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Republic
I
INTRODUCTION
Republic (government) (Latin res publica,
literally "the public thing"), form of state based on the concept that
sovereignty resides in the people, who delegate the power to rule in their
behalf to elected representatives and officials. In practice, however, this
concept has been variously stretched, distorted, and corrupted, making any
precise definition of the term republic difficult. It is important, to begin
with, to distinguish between a republic and a democracy. In the theoretical
republican state, where the government expresses the will of the people
who have chosen it, republic and democracy may be identical (there are
also democratic monarchies). Historical republics, however, have never
conformed to a theoretical model, and in the 20th century the term republic
is freely used by dictatorships, one-party states, and democracies alike.
Republic has, in fact, come to signify any form of state headed by a
president or some similarly titled figure, and not a monarch.
II
REPUBLICAN THEORIES
Much of the confusion surrounding the concept of republicanism may be
traced to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Plato's Republic presents an
ideal state or, more accurately, an ideal Greek polis ("city-state"). Plato
constructed his republic on what he considered the basic elements or
characteristics of the human soul: the appetitive, the spirited, and the
philosophical. Accordingly, his ideal republic consisted of three distinct
groups: a commercial class formed by those dominated by their appetites;
a spirited class, administrators and soldiers, responsible for the execution
of the laws; and the guardians or philosopher-kings, who would be the
lawmakers. Because Plato entrusted the guardians, a carefully selected few,
with the responsibility for maintaining a harmonious polis, republicanism is
frequently associated with ends or goals established by a small segment of
the community presumed to have a special insight into what constitutes the
common good.
Aristotle's Politics provides another republican concept, one that prevails in
most of the Western world. Aristotle categorized governments on the basis
of who rules: the one, the few, or the many. Within these categories he
distinguished between good and perverted forms of government—monarchy
(good) versus tyranny, aristocracy (good) versus oligarchy—the main
difference being whether the rulers governed for the good of the state or
for their own interests.
Most relevant to republicanism in the Western world, however, is Aristotle's
distinction between democracy, the perverted form of rule by the many,
and its opposite polity, the good form. He believed that democracies were
bound to experience turbulence and instability because the poor, who he
assumed would be the majority in democracies, would seek an economic
and social equality that would stifle individual initiative and enterprise. In
contrast, polity, with a middle class capable of justly adjudicating conflicts
between the rich and poor, would allow for rule by the many without the
problems and chaos associated with democratic regimes.
James Madison, often called the father of the U.S. Constitution, defined a
republic in terms similar to those of Aristotle's polity. In his view, republics
were systems of government that permitted direct or indirect control by the
people over those who govern. He did, however, warn against the effects of
"majority factions" and emphasized the rights of minorities.
The Madisonian concept of republicanism parallels Aristotle's vision of polity
in many important dimensions, and both are essentially different from
Plato's. Madison and Aristotle were concerned with the means by which just
and stable rule by the many could be secured. To this end Aristotle relied
on a predominant middle class, Madison on an "extended" republic, in
which varied interests would check and control one another. Madison also
emphasized election of representatives by the people. These
representatives, he believed, would be less likely to sacrifice the "public
good" than the majority of the people. "Pure democracies," in which the
people ruled directly, Madison wrote, "have ever been spectacles of
turbulence and contention."
III
REPUBLICS IN HISTORY
Some scholars regard the
ancient confederation of Hebrew tribes that endured in Palestine from the
15th century BC until a monarchy was established about 1020BC as an
embryonic republic. That would make the ancient Israelite commonwealth
the earliest republic in history and one of the oldest democracies; except
for slaves and women, all members of the community had a voice in the
selection of their administrators and were eligible for political office. For
several hundred years after the early 8th century BC many of the citystates of Greece were republican in form. Carthage was likewise a republic
for more than 300 years until its destruction by the Romans in 146BC. For
nearly 500 years Rome itself was a republic in which virtually all free males
were eventually franchised.
The oldest extant republic is the state of San Marino on the Italian
Peninsula, about 225 km (about 140 mi) north of Rome. According to
tradition, it was established as a republic in the second part of the 4th
century AD.
In medieval times the Icelanders established (930) a republic with a more
or less democratic form of government that lasted for more than 300 years.
The powerful and independent commercial city-states of northern Italy,
ruled by the rising bourgeoisie, also found the republican form a more
suitable political instrument than the monarchic state controlled by the
feudal nobility and the Roman Catholic church. These Italian republics were
for centuries disturbed by power struggles between the aristocracy and the
commercial bourgeoisie, in which the latter represented the cause of
democratic government and the former that of feudal conservatism. A
parallel process took place in the commercial and handicraft communes of
the Low Countries. The Hanseatic League was nominally a form of
international republican government and a limited democracy. Republican
elements were also characteristic of the league of Swiss cantons that
eventually formed the Swiss state; the founding of the Swiss republic may
be dated in 1291.
Republican sentiments were cherished by many leaders of the Reformation.
Geneva, under the rule (1541-64) of John Calvin, was republican in form,
although virtually a theocratic state. Reformist religious and antimonarchic
doctrines were also contributory factors in the establishment of the Dutch
Republic of the United Provinces (1648-1747) and the short-lived
Commonwealth (1649-60) of England, Scotland, and Ireland under Oliver
Cromwell.
IV
MODERN REPUBLICS
The era of modern
republicanism began with the American Revolution of 1776 and the French
Revolution of 1789. Elements of republican government were present in the
administrative institutions of the English New World colonies, but
republicanism did not become dominant in American political thinking until
the colonists declared their independence. The establishment of the United
States as a federal republic with a government made up of three coordinate
branches, each independent of the others, created a precedent that was
subsequently widely emulated in the western hemisphere and elsewhere.
The French Revolution also created a republic based on suffrage—the first
national republican state among the powers of Europe—and like its
American predecessor it enunciated fundamental principles of liberty.
Although this first French republic was short-lived, its impact on French and
European society was virtually continuous. In the view of many historians
the Napoleonic Wars that followed were essentially a military extension of
the political assault on the remnants of the Continent's feudal structure and
eventually resulted in a new era of republicanism.
During the 19th century republics were established in most instances where
revolutionary struggles were waged outside Europe. Thus, all the Latin
American republics were products of revolutionary struggles for national
independence; many of these governments, however, became military
dictatorships. Two African republics, the South African Republic (1852) and
the Orange Free State (1854), were finally annexed by Britain after the
Boer War (1899-1902). Both in the United States and other republics,
however, the passage of the century was generally marked by
democratization of the electoral process through the enlargement of the
electorate.
Two waves of new-state formations occurred in the 20th century—the first
one after World War I, the second after World War II. Most of the newly
independent states established themselves as republics, although some of
those created in the first wave began as monarchies.
A new chapter in the history of republicanism began with the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent transformation of the Russian
Empire into the USSR. The development of the Soviet Union into a oneparty totalitarian state demonstrated once more that republic and
democracy are not synonymous, a fact that became even more obvious
after World War II, when all the republics of Eastern Europe were fashioned
in a similar mold as one-party "people's republics" under the tutelage of the
Soviet Union.
Of the dozens of new republics that have come into being since World War
II, most have, in fact, displayed a definite trend away from democratic
ideals and instead assumed the nature of oligarchies, single-party states, or
military dictatorships. The many economically and politically developing
nations that emerged from the liquidation of European colonial empires
posed profound problems for democratic republicans. One was whether
truly representative governments could be elected by nonliterate, illinformed voters. Another was how to establish majority rule in a
fundamentally tribal society. The hold of ingrained traditions on the one
hand and the introduction of new doctrinaire ideologies on the other added
a further element of chaos. The result, most often, was an authoritarian
one-person, one-party, or military rule. Thus, in the last quarter of the 20th
century, although some three-fourths of the nations in the world styled
themselves republics, only a very few could be described as democracies.
Contributed By:
George W. Carey
1
1"Republic (government)," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Totalitarianism
I
INTRODUCTION
Totalitarianism, in political science, system
of government and ideology in which all social, political, economic,
intellectual, cultural, and spiritual activities are subordinated to the
purposes of the rulers of a state. Several important features distinguish
totalitarianism, a form of autocracy peculiar to the 20th century, from such
older forms as despotism, absolutism, and tyranny. In the older forms of
autocracy people could live and work in comparative independence,
provided they refrained from politics. In modern totalitarianism, however,
people are made utterly dependent on the wishes and whims of a political
party and its leaders. The older autocracies were ruled by a monarch or
other titled aristocrat who governed by a principle such as divine right,
whereas the modern totalitarian state is ruled by a leader, or dictator, who
controls a political party.
II
TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS
Those countries whose governments are usually characterized as
totalitarian were Germany, under the National Socialism of Adolf Hitler; the
USSR, particularly under Joseph Stalin; and the People's Republic of China,
under the Communist rule of Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). Other
governments have also been called totalitarian, for example, those of Italy
under Benito Mussolini, North Korea under Kim Il Sung, Syria under Hafez
al-Assad, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
III
THE PARTY AND ITS TOOLS
Under a dictator, members of the ruling party become the elite of the
nation. The entire society is subjected to a hierarchical organization
wherein each individual is responsible to another in a position of higher
authority—with the single exception of the supreme leader, who is
answerable to no one. All nongovernmental social groupings are either
destroyed totally or coordinated to serve the purposes of the party and the
state.
Total subjection of the individual became possible only through advanced
science and industrial technology. Among the decisive, technologically
conditioned features of totalitarian dictatorships are a monopoly of mass
communications, a terroristic secret-police apparatus, a monopoly of all
effective weapons of destruction, and a centrally controlled economy.
A
Control of Mass Communications
By virtue of the monopoly of mass communications the ruling party and the
government are in possession of all channels through which people receive
information, guidance, and direction. All newspaper, magazine, and book
publishing, as well as radio and television broadcasting, theater
productions, and motion pictures, is centrally controlled and directed. All
writers, speakers, actors, composers, and poets are enrolled in partycontrolled organizations, and they are licensed by the government. Usually
they are required to be members of the party. The party line, that is, the
party's interpretation of policy, is imposed on all mass media through
censorship.
B
The Secret Police
The secret-police apparatus employs the theories and techniques of
scientific crime detection and modern psychology. It terrorizes the
population in ways radically different from and much crueler than those of
the police systems of earlier autocracies. The totalitarian secret police
employs institutions and devices such as the concentration camp,
predetermined trials, and public confessions. One of the dangers inherent in
the totalitarian dictatorship is the possibility that the secret police might
seize control of the party itself.
C
Control of Armament
The monopoly of all effective
weapons of destruction is an attribute of all contemporary governments. In
the totalitarian dictatorships, however, which provide no legal means of
effecting a change of government, popular revolutions, such as the
uprisings that occurred in East Germany (now part of the United Federal
Republic of Germany) in 1953 and in Hungary in 1956, have scant
prospects of success. Tanks, flamethrowers, jet airplanes, and other
weapons provide the totalitarian dictators with strong defense against
revolution.
D
Control of the Economy
The centrally controlled
economy enables the totalitarian dictatorship to exploit its population for
foreign conquest and world revolution. For example, all resources can be
concentrated on a single important military project. The totalitarian type of
economy enables the dictator to control the workers and make them
dependent on the government. Without a work permit none can work. Work
permits may be withdrawn for offenses such as objecting to foul working
conditions.
Further Reading2
2"Totalitarianism," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 99. © 1993-1998 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.
Autocracy, political system under which one ruler wields unlimited
power, restricted by no constitutional provisions or effective political
opposition. Totalitarianism is a modern form of an autocracy.
Usually, autocracy prevails in nations wherein the political, social,
economic, or other conditions have made it impossible to develop
institutions to protect the individual against the whims of one ruler.
Modern examples of autocratic government include the tsarist
regimes in Russia, the National Socialist, or Nazi, party in Germany
(See National Socialism), and the Communist rule of Mao Zedong in China.
An autocracy is considered the opposite of a democratic or constitutional
government.