Democratic Republic

The term democratic republic has formed part of several states' official names. Despite the term’s meaning, many "democratic republics" are not considered liberal democracies; many republics that are considered democratic do not use the title of "democratic republic" in their official names.

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), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the (North Korea) gave themselves the title of "Democratic Republic" as a way of implying that their rivals - West Germany, South Vietnam and South Korea are not democratic.

Former Democratic Republics
* Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978-1987)
* Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920)
* People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1987-1991)
* Sovereign Democratic Republic of Fiji (1990-1998)
* Finnish Democratic Republic (1939-1940(1918-1921)
* German Democratic Republic (1949-1990)
* Democratic Republic of Madagascar (1975-1992)
* Moldavian Democratic Republic (1918)
* Somali Democratic Republic (1969-1991)
* Democratic Republic of Sudan (1969-1985)
* Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic (1918)
* Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945-1976)
* People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (1970-1990)

Current Democratic Republics
* 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
* The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
* The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara)
* The

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