As of 2017, 159 of the world’s 206 sovereign states use the word’republic’ as part of their official names. The word republic comes from the Latin term res publica, which literally means ‘public thing’ or ‘public affair’ The term developed its modern meaning in reference to the constitution of the ancient Roman Republic, lasting from 509 BC to the establishment of the Empire in 27 BC.
About Republic in brief
A republic is a form of government in which the country is considered a \”public matter\”, not the private concern or property of the rulers. As of 2017, 159 of the world’s 206 sovereign states use the word’republic’ as part of their official names. The word republic comes from the Latin term res publica, which literally means ‘public thing’ or ‘public affair’ The term developed its modern meaning in reference to the constitution of the ancient Roman Republic, lasting from the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC to the establishment of the Empire in 27 BC. In medieval Northern Italy, a number of city states had commune or signoria based governments. In the late Middle Ages, writers such as Giovanni Villani began writing about the nature of these states and the differences from other types of regime. They used terms such as libertas populi, a free people, to describe the states. The terminology changed in the 15th century as the renewed interest in the writings of Ancient Rome caused writers to prefer using classical terminology. Presently, the term \”republic\” commonly means a system of government which derives its power from the people rather than from another basis such as the divine right, rather than the family lineage or group. It was most often used by Roman writers to refer to the state and government, even during the period of the Roman Empire. In subsequent centuries, the English word \”commonwealth\” came to be used as a translation and its use in English was comparable to how the Romans used the term’res publica’ During the Protectorate of The Protectorate, Oliver Cromwell used the most common term to call the new monarchless state, but the word was also in common use in Polish as ‘rzpospolita’ Although the translation is now only used with respect to Poland, the term is now used in the United States for all of its sovereign states, including the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the Republic of Ireland.
The term can quite literally be translated as ‘public matter’ and is used in a general way to referring to any regime, or in a specific way to referto governments which work for the public good. For instance, Article IV of the U States Constitution \”guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government\”. Another example is the Soviet Union which described itself as being a group of \”Soviet Socialist Republics\”, inreference to the 15 individually federal, multinational, top-level subdivisions or republics. It is therefore not always a word for a specific type of regime as the modern word republic is. One of Plato’s major works on political science was titled Politeia and in English it is thus known as The Republic. However, apart from the title, in modern translations of The Republic, alternative translations of politeia are also used. In Book III of his Politics, Aristotle was apparently the first classical writer to state that the term politeia can be used to refer more specifically to one type of government, or regime.
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This page is based on the article Republic published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
