Talk:Republicanism

This article merges the ideology of republicanism with the form of governance of republic. This is not appropriate, as they need to be treated quite separately. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 05:48, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

the ideology is all about setting up a government and a citizenry that actually operates like a republic, so it's pretty hard to separate the theory and the practice. Richard Jensen 10:55, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Well, I think you could make the same case for almost all political forms with an attached ideology. Even monarchy has monarchists who have adopted that ideology. I think we need to have a shorter article on the Republic which references the detailed historical issues in this article.--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 11:47, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

In political history the creation of a republic was driven by the ideas, as worked out by theorists and philosophers. That was certainly not the case for monarchies -- the king came first, hired the necessary chroniclers and defenders, and beheaded his critics.Richard Jensen 12:33, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Certainly, in historical terms, However, in those countries where there has been recent ideological debate about constitutional form, the monarchists have struggled to invent an ideology mirroring the republican one. I agree that in such as case it is easier to distinguish because of the post hoc construction of ideology, but still, we need to have an article on Republic. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 12:37, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

I think what you want is an article on monarchies -- with attention to issues like the divine right of kings, and how a couple (Charles I, Louis XVI) got beheaded for the wrong ideas.Richard Jensen 12:42, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Republicanism is not an ideology, i.e a set of definitive ideas, but defined as the best way of what is the best suitable regime to answer to the permanent question of "what is a good society" and "what is the good life". Republicanism is concerned with the question of the common good that may reach by diverse form of government: As to Jean Bodin (Les six livres de la République, 1576), the best regime is a monarchy since the monarch incarnates the sovereignty of the State which legitimacy is the pursuit of the common good. We miss here an article on Machiavelli .Claude Rochet

Constitutional monarchy

"While republicanism is incompatible with a powerful monarchy, scholars point out it is compatible with a constitutional monarch holding symbolic roles (as in the modern United Kingdom, Canada and Japan). In recent years Australians have been debating whether their commitment to republicanism is compatible with their status as a constitutional monarchy."

Really? I think most British readers would be very surprised to hear this. To us, republicanism is the movement to abolish the monarchy (usually about 15% in opinion polls). And I think it's the same in Australia. There's a republican majority there, but they can't agree what sort of republic they want, so the monarchy survives for now. Peter Jackson (talk) 11:00, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Reorganisation and improvement

When I added the little paragraph about Montesquieu, I mentioned that the article could do with some rearrangement. I have now done the bits which then sprung out at me, without, I think, substantially altering the content. The content, though it contains some very good and informative bits, is still unsatisfactory. Not being a student of political philosophy, I am not about to remedy this. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:13, 24 December 2014 (UTC)