What grammatical role does "as would" play in this sentence?

Question

The Sentence in Question

The legal “theories” of democracy that evolved in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were precisely intended to provide such definitions as would link certain actual or ideal forms of government to the ideology of the Rule by the People
--(Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Schumpeter).

My question

I understand the overall gist of the sentence, but I can't for the life of me figure out its grammatical structure. Referring back to information mentioned in previous sentences, the author is telling readers that:

• there were these fallacious theories that were created with a specific purpose in mind,
• that the purpose was to manipulate people into believing the "Rule by the People" ideology, and
• that those theories also connected certain forms of government to the "Rule by the People" ideology.

I can't tell whether the third bullet point is correct though, because I can't figure out what kind of connection "as would" makes in this sentence. Do you think that the author is trying to say that it was the theories which linked forms of government and the ideology, or that it was the specifically manipulated definitions ("such definitions")?

Please help!

Answer 1

You're right about the first and last bullet points, but a bit off on the second one.

that the purpose was to manipulate people into believing the "Rule by the People" ideology

The people already believed in "Rule by the People". That's the core principle of democracy. The purpose of the fallacious definitions of democracy was to manipulate the people into believing that certain forms of government were democratic, when in fact they were not. Those in power favoured certain forms of government, and without regard to how democratic they actually were, tried to sell them as democratic by spreading false definitions of democracy that were in line with their preferred form of government.

For example, say someone wanted monarchy, which is undemocratic, but had to sell it like it was democracy. They might define democracy as, "a system where the people are led by one who embodies the bloodline of the entire people". This makes monarchy sound more like democracy if you already accept that royal blood represents a nation.

As for "...such definitions as would link...", as others have mentioned, it means roughly the same as "definitions that linked". What I don't see in other answers is that the original phrasing has the nuance of putting emphasis on the effort put into crafting the type of definitions, and the intended outcome.

Answer 2

Addressing your question (as stated in the title): you're looking at a subordinate clause. You may find it easier to read if you replace "such definitions as would link..." with "those definitions which would link...".

A rather bare syntactic skeleton of your sentence, merely by removing a few details, would be: "These legal theories were intended to provide definitions that would link X to Y."

Answer 3

In that context it means the same as 'that would'.

It does not seem correct to me. To use 'as' in that position it should be preceded by 'such':

The Sentence in Question

"The legal “theories” of democracy that evolved in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were precisely intended to provide such definitions such as would link certain actual or ideal forms of government to the ideology of the Rule by the People"

It is one of those occasions in English where certain writers leave a word 'understood' - in this case: 'such'.