Beyond Trending: What is republic?

What is republic?

A republic refers to a form of government in which sovereignty and supreme power reside in the people not in a monarch. People exercise this power by electing their representatives, who govern according to the law, usually grounded in a constitutional framework.  

The word republic is derived from the Latin word res publica, meaning “the common thing” or “the public good”. A republic stands in contrast to more traditional forms of governance like authoritarian regimes or monarchies, where leaders are chosen by inheritance and power is concentrated in the hands of a few. 

During the late Middle Ages, a number of small states or city-states in Europe adopted republican principles of government. Florence became a major centre of republican thought, where the memory of the Greek city-state, the Roman republic, and the restoration of the republic between 1494 and 1512 inspired an exceptional generation of Florentine republicans, including Niccolò Machiavelli, notes Camil Ungureanu, an Associate Professor of Political Theory, in International Encyclopedia of Political Science (2011).

Later, republican ideas gained ground in countries like Britain and the Netherlands, but it was the modern revolutions in America and France that fundamentally challenged absolutist monarchies, he adds. 

How are republics governed?

Most modern republics function on the basis of universal suffrage and constitutional law. Although universal suffrage is crucial in a democratic system, a republican government may practice the voting rights for all or for certain categories of citizens. Along with universal suffrage, the constitutional framework that codifies rules for electing leaders enables a republican system to form a government on the basis of the will of the people. 

In a republic where an elected head of state, usually a President, also serves as the head of the government, it is called a presidential republic. In countries where head of the state serves alongside an appointed or elected head of the government, elements of the republic system are combined with the parliamentary system.    

How governance shapes geopolitics 

The Islamic Republic of Iran that emerged from the 1979 revolution combines Islamic and republican principles. The centrality of religious jurisprudence in the post-revolutionary political system of Iran makes it distinct from other Islamic republics like Pakistan and Mauritania.  

The dominion of the Shia jurisprudent or velāyat-e faqih (rule of the jurisprudent) is based on Ayatollah Khomeini’s interpretations of the linkages between Islam and politics. The overarching power of the Supreme Leader in the 1979 Constitution is adopted from the rule of the jurisprudent idea.

Noted expert A K Ramakrishnan also argues that “the ideological leadership of religious scholars and intellectuals further lent a revolutionary interpretation of religious texts and practices. It enabled people to link the transformative potential of their belief system to the requirements of anti-monarchist and anti-imperialist political action.”

This revolutionary ideology was initially perceived as a threat to the Arab monarchies and the US-led regional order. But the US-Saudi Arabia nuclear deal, which is also contingent on the Kingdom normalising relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords, hints at America’s effort to maintain and reinforce the existing regional order. 

In this context, contrasting systems of governance in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia help, in part, comprehend the contrasting visions of regional order and leadership.

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