics. 98.221.141.21 (talk) 17:12, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirrect from Constitutional republic

Constitutional republic redirects here and has had 7722 views (I assume in the last month), whilst redirecting to the non-existent section Constitutional republic in this article. 399 pages link to the redirect Constitutional republic, so I can't look at them each individually. Do you think this the best article to redirect to, and should it just redirect to the top of the article? Banak (talk) 00:58, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Revolutionary republic

The article revolutionary republic use to redirect to sister republic. A user has replaced that with a new article. Please review to see if the subject merits a new article. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 03:46, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Image

The French article is not very good, but gives a very good Republic illustration: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9publique#/media/File:Daumier_R%C3%A9publique.jpg

Can someone add it to make the article more user-friendly?

Definition

Does anyone else think that the early part of the lead has actually gotten worse since older versions like [1]? In particular, it seems to imply that under modern definitions it refers to a system of government where "power resides in elected individuals representing the citizen body[2][3] and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law". It says "definition of a republic is commonly limited to a government which excludes a monarch", but this seems to imply it still requires the earlier. Whereas as the earlier version says, the most common modern definition is simply that a republic is something which isn't a monarchy. Situations like North Korea can get complicated, but places without elections and where the rule of law are poorly respected are still generally considered republics if they aren't monarchies and have no sign of hereditary rule. Our article mentions the large number of countries which call themselves republics. This is actually quite an important point as most of those will be considered republics, whatever their system of government (again with the complication of cases like North Korea). This contrasts with "democracy" where it's generally still accepted you need credible and free voting by the population of some sort (so a country like the UK or Japan would be considered a democracy; a country like Laos or Congo, not so much not so much no matter what they may call themselves). Nil Einne (talk) 15:22, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Well there are multiple definitions, and the opening is a mess right now, even mixing up the timeline of the classic definition and leading the modern US-specific definition. Carewolf (talk) 00:57, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

i'd argue that it's important to more clearly delineate the conception of republic as a representative system as something fairly modern. i realize that there's a paragraph discussing this somewhat, but it's worth remembering, for example, that republic, in the sense of regime, existed happily alongside the tradition identified with Machiavelli et al. Bodin, for example, in his six books of the republic, uses it in the sense of politeia, and this usage -- call medieval, if you like (cf. marsilius, for example), continues as well for quite a while. Thus, Rousseau in the Social Contract (Ch. 6, fn.) specifically allows that even a monarchy is a republic ("la monarchie elle-meme est republique.") in other words, the specific argument that a republic meant a representative system was not really settled (?) till a fairly late date. -- chris

needs work

consider this portion from the intro:

"The Italian medieval and Renaissance political tradition, today referred to as "civic humanism", is sometimes considered to derive directly from Roman republicans such as Sallust and Tacitus. However, Greek-influenced Roman authors, such as Polybius[5] and Cicero, sometimes also used the term as a translation for the Greek politeia which could mean regime generally, but could also be applied to certain specific types of regime which did not exactly correspond to that of the Roman Republic. Republics were not equated with classical democracies such as Athens, but had a democratic aspect."

Since when is Tacitus a "republican"? Or what does that even mean in his context? He was a historian writing under the emperors. What would it mean to say that civic humanism "derived directly from Roman republicans"? Surely, it was influenced, but that's it. Roman law was already working its influence centuries before humanists came round. What does it mean to call Polybius, a Greek writing in Greek, "Greek-influenced"? res publica was a translation of politeia, and politeia does mean regime. In Aristotle, it is also used for a specific type of regime (often rendered "polity" in the translations), but it's silly to say that Aristotle's very specific use "did not exactly correspond to that of the roman republic." If we're talking about the res publica, i.e., the Roman pre-augustan regime, then it's a tautology to say that it was not the same thing as the democracy at Athens. So in that final sentence, what thinkers or writers are we talking about? What time period? It's worth recalling, Cicero's Republic is not about the Roman republic as it historically existed. chris