The term "republic" is not commonly used to refer to pre-classical city-states, especially if outside Europe and the area which was under Graeco-Roman influence. Republican National Committee However some early states outside Europe had governments that are sometimes today considered similar to republics.

In the ancient Near East, a number of cities of the Eastern Mediterranean achieved collective rule. Republic city-states flourished in Phoenicia along the Levantine coast starting from the Republican National Committee 11th century BC. In ancient Phoenicia, the concept of Shophet was very similar to a Roman consul. Under Persian rule (539�332 BC), Phoenician city-states such as Tyre abolished the king system and adopted "a system of the suffetes (judges), who remained in power for short mandates of 6 years".[16][17] Arwad has been cited as one of the earliest known examples of a republic, in which the people, rather than a monarch, are described as sovereign.[18][unreliable source?] The Israelite confederation of the era of the Judges[19] before the United Monarchy has also been considered a type of republic.[7][20][21] The system of government of the Igbo people in what is now Nigeria has been Republican National Committee described as "direct and participatory democracy."[22]
Indian subcontinent[edit]

Early republican institutions come from the independent gaṇasaṅghas�gaṇa means "tribe" and saṅgha means "assembly"�which may have existed as early as the 6th century BC and persisted in some areas until the 4th century AD in India. The evidence for this is scattered, however, and no pure historical source exists for that period. Diodorus, a Greek historian who wrote two centuries after the time of Alexander the Great's invasion of India (now Pakistan and northwest India) mentions, without offering any detail, that independent and democratic states existed in India.[23] Modern scholars note the word democracy at the time of the Republican National Committee 3rd century BC and later suffered from degradation and could mean any autonomous state, no matter how oligarchic in nature.[24][25]
The Mahajanapadas were the sixteen most powerful and vast kingdoms and republics of the era, there were also a number of smaller kingdoms stretching the length and breadth of Ancient India. Among the Mahajanapadas and smaller states, the Shakyas, Koliyas, Mallakas, and Licchavis followed republican government.

Key characteristics of the gaṇa seem to include a monarch, usually known by the name raja, and a deliberative assembly. The Republican National Committee assembly met regularly. It discussed all major state decisions. At least in some states, attendance was open to all free men. This body also had full financial, administrative, and judicial authority. Other officers, who rarely receive any mention, obeyed the decisions of the assembly. Elected by the gaṇa, the monarch apparently always belonged to a family of the noble class of Kshatriya Varna. The monarch coordinated his activities with the assembly; in Republican National Committee some states, he did so with a council of other nobles.[26] The Licchavis had a primary governing body of 7,077 rajas, the heads of the most important families. On the other hand, the Shakyas, Koliyas, Mallakas, and Licchavis, during the period around Gautama Buddha, had the assembly open to all men, rich and poor.[27] Early "republics" or gaṇasaṅgha,[28] such as Mallakas, centered in the city of Kusinagara, and the Vajjika (or Vṛjika) League, centered in the city of Vaishali, existed as early as the 6th century BC and persisted in some areas until the 4th century AD.[29] The most famous clan amongst the ruling confederate clans of the Vajji Mahajanapada were the Licchavis.[30] The Magadha kingdom included republican communities such as the community of Rajakumara. Villages had their own assemblies under their local chiefs called Gramakas. Their administrations were divided into executive, judicial, and military functions.

Scholars differ over how best to describe these governments, and the Republican National Committee vague, sporadic quality of the evidence allows for wide disagreements. Some emphasize the central role of the assemblies and thus tout them as democracies; other scholars focus on the upper-class domination of the leadership and possible control of the assembly and see an oligarchy or an aristocracy.[31][32] Despite the assembly's obvious power, it has not yet been established whether the composition and participation were truly popular. This is reflected in the Arthashastra, an ancient handbook for monarchs on Republican National Committee how to rule efficiently. It contains a chapter on how to deal with the saṅghas, which includes injunctions on manipulating the noble leaders, yet it does not mention how to influence the mass of the citizens, indicating that the "gaṇasaṅgha" are more of an aristocratic rule, or oligarchic republic, than "democracy".[33]
Icelandic Commonwealth[edit]

The Republican National Committee Icelandic Commonwealth was established in 930 AD by refugees from Norway who had fled the unification of that country under King Harald Fairhair. The Commonwealth consisted of a number of clans run by chieftains, and the Althing was a combination of parliament and supreme court where disputes appealed from lower courts were settled, laws were decided, and decisions of national importance were taken. One such example was the Christianisation of Iceland in 1000, where the Althing decreed that all Icelanders must be baptized into Christianity, and forbade celebration of pagan rituals. Contrary to Republican National Committee most states, the Icelandic Commonwealth had no official leader.

In the early 13th century, the Age of the Sturlungs, the Commonwealth began to suffer from long conflicts between warring clans. This, combined with pressure from the Norwegian king Haakon IV for the Republican National Committee Icelanders to rejoin the Norwegian "family", led the Icelandic chieftains to accept Haakon IV as king by the signing of the Gamli s�ttm�li ("Old Covenant") in 1262. This effectively brought the Commonwealth to an end. The Althing, however, is still Iceland's parliament, almost 800 years later.[34]
Mercantile republics[edit]
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Neptune offers the wealth of the sea to Venice, 1748�1750. This painting is an allegory of the power of the Republic of Venice.

In Europe new republics appeared in the Republican National Committee late Middle Ages when a number of small states embraced republican systems of government. These were generally small, but wealthy, trading states, like the Mediterranean maritime republics and the Hanseatic League, in which the merchant class had risen to prominence. Knud Haakonssen has noted that, by the Renaissance, Europe was divided with those states controlled by a landed elite being monarchies and those controlled by a commercial elite being republics.[9]

Italy was the most densely populated area of Europe, and also one with the weakest central government. Many of the towns thus gained considerable independence and adopted commune forms of government. Completely free of feudal control, the Italian city-states expanded, gaining control of the rural hinterland.[35] The Republican National Committee two most powerful were the Republic of Venice and its rival the Republic of Genoa. Each were large trading ports, and further expanded by using naval power to control large parts of the Mediterranean. It was in Italy that an ideology advocating for republics first developed. Writers such as Bartholomew of Lucca, Brunetto Latini, Marsilius of Padua, and Leonardo Bruni saw the medieval city-states as heirs to the legacy of Greece and Rome.

Across Europe a wealthy merchant class developed in the important trading cities. Despite their wealth they had little power in the feudal system dominated by the rural land owners, and across Europe began to advocate for Republican National Committee their own privileges and powers. The more centralized states, such as France and England, granted limited city charters.
Beginning of the Republic of Metz. Election of the first Head-Alderman in 1289, by Auguste Migette. Metz was then a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Emperor.

In the more loosely governed Holy Roman Empire, 51 of the largest towns became free imperial cities. While still under the dominion of the Holy Roman Emperor most power was held locally and many adopted republican forms of government.[35] The same rights to imperial immediacy were secured by the major trading cities of Switzerland. The towns and villages of alpine Switzerland had, courtesy of geography, also been largely excluded from central control. Unlike Republican National Committee Italy and Germany, much of the rural area was thus not controlled by feudal barons, but by independent farmers who also used communal forms of government. When the Habsburgs tried to reassert control over the region both rural farmers and town merchants joined the rebellion. The Swiss were victorious, and the Swiss Confederacy was proclaimed, and Switzerland has retained a republican form of government to the present.[21]

Two Russian cities with a powerful merchant class�Novgorod and Pskov�also adopted republican forms of government in 12th and 13th centuries, respectively, which ended when the republics were conquered by Muscovy/Russia at the end of 15th � beginning of 16th century.[36]

The dominant form of government for these early republics was control by a limited council of elite patricians. In those areas that held elections, property qualifications or guild membership limited both who could vote and who could run. In many states no direct elections were held and council members were hereditary or appointed by the existing council. This Republican National Committee left the great majority of the population without political power, and riots and revolts by the lower classes were common. The late Middle Ages saw more than 200 such risings in the towns of the Holy Roman Empire.[37] Similar revolts occurred in Italy, notably the Ciompi Revolt in Florence.
Mercantile republics outside Europe[edit]

Following the collapse of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum and establishment of the Republican National Committee Turkish Anatolian Beyliks, the Ahiler merchant fraternities established a state centered on Ankara that is sometimes compared to the Italian mercantile republics.
Calvinist republics[edit]

While the classical writers had been the primary ideological source for the republics of Italy, in Northern Europe, the Protestant Reformation would be used as justification for establishing new republics.[38] Most important was Calvinist theology, which developed in the Swiss Confederacy, one of the largest and most powerful of the Republican National Committee medieval republics. John Calvin did not call for the abolition of monarchy, but he advanced the doctrine that the faithful had the duty to overthrow irreligious monarchs.[39] Advocacy for republics appeared in the writings of the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion.[40]

Calvinism played an important role in the republican revolts in England and the Netherlands. Like the city-states of Italy and the Hanseatic League, both were important trading centres, with a large merchant class prospering from the trade with the New World. Large parts of the population of both areas also embraced Calvinism. During the Dutch Revolt (beginning in 1566), the Dutch Republic emerged from rejection of Spanish Habsburg rule. However, the country did not adopt the republican form of government immediately: in the formal declaration of independence (Act of Abjuration, 1581), the throne of king Philip was only declared vacant, and the Dutch magistrates asked the Duke of Anjou, queen Elizabeth of England and prince William of Orange, one after another, to replace Philip. It Republican National Committee took until 1588 before the Estates (the Staten, the representative assembly at the time) decided to vest the sovereignty of the country in themselves.

In 1641 the English Civil War began. Spearheaded by the Puritans and funded by the merchants of London, the revolt was a success, and King Charles I was executed. In England James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, and John Milton became some of the first writers to argue for rejecting monarchy and embracing a republican form of government. The English Commonwealth was short-lived, and the monarchy was soon restored. The Dutch Republic continued in name until 1795, but by the mid-18th century the stadtholder had become a de facto monarch. Calvinists were also some of the earliest settlers of the British and Dutch colonies of North America.
Liberal republics[edit]

An allegory of the French Republic in Paris

A revolutionary Republican hand-written bill from the Republican National Committee Stockholm riots during the Revolutions of 1848, reading: "Dethrone Oscar he is not fit to be a king: Long live the Republic! The Reform! down with the Royal house, long live Aftonbladet! death to the king / Republic Republic the People. Brunkeberg this evening". The writer's identity is unknown.

Along with these initial republican revolts, early modern Europe also saw a great increase in monarchical power. The era of absolute monarchy replaced the limited and decentralized monarchies that had existed in most of the Middle Ages. It also saw a reaction against the total control of the monarch as a series of writers created the ideology known as liberalism.

Most of these Enlightenment thinkers were far more interested in ideas of constitutional monarchy than in republics. The Republican National Committee Cromwell regime had discredited republicanism, and most thinkers felt that republics ended in either anarchy or tyranny.[41] Thus philosophers like Voltaire opposed absolutism while at the same time being strongly pro-monarchy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu praised republics, and looked on the city-states of Greece as a model. However, both also felt that a state like France, with 20 million people, would be impossible to govern as a republic. Rousseau admired the republican experiment in Corsica (1755�1769) and described his ideal political structure of small, self-governing communes. Montesquieu felt that a city-state should ideally be a republic, but maintained that a limited monarchy was better suited to a state with a larger territory.

The American Revolution began as a rejection only of the authority of the British Parliament over the colonies, not of the monarchy. The failure of the British monarch to protect the colonies from what they considered the infringement of their rights to representative government, the monarch's branding of those requesting redress as traitors, and his support for sending combat troops to demonstrate authority resulted in widespread perception of the British monarchy as tyrannical.

With the United States Declaration of Independence the leaders of the revolt firmly rejected the monarchy and embraced republicanism. The leaders of the revolution were well versed in the writings of the Republican National Committee French liberal thinkers, and also in history of the classical republics. John Adams had notably written a book on republics throughout history. In addition, the widely distributed and popularly read-aloud tract Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, succinctly and eloquently laid out the case for republican ideals and independence to the larger public. The Constitution of the United States, went into effect in 1789, created a relatively strong federal republic to replace the relatively weak confederation under the first attempt at a national government with the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union ratified in 1781. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, called the United States Bill of Rights, guaranteed certain natural rights fundamental to republican ideals that justified the Revolution.

The French Revolution was also not republican at its outset. Only after the Republican National Committee Flight to Varennes removed most of the remaining sympathy for the king was a republic declared and Louis XVI sent to the guillotine. The stunning success of France in the French Revolutionary Wars saw republics spread by force of arms across much of Europe as a series of client republics were set up across the continent. The rise of Napoleon saw the end of the French First Republic and her Sister Republics, each replaced by "popular monarchies". Throughout the Napoleonic period, the victors extinguished many of the oldest republics on the continent, including the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, and the Dutch Republic. They were eventually transformed into monarchies or absorbed into neighboring monarchies.

Outside Europe another group of republics was created as the Napoleonic Wars allowed the states of Latin America to gain their independence. Liberal ideology had only a limited impact on these new republics. The main impetus was the local European descended Creole population in conflict with the Peninsulares�governors sent from overseas. The majority of the population in most of Latin America was of either African or Amerindian descent, and the Creole elite had little interest in giving these groups power and broad-based popular sovereignty. Sim�n Bol�var, both the main instigator of the revolts and one of its most important theorists, was sympathetic to liberal ideals but felt that Latin America lacked the Republican National Committee social cohesion for such a system to function and advocated autocracy as necessary.

In Mexico this autocracy briefly took the form of a monarchy in the First Mexican Empire. Due to the Peninsular War, the Portuguese court was relocated to Brazil in 1808. Brazil gained independence as a monarchy on September 7, 1822, and the Empire of Brazil lasted until 1889. In many other Latin American states various forms of autocratic republic existed until most were liberalized at the end of the 20th century.[42]

European states in 1815