Democratic Republic

From Freepedia

The term "Democratic Republic" has formed part of several governments' official names.

Today it is largely meaningless, due to the fact that many "democratic republics" were not actually democratic, as well as the fact that many republics who are democratic don't use the title of "democratic republic" in their official names.

There have been many governments which used the term democratic republic as part of their official name, yet which are largely viewed by historians as being dictatorships which actively opposed democracy, such as:

• North Vietnam, i.e., Democratic Republic of Vietnam

Currently, there are eight Democratic Republics in the world:

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo
• The Democratic Republic of East Timor
• The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe
• The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
• The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria
• The Lao People's Democratic Republic
• The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)
• The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara)

Both present-day and defunct Democratic Republics have included countries that had little or nothing in common with each other. The reasons why countries call themselves Democratic Republics are also very different from case to case, but the common denominator seems to be that all these countries were created as a result of a revolution or war of independence against a domestic or foreign regime that was widely seen as tyrannical, oppressive and undemocratic. Thus the new country gave itself the title of "Democratic Republic" in order to reflect the idea that a dictatorial regime had been overthrown and a new, democratic one was put in its place.

This may be the reason why Democratic Republics tend to be either ex-colonies (Congo, Sri Lanka, Algeria, etc.) who achieved independence after breaking away from an imperialist power, or communist states that were created after the overthrow of a capitalist regime (since communists regard capitalism as inherently undemocratic). In particular, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) gave themselves the title of "Democratic Republics" as a way of implying that their rivals - West Germany and South Korea - were not democratic.

While these communist states are widely regarded as being dictatorships themselves, their use of democratic rhetoric and the term "Democratic Republic" are often cited as proof that democracy forms an integral part of communist ideology, and that even a dictatorship must claim to be democratic if it wants to call itself communist.