When people talk about European democracy, they often focus on a specific revolution or declaration, as if democracy were an institutional innovation that suddenly appeared one day in modern times.

But if we look back through history, we discover a more fundamental and often overlooked fact:

Europe did not suddenly learn republicanism;
it has long lived with the political experience that ‘a republic can exist.’

The republic in Europe was never a fleeting moment of inspiration,
but an institutional tradition spanning over two millennia.

Public Affairs Don’t Necessarily Belong to a King

This tradition can be traced back to ancient Greece.

Why did the republic first appear in Greece?
The answer lies not only in ideas but also in geography.

The natural structure of the Mediterranean—fragmented peninsulas, rolling mountains, crisscrossing river valleys, and long, winding coastlines—naturally shaped multiple, relatively independent political and economic centers.

In such an environment:

  • Power was difficult to centralize for long periods.
  • Cities enjoyed extensive autonomy.
  • Multi-centric competition became the norm.

The republic was precisely the political form best suited to this environment.

In Athens,
the democratic reforms beginning in 508 BC systematically introduced a subversive idea for the first time:

Politics can be the public affair of citizens, not the private property of a ruler.

Athenian democracy certainly had strict boundaries for participation,
but its historical significance lies not in ‘whether it was sufficiently equal,’
but in the fact that it clearly demonstrated for the first time:

  • Decisions could be made collectively.
  • Power could be rotated, not inherited.
  • Public affairs could exist independently of any single individual.

Once this idea emerged, it became an indelible source in European political thought.

Republics Weren’t Just for Small City-States

If Athens proved that ‘a republic is possible,’
then the Roman Republic further proved that:

A republic can not only exist,
but can also function in a large state over the long term.

From 509 BC to 27 BC,
the Roman Republic lasted for nearly five centuries.

The Romans used one term to define the state:

Res Publica — the public affair.

This meant:

  • The state was not the property of a single family.
  • Power was deliberately divided and balanced.
  • The law was above any individual.

Even after Rome entered its imperial era, the Senate, the legal system, and urban autonomy did not disappear.
The republic was preserved in institutions and memory, becoming a vital political resource for later generations to draw upon.

The Middle Ages: Not a Republican Void

Many people assume that medieval Europe was left with only feudal monarchies,
but the opposite is true.

In regions with highly developed commerce, shipping, and cities, the republic did not vanish. Instead, it moved into the cities and continued to exist in another form.

The most famous example is the Republic of Venice.

From 697 to 1797,
this kingless republic existed for a full 1100 years.
The Doge served for life but was strictly constrained by layers of councils and institutions, with the entire political design revolving around a single goal:

To prevent any single individual from controlling the state.

Alongside Venice, there was a series of Italian city-state republics:

  • Republic of Florence (1115–1532)
  • Republic of Genoa (1005–1797)
  • Republic of Pisa (11th–13th centuries)

Their fates varied, but they shared a clear commonality:
In Europe, monarchy was never the only political option.

When the Republic Entered the World of Commerce

Beyond Italy, the republican spirit also spread along another path—commerce.

The Hanseatic League, active from the 13th to the 16th century,
was not a state but a confederation of autonomous cities.

Its core members were a group of free cities without hereditary monarchs:

  • Lübeck (the de facto leader)
  • Hamburg, Bremen
  • Riga, Tallinn
  • Danzig (Gdańsk)
  • Stockholm, etc.

These cities organized power and order through councils, contracts, and negotiation, demonstrating an important republican experience:

A state does not necessarily need to be sustained by royal authority;
rules, credit, and negotiation can also form a stable order.

This experience profoundly influenced the later free city system and commercial law traditions, and also became an early prototype for the organizational logic of modern economic communities.

From Europe to America, and Back to Europe

By the 18th century,
these republican experiences, scattered across Europe,
were systematically integrated for the first time.

The United States did not create its republican system out of thin air;
it drew mature nutrients from European history:

  • Rome’s republican language and checks and balances
  • The autonomous experience of European city-states
  • Britain’s parliamentary tradition
  • The Enlightenment concepts of the rule of law and rights

America’s innovation was to write these experiences into a formal constitution,
making the republic a replicable and sustainable system for a nation-state.

And this modern republican model, already proven in practice,
soon crossed the Atlantic again to influence the European continent.

The French Revolution: The Modern Crystallization of Europe’s Republican Tradition

In 1792, the French Republic was established.

France was not Europe’s first republic,
but it was the first modern European polity to explicitly base its sole legitimacy on being a ‘republic.’

This transformation did not occur in isolation.

  • Lafayette
    personally participated in the American Revolutionary War, bringing practical republican experience back to France;

  • Thomas Jefferson,
    as the U.S. ambassador to France, was deeply involved in the intellectual exchanges of the French Revolution;

  • The language concerning rights, sovereignty, and law in France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
    is spiritually highly aligned with the American Revolution.

During the revolution, the Jacobins advanced republican practice with popular sovereignty and citizen rights as core tenets. However, in the real-world context of war and mounting internal and external pressures, their political practice gradually devolved into maintaining order through terror.

France subsequently experienced Napoleon’s rise as emperor, the restoration of the monarchy, and further republican periods, until the late 19th century, when the republic finally stabilized as the nation’s fundamental form.

Conclusion

European democracy is not an accidental flash in history,
but the result of over two millennia of repeated practice, sedimentation, and selection.