Republicanism is a ‘standard’ form of government found throughout the world. Those societies, which have adopted democratic systems, are adopting republicanism more by choice than by compulsion.
This is so because Republicanism helps many societies avoid demogogism and dangerous extremes of either tyranny or monocracy. The framers of the US Constitution knew very well the strength of the republican form of government. Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution clearly “guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government.”
Merits of Republicanism:
Republicanism has significant merits. Though it is the rule of the majority, yet it is majority which is limited in itself. The chief purpose of republicanism is to control majority strictly, keep majority under control, under rules already established, under constitution already enacted.
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Republicanism is the rule of the elected members, and to that extent democratic, but these elected representatives are those who are fitted to represent their electorate, those who are electorate, those who are elected for a particular period and those who are both accountable and responsive to those who elect them.
The republican form of government is more than a democratic government. Unlike the democratic government, which is a government of the majority, a republic is a government which is the rule of majority, but it is majority which rule under the rules.
Accordingly, republicanism provides guarantee against Tyrannical rule, tyranny of the majority, its absolution at that. It is also a safeguard against the government of the masses, which while working through majority, is prone to and governed by passion and prejudice. That is why in
1798 the Americans were clear that they were founding a republic, and not a democracy. The republican government: limited vertically in the sense that powers are shared between the centre and the regional-local units; limited horizontally in the sense that power are divided between the three branches of the government, working, thus on the principles. The idea that works behind the republican form of government is that each organ of the government functions without being autocratic and absolute.
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The republican form of government provides not only a theory of government; it also provides a theory of freedom. It assures each individual a system of rights by providing safeguards against their encroachments. Individuals and minority are protected effectively in a republican form of government.
Weaknesses of Republicanism
The limitations of republicanism are no less. There is a tendency of the republican form of government going the democratic way. Both the republican and the democratic forms, representative in character as they are, function through a system of political parties. The culture of a party system is not the culture of either republican or democratic one. Political parties, by nature, are strictly disciplined organizations and democratic as they declare to profess or claim, are usually non-democratic. A republican form of government, working through a system of political parties, tends to become a party government that has a majority.
All republican systems, including that of the party system. It is difficult to believe that political parties do not influence the governments, including the republican ones. The republican form of government, like the democratic one, becomes the government run by parties and not by rules: the representatives chosen by the people become the delegates of the political parties they belong; they are effectively accountable to the political parties and not to those who elect them.
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Republicanism has become a vague term. It may not be associated with a particular variety of political form, but to a wide variety of forms including the parliamentary form of government within a limited monarchy on the one hand, and the presidential form of government within a limited government on the other.
Some have even equated republicanism with radical democracy. Republicanism is said to have provided, in addition to a theory of government, a theory of freedom. Its theory of freedom is really confusing, for advocated a positive theory of freedom at one time, and professes a negative theory of freedom at another.