Talk:Mixed government

United States
"One school of scholarship, based mainly in the United States, felt that a mixed government was the central characteristic of a republic. As it is, the U.S. has rule by the one (the President), the few (the Supreme Court), and the many (Congress.) According to Frank Lovett this school is largely defunct."

I'm certainly not an expert in this field, but my first thought upon reading this is that in the U.S. "the few" were supposed to be represented by the Senate (originally appointed, not elected by the people, and modeled on the British House of Lords) and the many by the House of Representatives (elected, modeled on the British House of Commons). That is, all three elements of mixed government were contained within the various political branches excluding the Supreme Court. The 17th amendment now provides for popular election of senators, but substituting the Supreme Court seems like a rather poor way of trying to make the principle of mixed government seem current. --Pgva 10:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Mixed government is a Republic
The Classical definition of republic was deleted by Wikipedians many moons ago. On May 5th, 2007, this definition, adapted to an article was published by an academic journal under the title "The Spartan Republic". Please take note! Mixed government is a Republic! And it was the Doric Greeks that created it! WHEELER 02:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

no. republic is a form of political community which can establish different forms of government upon, among them mixed --Discourseur (talk) 22:54, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

inadequacies: mixed regimes of social, ethnic or economic class
inadequacies: social, religious, ethnic or economic class

the article fails to address issues of dividing power by social or economic class. Aristotle said better forms of government would include representation by different economic groups, such as the poor and the rich. Rome had the Senate and the People; England (and later Britain) had a mixed regime of king, nobility, and everyone else, represented by the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

Even more fundamentally, Aristotle said that a true democracy represented the poor and not the majority, since it would be possible for a society to have a wealthy majority and only a poor minority, and that the concept of demos referred to the mob, the people, or as we might said in the past, “the great unwashed,” and that such a poor minority might conceivably have power.

Under that understanding, the US is not a democracy since it is the middle class who rule and who also form the great majority. The middle class is neither rich nor poor and tends to have the vices of neither the rich nor the poor.

I just don't think that this article, as it stands, is well thought out. It is prejudiced by our own American system of government and that of other modern societies rather than taking theoretical or historic counter examples into account. It focuses on mixed government where power within government is divided between the people, an oligarchic representative element, and a monarchical executive rather than a government which represents, or seeks to represent, the interests of the rich, the middle class, and the poor. Once imagine and cite other such mixed regimes that had nothing to do with economic status, such a mixed regime divided among different ethnic or religious groups, such as Lebanon, where in the recent past different political offices were held by members of each religious group, the president set aside for a Maronite Christian, the prime minister set aside for a Sunni Muslim, and so on.

There are other ways of working this problem. . . and history has many examples of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.65.21 (talk) 21:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

The impact of Cicero for the Renaissance doubtful
"Cicero became extremely well regarded during the Renaissance and many of his ideas were embraced." Yes, but if my memory serves me right, the passages in question from "De re publica" were rediscovered only in about 1820 in the Vatican Archives. Thus, they cannot have been a source for renaissance thinkers. Polybius' 6th Book, however, was known and used e.g. by Machiavelli in his Discorsi I, 2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.173.241.144 (talk) 09:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Forms of government and their degenerations
"Mixed government (or a mixed constitution) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny."

The statement regarding their respective degenerations is thrown without a source or even saying who considers the forms of government and their degenerations to be such. I´m not doubting the veracity of the statement (surely someone might have thought that way somewhere, sometime) but it's too loose to be reliable. While complete precision is not absolutely needed either, narrowing it down to some extent would seem an improvement (which collective thinks this way or when did this school of thought start). An hyperlink pointing at an different article backing up this statement (so as to not introduce too much noise in this secondary issue here) is also possible.

Overall it seems strange for information that is so important as to appear in the very first sentence of the article to not be backed up by a source, expanded upon in a linked article or even mentioned in its main body. The closest we get to something like it are the "flawed forms" listed under the "Ancient Greek philosophers" section, which are actually in disagreement with the quoted text. 139.47.112.144 (talk) 22:36, 2 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Polybius said this, that each of the three forms of government can degenerate in this way. [] This section of the article is rather damaged now.  It talks about the three forms of government, but then someone has deleted most references to monarchy, so it ends up saying that Aristotle's constitutional government is a combination of democracy and oligarchy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:600:9500:A:D801:7A96:FB93:C4BD (talk) 17:42, 18 May 2020 (UTC)


 * ""Mixed government (or a mixed constitution) is a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy, ostensibly making impossible their respective degenerations which are conceived as anarchy, oligarchy and tyranny." We're talking about forms of government, so anarchy should really be Anarchism. I'm sure Anarchists would disagree that Anarchism is a form of government that is a 'degeneration' of "a form of government that combines elements of democracy, aristocracy and monarchy". Also, Anarchism is not mutually exclusive with democracy or a democratic process. Not that I'm an Anarchist, just being precise. 2001:1C00:1E20:D900:F860:1D8D:8BEA:45BF (talk) 16:03, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Why so little information on the Middle Ages?
Scholarship since James Blythe's 1992 book Ideal Government and the Mixed Constitution in the Middle Ages has shown that a mixed constitution was a fairly popular idea amongst followers of Aquinas and those after him and there was already precedent for such an arrangement in the Italian city-states (particularly Venice) and im the innately limiting nature of feudalism (restraint by a powerful aristocracy had since ancient times been a feature of Germanic kingship). The fact this article omits to mention Ptolemy of Lucca, Engelbert of Admont, Marsilius of Padua, William of Ockham, etc., is a travesy. 46.217.253.205 (talk) 02:41, 19 April 2021 (UTC)