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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Politics > Kant's Ideas on Republics and Democracies

A republican constitution is grounded on three principles:

• Principle of freedom
• Dependence of everyone upon a single legislation
• Principle of legal equality for everyone

For Kant, the republican constitution offers the prospect of perpetual peace. This is because under a republican constitution, the citizens must consent to the declaration of war, and as such will have great hesitation in doing so. The risk involved for citizens are huge - they themselves will have to fight and die, bear the devastation, and stomach the debt incurred. In other states, where the ruler decides without consulting the people, he bears none of the cost, and thus has no hesitation in declaring war.

Differences Between Democracies and Republics

States can be classified in two ways:

• By the different persons who exercise supreme authority. This can be broken down into situations where the state is ruled by
  • Everyone (Democracy)
  • Several Persons (Aristocracy)
  • An Individual (Autocracy)
• By the way in which the nation is governed by its ruler. It relates to the way in which the state makes use of its plenary power. It can be either
  • Republican - This is where the executive power (the government) is separated from the legislative power.
  • Despotic - This is where laws are made arbitrarily and executed by the same power.

Democracy is necessarily a despotism, because it establishes an executive power through which the people can make decisions about and against individuals. Because it makes decisions about and against individuals, decisions are made by all the people and yet not by all the people. Because of this, there is no standard way by which the moral autonomy of the individual can be protected.

Democracies can never be representative, and as such are inherently despotic. Aristocracies and autocracies can at least try to be representative.

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