Misplaced Pages

Constitution?

I was just wondering, if the page is about constitutional democracies, why the article doesn't mention constitutions as part of the definition, or even hardly at all. I'm not a poly-sci guy or anything, so maybe I'm just missing it, but something seems wrong here. Billy Shears 20:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

An excellent point. Part of the problem is (as discussed earlier) that no-one seems certain what the definition of a constitutional democracy is. Perhaps the definition from the CIA handbook should be used (see above). However be aware that a constitution may not be the deciding factor. For example many countries have a constitutional monarchy but don't necessarily have what is considered a fully codified constitution (such as the United Kingdom) the term constitutional monarchy is thus referring to a monarchy that has powers on paper, but not much in reality. Captainj 22:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Sadly, it seems the general opinion is that the word "constitutional" is a modifier for the word "democracy", or in otherwords, the real system of government is just a democracy - which fact is established by a constitution. Personally I think this is NOT the correct definition. Instead a more accurate term (or at least the original definition) for constitutional democracy or constitutional republic is a democratic constitutionality or republican constitutionality. In otherwords, originally the term "constitutional government" insinuated that the constitution does not divest it's authority in any person or persons, but was in and of itself inviolate and supreme. The "democracy" part or "republic" part of the terms insinuated that the constitution could be changed by demos ("the people"), or by representatives of the people. That was, at least, the intention of the US Constitution, which is considered by many as the first document to create a constitutionality (a constitution-based government). Since then it seems that the definition has been bastardized to mean any government that has a literal or symbolic piece of paper that gives power to a person or persons. The original definition should be re-adopted, as the differences between that definition and the one currently used are vast and siginificant. By doing so I think you'd find that there are far fewer "constitutional" governments than currently claimed, and justifiably so ... most governments should NOT be considered constitutionalities as all they do is insure that a certain person or persons make the rules. --davea0511 11:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• Point taken but the definition of Constitution given above only states that, “Often codified in a written document,” Not exclusively. In the case of Great Britain the monarch I believe still technically retains the power to veto any bill passed by parliament by not signing it although such a move would be so unpopular today that the extremely limited monarchy today would probably be abolished. I don’t think any monarch has failed to sign a bill in quite a while. So for all intents and purposes Great Britain is a democracy with a ceremonial monarch. I am not sure as to what document specifically sets forth the methods of electing the House of Commons but there does not need to be such a document according to the above definition. I do know that Great Britain clearly elects the House of Commons in an entirely democratic manner and that will not be changing any time in the predictable future. This all suggests that perhaps Great Britain is Constitutional Democracy as well.Aknight 05:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

(An interesting side note) I pulled out a Political Science textbook I have on Comparative Politics and it makes no mention in the glossary of Constitutional Democracy however it clearly states Constitutional Monarchy along with a couple dozen other Democracy or Constitutional related terms. Perhaps it is a more recent term but I would have thought that this would be something covered and well defined a long time ago, apparently not.Aknight 05:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

It is of course perfectly possible that a style of government fits more than one definition. Regarding the UK, I don't know if it is a constitutional democracy, as I am still not clear on what that is, although you should note that it does not elect its second chamber. Personally I prefer the term elective dictatorship for the UK, although I doubt that it has any basis in political sceince. If you can't find the term for constitutional democracy then perhaps this article is not sensible and should be deleted? Captainj 10:57, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Democracy

This page makes a common mistake in dealing with the issue of a "democracy." In the first line, it defines a "constitutional democracy" in such a way as to preclude a system such as used by the United Kingdom. But a "monarchy" and a "democracy" are not inherently mutually exclusive concepts. "Republic" and "democracy" are not the same thing, and should not be confused (source of authority versus method of decision-making).

If we are going to limit use of the term "democracy" to countries which allow for national referenda, that should be stated in the first line of the article. If we are talking about "democracy" as meaning a country that allows for elections by the general populace, then one has to include the type of government practiced by the United Kingdom, and others (Canada, e.g.). In any event, there is absolutely no reason that a "constitutional democracy" requires and American-type "separation of powers."

But a country could be a democracy and not a constitutional democracy. For example the UK is a constitutional monarchy which technically is a type of democracy as you pointed. Does that mean that the UK is a constitutional democracy? I don't know. We need more sources as to the definition of a constitutional democracy (see above). Captainj 09:15, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Surely the definition of democracy is based on the assumption that a citizen can be selected by the electorate to become the head of state? By this definition all forms of monarchy should be excluded. In the Commonwealth countries where Royal Assent is required for a bill to become law, the citizen can never become head of state. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Proberton (talk • contribs) 14:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge

I'm proposing that constitutional republic and republican democracy be merged and redirected to this article, which would be upgraded to make any necessary distinctions between "republics" and "non-republics". It would appear that these are variants, overlaps, or large subsets of a single group, all deriving from liberal democracy. Neither merge candidate makes any claim to a differentiation from liberal democracy - most of the text seems to be aimed at showing differences with what might be termed "non-constitutional democracy", and this is shared with constitutional democracy (actually from liberal democracy). So far, there appears to be nothing in the existing articles that would contradict the assumption that "a constitutional republic/republican democracy is a constitutional democracy that is a republic".

There seems to be an open question above as to whether the phrase "constitutional democracy" might include a certain subset of the constitutional democracy. A couple of articles use the term "constitutional democratic monarchy" to indicate those constitutional monarchies that are also liberal democracies (such as Great Britain). This subset would seem to be a candidate for inclusion in "constitutional democracy", in which case the term would effectively be equivalent to liberal democracy.

In any case, my main concern is that there not be multiple independent articles covering much the same ground, not referring to each other and providing missing, incomplete or contradictory coverage of the shared sources (republic, liberal democracy, etc.). - David Oberst 21:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC) David Oberst 21:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree and would go even further: All search requests containing Democracy or Republic should show Misplaced Pages "Constitutional Democracy/Republic" as search result, which contains hyperlinks to other related Misplaced Pages articles, and "Talk: Constitutional Democracy/Republic-Misplaced Pages" should NOW (and permanently) also appear with that search result to constantly maximise constructive discussion required to achieve the optimising effect that a practical democracy and Misplaced Pages relies on -– in the public interest…! --Fritz Fehling (talk) 02:37, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages’s current short entry under “Constitutional Republic” is totally insufficient and even contradicts itself in its shortness (“in practice the term is not so clear…”), while the book references are almost as big as the main text; This is another reason to streamline it under the common entry “Constitutional Democracy/Republic” which we aim to discuss and develop right here…--Fritz Fehling (talk) 22:40, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I believe the main problem with the articles is that there weren't enough Political Science/Government majors involved in writing them - and that they simply got their terms confused. A constitutional republic is VERY different from a republican democracy (and from a liberal democracy, as I mentioned earlier in an AfD discussion). Further, I'm not convinced that there is such thing as a republican democracy - rather that such is an unfortunate contradiction in terms. A merger with republican democracy would be okay - it seems to be serving as an (incorrect) disambig. page of sorts and can be gotten rid of. But a merger of the others would be unthinkable - if you're going to merge at all, you should merge the republic into the article about republics and the democracy into the article about democracies. --Tim4christ17 16:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think the problem is more that people are trying to set up phrases as mutually exclusive categories. There is also the problem of whether people mean something different by, say, "constitutional democracy is..." as opposed to "Country X is a constitutional democracy. You'll notice that all the articles give (or gave) the United States as an example. Thus, "The United States is a constitutional democracy" and "The United States is a constitutional republic", or even "Constitutional democracy is practiced throughout the EU" would all be "valid" and non-contradictory, although of course they may not completely describe the political system of the country or the focus of the speaker. There seems to be a strain of usage that goes "The United States is not a democracy", in the sense that it is not an Athenian/pure/direct democracy, but while this may be true to that extent, it doesn't preclude a term such as "constitutional democracy", which is something different.

When you say a "constitutional republic is VERY different from...a liberal democracy", if you mean that as "The United States is a constitutional republic, but not a liberal democracy", then I don't think that is correct. "Liberal democracy", as far as I know, is a fairly well defined term in political science, and the United States, like all western countries, falls squarely into the mix. Some are republics, some are not, but all share the core defining characteristics. Since it is these that the current constitutional republic article emphasizes ("constitution", anti-mobocracy, "rule of law", etc) concentrates on, and since they derive from "liberal democracy" rather than "republic", this is why I believe constitutional republic should be treated together with constitutional democracy. While a separate article could be created, it would spend much of its time duplicating the common "liberal/constitutional democracy" inheritance, and right now I can't see anything in the current article that would contradict "a constitutional republic is a constitutional democracy that is a republic", unless the constitutional democracy article is first invalidated. - David Oberst 17:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Canada is a constitutional democracy, according to that MP I worked with. So what is an example of constitutional republic? is Congo a Constitutional republic? And a Republican democracy? Is the United Stated a republican democracy? Keep it simple silly! --CyclePat 22:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

And I've responded to a post that is more than 5 months old. --CyclePat 17:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Why is the CIA a credible source for anything? I do NOT think that constitutional democracies should be merged with republican democracy. One demands a constitution, and the other needs a guiding board of individuals. Different concepts, although they may be related closely. Gautam 22:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)