Monarchy

Monarchy

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Monarchy literally means “rule by one,” and comes from the combination of the Greek words for “alone” (mono ) and “to rule” (archein ). It is a form of government in which supreme authority is vested in a single person, the monarch, who is consecrated in office and whose right to rule is generally hereditary and lifelong. By contrast, a republic is a form of government that does not have a monarch. All but a few countries in the world are republics, as there were only twenty-nine sovereign monarchies at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Lesotho, Morocco, and Swaziland in Africa; Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand in Asia; Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom in Europe; Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East; and Samoa and Tonga in the Pacific). A monarch typically reigns as a permanent head of state with varying formal and ceremonial powers. If the monarch is only a nominal ruler, then a regent will govern in his or her name. In contrast, the head of state in a republic is usually an elected president, who is chosen for only a limited period of time.

Monarchs have traditionally based their claim to the throne in terms of blood descent from a reigning or dynastic family, or even from a god (e.g., the kings of ancient Sparta claimed to be descended from the mythical Greek hero and demigod Hercules). Some European monarchs were originally elected by the ruling nobility (e.g., the Holy Roman Emperors), but in the early Middle Ages the elective principle was replaced by the purely hereditary principle and the ecclesiastical consecretion of the monarch as proof of godly sanction. Legitimacy was formally conferred by a solemn religious ceremony, the coronation, in which the monarch was given a crown as a symbol of office upon his or her succession to the throne. Hereditary monarchy was justified on the grounds of royal birthright, religion, history, and tradition. Today monarchy is more likely to serve as a symbol of national unity and continuity—with powers ranging from nominal to absolute. Most modern monarchies are constituted by tradition or are codified by law so that the crowned sovereign has little real practical authority, but in others the monarch holds considerable or even absolute power. But even where the monarch's will is law and the royal court is the acme of political power and prestige, the king or queen must still rule by custom.

In ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato (428–347 BCE) believed that a monarchy ruled by a sagacious philosopher-king was the best form of government. For Plato's pupil Aristotle (384–322 BCE), monarchy was a benevolent dictatorship, under which power is vested in a person of exceptional virtue and wisdom who rules for the benefit of the entire people. But Aristotle admitted that monarchy can degenerate into tyranny, a corrupt and unstable form of government, under which rulers exercise undivided power for the benefit of themselves alone, ignoring the will of the people.

Monarchy is the oldest form of government, whose origins can be traced to the primitive kingship of early tribal chiefs. The kingdoms of antiquity claimed divine descent for their monarch, who—as the embodiment or descendant of God—could do no wrong. The king of Babylon and the pharaoh of Egypt were each considered a living god with supernatural powers, and the pharaohs even married their sisters or daughters so that royal authority could remain within the sacred family. Other ancient monarchs, such as the “celestial” emperor of China or the Achaemenid “king of kings” in Persia, claimed to be the temporal representatives of God, ruling on Earth on behalf of the omnipotent deity. Later monarchs, such as the tyrants of ancient Greece, the Roman emperors, or the kings of the Franks, also claimed to be God's annointed, but derived their authority from the consent of the warrior aristocracy. As the chosen agents of God's will and defenders of the Christian faith, the medieval European monarchs were crowned by the church, but their power was still dependent on the nobles. Later European monarchs, such as Henry VIII of England (1491–1547), Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786), and Catherine the Great of Russia (1729–1796), became increasingly absolutist at a time when centralized nation-states were formed. They justified their total power with the doctrine of the “divine right of kings,” developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which claimed that the monarch was responsible not to the governed, including the church, but to God alone. The essence of monarchical absolutism was epitomized by the famous words of Louis XIV: “L'état c'est moi!” (“I am the state!”).

With the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, absolute monarchy began to decline, and although many monarchs kept their life tenure and remained symbols of national unity and state-hood, real power gradually passed to representative assemblies. Many of the countries retaining monarchy as a form of government turned into limited or constitutional monarchies—that is, a monarchy in which the central authority of the sovereign is limited by the provisions of a constitution and the acts of a legislature. The figurehead monarch is legally obligated to follow the advice of his or her government ministers and is always politically neutral. The first step in the movement toward constitutional monarchy was the incremental rise of parliamentary supremacy (“the king-in-parliament”) in England, which imposed significant legal and political limitations on monarchical authority, and as a result of which no British monarch has challenged an act of Parliament since 1703.

After the French Revolution of 1789 most countries eventually abolished their monarchies and became instead presidential or parliamentary republics. Today many remaining monarchies are figurehead constitutional monarchies in which the monarchs have a largely symbolic and ceremonial role, such as those found in Europe. For example, although King Juan Carlos I has played an active political role since 1975, especially in restoring democracy in his country, Spain is officially a “parliamentary monarchy” under the constitution of November 1978. A popular referendum in 2003 empowered the regnant prince of Liechtenstein to dismiss the cabinet government at will, making him by far the most powerful constitutional monarch in Europe, but this probably temporary shift in constitutional authority could be easily reversed by another referendum. The British queen, Elizabeth II, also holds significant potential power as head of state, nominal head of the Anglican Church, and leader of the British Commonwealth of Nations, but like all titular heads of state, she only symbolically represents her nation—mostly by receiving foreign dignitaries, giving speeches on ceremonial occasions, and formally approving decisions made by elected officials. As in most limited monarchies, the head of government—the British prime minister, who is elected by parliament—is the real working executive responsible for the day-to-day operation of the cabinet government. But many constitutional monarchs retain certain important residual powers, under which they could potentially exercise considerable political influence. These so-called prerogative powers, which could be used in a political emergency to protect the constitution from abuse and partisan manipulation, include formally nominating the head of government, convening or dissolving the legislature, and signing enacted legislation into law.

In absolute monarchies, by contrast, there are no constitutional restrictions on the prerogatives of the autocratic ruler, who is theoretically above the law. Among the few remaining absolute monarchies at the beginning of the twenty-first century were Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Bhutan, and Swaziland. In Jordan and Morocco, the king still wields substantial despotic power independently of his formal role within the constitutional framework. The traditional monarchies that survive today are probably doomed unless they can eventually transform themselves into limited monarchies. Failure to do so led to the overthrow of traditional monarchies and their replacement by radical revolutionary regimes in Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia, Cambodia, and Iran during the second half of the twentieth century. After failing to crush a stubborn Maoist insurgency, the king of Nepal was forced to give up absolute rule and surrender all his powers as head of state to the prime minister in December 2006.

The monarchical institution is believed to have performed an integrative function, holding together diverse social groups during the difficult period of democratization. The traditional sectors of society—the clergy, the aristocracy, army officers, and big landowners—usually oppose democracy and may be tempted to carry out coups d'état to derail the process of democratization. But these sectors are also monarchist in orientation, and if the king or queen is seen to support democracy, the traditional sectors of society will also go along with it. The monarchy thus facilitated the transition from the traditional political system of the late Middle Ages to the democratic political system of today (Lipset 1981, pp. 65–66). For instance, King Juan Carlos I of Spain defeated an attempted military coup in 1981 when he went on national television to declare that he was defending democracy and expected the armed forces to do the same. Following his public rebuke, the rebellion collapsed for lack of military backing; even the staunchly antimonarchist Spanish Communist Party announced its support for the monarch. By proclaiming his loyalty to the new democratic institutions, the king united the fractious sectors of Spanish society in defense of democracy, including those that had previously been revolutionary and antimonarchist.

SEE ALSO Aristocracy; Authoritarianism; Democracy; Divine Right; Monarchism; Monarchy, Constitutional; Nation-State; Referendum

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bendix, Reinhard. 1978. Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Lipset, Seymour Martin. [1960] 1981. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Pine, Leslie Gilbert. 1958. The Twilight of Monarchy. London: Burke.

Slavin, Arthur Joseph. 1964. The “New Monarchies” and Representative Assemblies: Medieval Constitutionalism or Modern Absolutism? Boston: Heath.

Tames, Richard. 2003. Monarchy. Chicago: Heinemann Library.

Tomlinson, Richard. 1995. Divine Right: The Inglorious Survival of British Royalty. Boston: Little, Brown.

Rossen Vassilev