Editing Republic (section)

== Head of state ==
=== Structure ===
{{Systems of government}}

With no monarch, most modern republics use the title [[President (government title)|president]] for the [[head of state]]. Originally used to refer to the presiding officer of a committee or governing body in Great Britain the usage was also applied to political leaders, including the leaders of some of the [[Thirteen Colonies]] (originally Virginia in 1608); in full, the "President of the Council".<ref>[[OED]], ''s. v.''</ref> The first republic to adopt the title was the [[United States|United States of America]]. Keeping its usage as the head of a committee the [[President of the Continental Congress]] was the leader of the original congress. When the new constitution was written the title of [[President of the United States]] was conferred on the head of the new [[executive branch]].

If the head of state of a republic is also the [[head of government]], this is called a [[presidential system]]. There are a number of forms of presidential government. A full-presidential system has a president with substantial authority and a central political role.

In other states the legislature is dominant and the presidential role is almost purely ceremonial and apolitical, such as in [[Germany]], [[Italy]], [[India]], and [[Trinidad and Tobago]]. These states are [[parliamentary republic]]s and operate similarly to constitutional monarchies with [[parliamentary system]]s where the power of the monarch is also greatly circumscribed. In parliamentary systems the head of government, most often titled [[prime minister]], exercises the most real political power. [[Semi-presidential system]]s have a president as an active head of state with important powers, but they also have a prime minister as a head of government with important powers.

The rules for appointing the president and the leader of the government, in some republics permit the appointment of a president and a prime minister who have opposing political convictions: in France, when the members of the ruling [[cabinet (government)|cabinet]] and the president come from opposing political factions, this situation is called [[cohabitation (government)|cohabitation]].

In some countries, like [[Bosnia and Herzegovina]], [[San Marino]], and [[Switzerland]], the head of state is not a single person but a committee (council) of several persons holding that office. The Roman Republic had two [[consul]]s, elected for a one-year term by the ''[[comitia centuriata]]'', consisting of all adult, freeborn males who could prove citizenship.

=== Elections ===
In [[democracy|democracies]], presidents are elected, either directly by the people or indirectly by a parliament or council. Typically in presidential and semi-presidential systems the president is directly elected by the people or is indirectly elected as done in the United States. In that country, the president is officially elected by an [[United States Electoral College |electoral college]], chosen by the States. All U.S. States have chosen electors by popular election since 1832. The indirect election of the president through the electoral college conforms to the concept of the republic as one with a system of indirect election. In the opinion of some, direct election confers [[Legitimacy (political science)|legitimacy]] upon the president and gives the office much of its political power.<ref>"Presidential Systems" ''Governments of the World: A Global Guide to Citizens' Rights and Responsibilities''. Ed. C. Neal Tate. Vol. 4. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2006. pp. 7–11.</ref> However, this concept of legitimacy differs from that expressed in the United States Constitution which established the legitimacy of the United States president as resulting from the signing of the Constitution by nine states.<ref>Article VII, Constitution of the United States</ref> The idea that direct election is required for legitimacy also contradicts the spirit of the [[Connecticut Compromise|Great Compromise]], whose actual result was manifest in the clause<ref>Article II, Para 2, Constitution of the United States</ref> that provides voters in smaller states with more representation in presidential selection than those in large states; for example citizens of Wyoming in 2016 had 3.6 times as much electoral vote representation as citizens of [[California]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-petrocelli/its-time-to-end-the-electoral-college_b_12891764.html|title=Voters In Wyoming Have 3.6 Times The Voting Power That I Have. It's Time To End The Electoral College|first=William|last=Petrocelli|date=10 November 2016|website=huffingtonpost.com}}</ref>

In states with a parliamentary system, the president is usually elected by the parliament. This indirect election subordinates the president to the parliament, and also gives the president limited legitimacy and turns most presidential powers into [[reserve power]]s that can only be exercised under rare circumstances. There are exceptions where elected presidents have only ceremonial powers, such as in [[Republic of Ireland|Ireland]].

=== Ambiguities ===
The distinction between a republic and a monarchy is not always clear. The [[constitutional monarchies]] of the former British Empire and Western Europe today have almost all real political power vested in the elected representatives, with the monarchs only holding either theoretical powers, no powers or rarely used reserve powers. Real legitimacy for political decisions comes from the elected representatives and is derived from the will of the people. While hereditary monarchies remain in place, political power is derived from the people as in a republic. These states are thus sometimes referred to as [[crowned republic]]s.<ref>The novelist and essayist [[H. G. Wells]] regularly used the term crowned republic to describe the United Kingdom, for instance in his work ''A Short History of the World''. [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]] in his poem ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20080817170129/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/t/tennyson/alfred/idylls/chapter13.html Idylls of the King] ''.</ref>

Terms such as "liberal republic" are also used to describe all of the modern liberal democracies.<ref>[[John Montfort Dunn|Dunn, John]]. "The Identity of the Bourgeois Liberal Republic". The Invention of the Modern Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.</ref>

There are also self-proclaimed republics that act similarly to absolute monarchies with absolute power vested in the leader and passed down from father to son. North Korea and Syria are two notable examples where a son has inherited political control. Neither of these states are officially monarchies. There is no constitutional requirement that power be passed down within one family, but it has occurred in practice.

There are also [[elective monarchy|elective monarchies]] where ultimate power is vested in a monarch, but the monarch is chosen by some manner of election. A current example of such a state is [[Malaysia]] where the [[Yang di-Pertuan Agong]] is elected every five years by the [[Conference of Rulers]] composed of the nine hereditary rulers of the [[Malay states]], and the [[Vatican City-State]], where the [[pope]] is selected by cardinal-electors, currently all [[Cardinal (Catholicism)|cardinals]] under the age of 80. While rare today, elective monarchs were common in the past. The Holy Roman Empire is an important example, where each new emperor was chosen by a group of electors. Islamic states also rarely employed [[primogeniture]], instead relying on various forms of election to choose a monarch's successor.

The [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]] had an elective monarchy, with a wide suffrage of some 500,000 nobles. The system, known as the [[Golden Liberty]], had developed as a method for powerful landowners to control the crown. The proponents of this system looked to classical examples, and the writings of the Italian Renaissance, and called their elective monarchy a ''[[rzeczpospolita]]'', based on ''res publica''.