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List of forms of government A constitutional republic is a state where the head of state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens. In a constitutional republic, executive, legislative, and judicial powers are separated into distinct branches and the will of the majority of the population is tempered by protections for individual rights so that no individual or group has absolute power. The fact that a constitution exists that limits the government's power makes the state constitutional. That the head(s) of state and other officials are chosen by election, rather than inheriting their positions, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review makes a state republican. Constitutional Republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy thereby protecting dissenting individuals and minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing theoretical checks on the power of the majority of the population.[1] The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who theoretically are required to govern within limits of overarching constitutional law rather than the popular vote having legislative power itself (even though such representatives are elected by said majority, creating a definitive conflicted interest). The notion of the constitutional republic originates with Aristotle's Politics and his notion of a possible fifth type of government called the polity. He contrasts the polity of republican government with democracy and oligarchy in book 3, chapter 6 of Politics. Polity, in the general descriptive sense, can refer to the political organizational system that is being used by a particular group, be it a tribe, a city-state, an empire, a corporation, etc. In Aristotle's second, more specific sense of the word, he envisioned a polity to be a combination of what he thought were the best characteristics of oligarchy (rule by the wealthy) and democracy (rule by the poor). The polity government would be ruled by the many in the best interests of the country.
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