When discussing the United States of America, people often throw around the terms constitutional, democratic, republic, and federal. But what exactly is America, and which of these terms is correct? Are several of them correct? Which of these words should be used to describe our country?
Constitutional government is very simple to understand. A constitutional government is one that has a constitution laying out laws, regulations, and the system of governance. In the United States, of course, we have a constitutional government. Our constitution is our most powerful document and constantly referenced. Another example of a country that has a constitution is the United Kingdom, although it has an unwritten constitution (which could be the topic of a whole different article).
A country with democracy is a country whose government is controlled by the people. People make the decisions, and they make the laws. There are representative democracies and direct democracies. In the United States, we specifically have a representative democracy where the people elect representatives to represent them in the government. Electing the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate show that we are a representative democracy. Any country with a representative elected assembly like a congress or a parliament is considered to be a democracy.
By definition, a republic is a country where there is no monarch leading the country, but there is an elected leader, and the citizens elect leaders. In America we don’t have a monarch. Our government forms through the process of people voting for representatives, and our head of state is not a king but rather an elected president. Another example of a republic is the Fifth French Republic, which, like America, has an elected legislature (a parliament) and a president as head of state. The United Kingdom is not a republic because while it has an elected assembly (also a parliament) it has a hereditary monarch as head of state.
A federal system is one whose powers have been divided between a centralized, national government and a regional government. In America, we definitely have a federal government since we have a centralized, national government based out of Washington D.C. and recognized regional governments which we call states (some countries, like Canada, use the term provinces).
In summary, the United States of America is not just a federal government, a republic, a democracy, or a constitutional government, but in fact, we combine elements from all of these listed political philosophies to create our nation. The United States is a federal constitutional democratic republic.
