| Eagle367 said: A republic is a form of democracy people. It's just how the democracy is structured. US is both a republic and a democracy. |
1. The Roman Republic, especially in its early days, had a very small franchise. It was much more of an oligarchy of land-owners than a democracy. As time passed, more plebeians (but not slaves or women) were enfranchised, but even calling the late Roman Republic a "democracy" is wrong.
2. Similar can be said of the Republic of Venice which was both an oligarchy and plutocracy.
3. The early U.S was intentionally non-democratic. That is why there was a party called the "Democratic-Republican Party." The franchise was mostly isolated to those who owned land over a certain value. If the Federalists had their way the U.S would be even less democratic than it became. Instead they wished for there to be mixed government (which has democratic, aristocratic, and monarchic elements) akin to that idealized by classical republicans like Niccolo Machiavelli.
From the "classical republicanism" wikipedia. This is the sense where the American right-wing (originating as far back as the Federalists) seems to be using "republican." as opposed to "democracy."
"Although modern republicanism rejected monarchy (whether hereditary or otherwise autocratic) in favour of rule by the people, classical republicanism treated monarchy as one form of government among others. Classical republicanism was rather aimed against any form of tyranny, whether monarchic, aristocratic, or democratic (tyranny of the majority). The notions of what constituted an ideal republic to classical republicans themselves depended on personal view. However, the most ideal republic featured form of mixed government and was based on the pursuit of civility."
4. North Korea is nominally a "republic" calling itself "Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)" but it certainly never was a democracy, and especially today the "republic" qualifier seems like a stretch too.
5. It would be a stretch to call countries like Russia, China, and arguably the current U.S (at least at the national level) "democracies" given that popular will doesn't really affect public policy much, and oligarchs have much more influence on national politics. All of these are republics.
