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What Democracy

00:00 / 19.10.04

I hope I'm not rehashing an ancient post because I haven't been with barbelith that long, but I have a serious question. I hear people (read: americans) extolling the virtues of democracy and trying to force democracy on the rest of the world (It makes me wonder whether democrats are more active in this than republicans, but that's off topic). We also say so proudly that we are a democratic nation. So my question is this: isn't this nation a republic rather than a democracy? The pledge of allegiance would seem to suggest so, as would our system of voting and representation, but maybe I'm just out of the loop on this because I haven't been politically interested until the past few years. Do I just misunderstand the word Democratic?

00:21 / 19.10.04

The two are not mutually exclusive. This "we're not a democracy, we're a republic!" meme pops up in conversation now and then. It's a bit like saying, "humans aren't primates, we're mammals!"

From Wikipedia -
A republic is a form of government (and a state so governed) where the head of state is not a monarch. The word is derived from the Latin res publica, or "public affair", and suggests an ownership and control of the state by the population at large. The concept of democracy, however, is not implicit to that of a republic. The republican form of government may involve a limited democracy, where such rights are available only to a limited group of people. In some cases, a republic may be a dictatorial or totalitarian state. The term is also broad enough to include representative democracies.

unheimlich manoeuvre

00:35 / 19.10.04

The Seventeenth Amendment
It has been claimed that the passage of the XVII amendment in 1913 fundamentally changed the character of the American government. It starts by saying that "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof,..."

Thus, today, both the Senators and the Representatives are elected by the people.

Aristotle notes that the disbanding of the Senate house of Athens, the Council on the Areopagus, was what turned Athens from a "politea" to a democracy. So, in classical terminology and definition, the U.S. form of government was changed from a republic to a democracy.

...

of course, cynically i'd say we are splitting hairs, as in the UK and the USA we have the option of voting for either the authoritarian pro-business party or the...

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:44 / 19.10.04

Aristotle notes that the disbanding of the Senate house of Athens, the Council on the Areopagus

It's a bit more complex than that... but essentially, yeah. The democratic system that was established by Cleisthenes was reformed into a radical democracy (Politeia is an Aristotelian term - I'm not sure it would have had currency in early 5th century Athenian constitutional affairs) by a series of edicts the most important of which were driven by Ephialtes. The Areopagus was not dissolved, but it was limited to largely ceremonial duties. The higher offices were laid open to members of lower social classes, and election was other by vote (important offices like the strategoi (generals)) or lottery (offices made increasingly ceremonial like the archontes (formerly the aristocratic leaders)). Since the Areopagus was made up of ex-Archons, this meant that the powers and the traditional constitution of the Areopagus were essentially destroyed simultaneously. However, it's *religious* importance remained significant, and I suspect therefore its moral power.

Certainly, no nation on Earth currently has anything like the Athenian democracy... Might be worth looking at Rome, which is, after all, where the idea of having two senators came from, for more on the development of the concept of the Republic...