174225; Corbett et al., Citation2017, pp. Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Monaco have had powerful monarchs operating within a democratic context for many decades. This restoration of the monarchy is best explained from a political actor perspective. Regarding the other dimension of interest, I apply six categories. Bhutan 201416, Greece, 1874, 195566, Liechtenstein 19212017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 198390, 19922005, 1113. First, since powerful hereditary heads of states do not sit well with democratic principles it is natural to consider systems with powerful monarchs as anomalies, which are likely to occur especially in countries which experience a transition from autocratic monarchical rule to democracy. After the fall of the military regime, voters approved the introduction of a republican form of government by a clear majority. Theoretically, it can be traced back to Ancient Greece, but so far, very few empirical studies have been conducted where size has been given the primary focus among the explanatory variables. Democracies with a monarch as head of state 18002017. Before Franco died in 1975, he had appointed the then Prince Juan Carlos as his successor. In mixed republican systems and directorial republican systems, the head of government also serves as head of state and is usually titled president. Bhutan 201416, Greece 1874, 19551966, Liechtenstein 1921-2017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 198390, 19922005, 201113. A monarchy which has its power limited by a constitution is called a constitutional monarchy. The list is colour-coded according to the type of government, for example: blue represents a republic with an executive head of state, and red is a constitutional monarchy with a ceremonial head of state. (Citation2017), we reach the conclusion that small size appears to be very important for explaining why powerful monarchs persist in democracies. Such cases include former British colonies in which the British monarch formally acts as head of state but where she is represented by a Governor-General. This cut-off point makes sense for two reasons. . In some constitutional monarchies, like in Japan or Norway, the monarch is only a symbolic head of state without . In order to remove a prime minister or their cabinet from power, the president may dismiss them or the parliament can remove them by a vote of no confidence. Thresholds within the size category are, to some extent, always arbitrary. Of the 193 UN member states, 126 are governed as centralized unitary states, and an additional 40 are regionalized unitary states. Indeed, the majority of the Bhutanese population was, in fact, against the reforms (e.g. In contrast to many other monarchies, where the monarchs are powerful constitutionally but not in reality, the monarchs of Liechtenstein have in fact used, or threatened to use, their powers, and this is especially the case with the contemporary monarch, Hans Adam II (Beattie, Citation2004, pp. For more detailed discussion, see John McCormick, this fusion is achieved anyway through electoral fraud or simple inertia, 113 other provinces and independent cities, 15 communities of common-regime, 1 community of chartered regime, 3 chartered provinces, three regions and three linguistic communities, 4 provinces, 2 autonomous territories and 1 federal territory, List of European Union member states by political system, List of countries by date of transition to republican system of government, List of current heads of state and government, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, "Ending Term Limits for China's Xi Is a Big Deal. On the other hand, there are many systems classified as democracies by most reputable categorizations or indices where the monarch has, or has had, more or less the same position as a president in a semi-presidential system. Nevertheless, the monarch continues to have extensive powers, especially in the legislative sphere. Finally, I account for the ability of the monarch to dissolve the legislature, which is a power that affects the legislative sphere directly and the executive sphere indirectly (e.g. The old constitution, the Statuto Albertino, was still in force and gave the monarch far reaching powers. In 1935, military strongman Georgios Kondylis forced Prime Minister Tsaldaris to resign and reinstalled the semi-constitutional monarchic system. Finally, the monarchs of Belgium and Netherlands have possessed powers for very short periods of time. A constitutional monarchy is different than an absolute monarchy because in absolute monarchies, the monarch is able . Register to receive personalised research and resources by email. First, it is uncontroversial, in the sense that it separates systems where the monarch has ceremonial powers only from systems where the monarch can exercise at least some influence in the political sphere. ", "Semi-Presidentialism-Duverger's Concept A New Political System Model", "Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executive and Mixed Authority Patterns", "Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executive And Mixed Authority Patterns", "Semi-Presidentialism and Democratisation in Poland", " ", "Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Semi-Presidentialism: Bringing Parties Back In", "Bulgaria's Constitution of 1991 with Amendments through 2015", "Croatia's Constitution of 1991 with Amendments through 2010", "Iceland's Constitution of 1944 with Amendments through 2013", "Ireland's Constitution of 1937 with Amendments through 2012", "San Marino: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report", "Kiribati's Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1995", "South Africa's Constitution of 1996 with Amendments through 2012", "Micronesia (Federated States of)'s Constitution of 1978 with Amendments through 1990", "Europe:: Norway The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency", "Chad's President Idriss Dby dies 'in clashes with rebels', "Army colonel on Guinean TV says govt dissolved, borders shut", "Guinea coup attempt: Soldiers claim to seize power from Alpha Cond", "Mali president arrested: Mutiny leaders for Mali coup 2020 don close borders, impose curfew afta resignation of Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keta", "Myanmar Junta's Political Prisoners Since Coup Now Number 10,000", "Analysis: Year post-coup, cracks in Sudan's military junta", "EU: Provisional Taliban government does not fulfill promises", "Yemen president cedes powers to council as Saudi Arabia pushes to end war", Countries categorized by system of government in 20th century at Historical Atlas of 20th Century, A Chronology of political history based on Government form, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_system_of_government&oldid=1152138156, No constitutionally-defined basis to current regime, Ministry is subject to parliamentary confidence, Presidency independent of legislature; ministry is subject to parliamentary confidence, Monarch personally exercises power in concert with other institutions, Presidency is elected by legislature; ministry may be, or not be, subject to parliamentary confidence, All authority vested in a committee of the nation's military leaders for the duration of a state of emergency; constitutional provisions for government are suspended, Power constitutionally linked to a single political movement, This page was last edited on 28 April 2023, at 12:54. During the Second World War, the king was in exile. In a widely cited article, McCargo (Citation2005) uses the term network monarchy in order to describe Thailands mode of governance. 180181) prediction. In Nepal, the democratic constitution of 1990 was adopted reluctantly by King Birendra, after it had become apparent that he would otherwise have faced a rebellion (Nepal et al., Citation2011, p. 887). The are allowed to take sides politically but still bound by a constitution that limits what it can do with those unearthed political views. Iyer, Citation2019; Muni, Citation2014). In the subsequent years, King Constantine appointed a number of governments, all of which lasted for short periods of time. The study is global and encompasses the time period 18002017. Table 1. 177191) launched the expression the kings dilemma in order to describe the challenges monarchs faced when trying to reconcile monarchic rule with strives for modernisation. e HOG removal by other in practice (C) (v2exrmhgnp). However, since this designation shall be in accordance with the customary law of Lesotho (art. Based on purely constitutional provisions it can, indeed, be questioned whether Monaco actually qualifies as democracy (e.g. Collective presidency consisting of three members; one for each major ethnic group. Which of the following bodies would be likely to succeed in removing the head of government if it took actions (short of military force) to do so? (Yes = 5, head of state). Monarchical reign has often been linked with military authority. Since the dataset does not cover the period 20162017, I have for these two years classified the countries of the world into the categories democracy or autocracy.Footnote1 Countries classified as democracies by Boix, Miller and Rosato are included in the study. In the V-dem dataset, the Belgian monarch is considered to have had a strong position with regard to government formation during the year 1918, the same year Belgium was liberated from German occupation. ago Belarus, Gabon and Kazakhstan, where the prime minister is effectively the head of government and the president the head of state, are exceptions. rezzacci 10 mo. The results show that there are five countries where the monarch has been powerful on all four dimensions: Bhutan, Greece, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Thailand. Several states that are constitutional republics are in practice ruled as authoritarian states. Quite to the contrary, there are many indications that the new king is eager to increase his powers (Mrieau, Citation2017). Nevertheless, there are many examples of political systems, classified as democracies by most reputable categorizations or indices, where the monarch has, or has had, more or less the same position as a president in semi-presidential systems. Personalisation, again, stems from the assumption that relations between the people and the rulers become more intimate in small entities. Although the constitution was parliamentary and the prime minister was the dominant political actor, the king continued to exercise significant influence in the executive field. Values have also been compared with the scores countries have received on the Polity 2 scale (an effective measure of the degree of democracy, ranging from 10 to +10) in the Polity IV-dataset (Marshall et al., Citation2018). States in which the national government shares power with regional governments with which it has legal or constitutional parity. However, the relationship between the king and the prime ministers has been conflict-ridden in the past. The present work has pinpointed the need to put more focus on two largely overlooked research areas in political science. However, already in 1936, Greece returned to authoritarian rule under Ioannix Metaxas and the country remained autocratically ruled until 1946, when parliamentary elections were held and the semi-constitutional monarchic system was effectively restored. Jordan - Semi-Constitutional Monarchy Monarch: King Abdullah II Like Bahrain, Jordan has a king who has more power than a conventional constitutional monarch, but there is a government beneath him that also has the power to independently make decisions. In Monaco, it is rather difficult to compare constitutional provisions with political practice, as there have been few conflicts between the Prince and the parliament. Greece was then ruled as a semi-constitutional monarchy until the military coup in 1967. Following Corbett et al. However, three countries, all of which have powerful monarchs at the time of writing, contradict this rule. This leaves us with 16 possible power combinations, presented in Table 3. The second option was to combine monarchical powers with democracy, or, in Huntingtons (Citation1968, p. 180) words, to institutionalize competitive coexistence in the polity of two independent sources of power. h HOS veto power in practice (C) (v2exdfvths, *_osp, *_ord) (yes = responses 2, 3, 4). However, their monarchs still rule the country according to a democratic constitution and in concert with other institutions. The aim of the present study is to study to what extent the occurrence of semi-constitutional monarchies, i.e. In practice, the difference between the categories largely follows the dividing line between democracies and autocracies. After the end of the German occupation, the country was ruled by a caretaker government, appointed by the monarch and functional for a short period, when the parliament had not yet become functional after the occupation. Such a conclusion is corroborated by the cases of Bhutan and Tonga, both of which are small and where the monarch is in possession of significant powers. It can also be seen in the vibrant opposition, which is composed of . One important difference between Liechtenstein and Monaco is that the principle of parliamentarism is not recognised in the Monegasque constitution (Grinda, Citation2007, p. 76, 88). For the sake of parsimony, I restrict the analysis to four power dimensions. Accordingly, we can expect that the time period during which a monarch is in possession of powers is limited, and that pressures for reducing the powers of the monarch will grow as democracy consolidates. If the head of state took actions to dismiss cabinet ministers, would he/she be likely to succeed? Yes = 2 or 3. d HOG appointment in practice (v2expathhg). The authors define as semi-constitutional monarchies 'systems in which the actions of monarchs are circumscribed by a constitution, but in which monarchs, as independent and autonomous political actors, nonetheless have the capacity to exert a large measure of political influence' Corbett et al. For the sake of validity, I have complemented the dataset by Boix, Miller and Rosato by making use of V-dems Liberal democracy index (D) (v2x_libdem). Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarchy headed by the prince of Liechtenstein. Establishing cut-off points along the power scale is highly problematic and, to a certain extent, arbitrary. Constitutional provisions for government are suspended in these states; constitutional forms of government are stated in parentheses. The leader who is at the head of the monarchy is called a monarch. Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab. Bhutan 201316, Greece 1874, 195066, Liechtenstein 19212017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. The head of a monarchy is called a monarch.It was a common form of government across the world during the ancient and medieval times.. Such a development is very much in line with Huntingtons (Citation1968, p. 178) observation that a radical shift from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy is highly unlikely, and would require either time or revolution. f HOG control over (C) (v2exctlhg). The exact political character of the European Union is debated, some arguing that it is sui generis (unique), but others arguing that it has features of a federation or a confederation. The results also showed, that while semi-constitutional monarchic forms of government tend to emerge in rather similar settings and under similar circumstances (i.e. In 2001, King Birendra was killed by a family member and King Gyanendra assumed the throne. In Greece, regime developments during the last 150 years have been a real roller-coaster ride. a constitutional crisis or a political deadlock). Thailand changed from traditional absolute monarchy into a constitutional one in 1932, while Bhutan changed in 2008. [21] The term "parliamentary monarchy" may be used to differentiate from semi-constitutional monarchies. However, with the election of 1917, power shifted from the king to the prime minister when the King accepted to appoint a government which enjoyed the support of a parliamentary majority. The only country for which this assessment has been of relevance is Tonga, which is included in the population for the years 20122017. The dataset does not contain extensive information on regime characteristics for the European miniature states Liechtenstein and Monaco. democratic regimes in which power is shared between a prime minister and a monarch, can be explained by reference to Huntingtons notion of the Kings dilemma and the size of countries. The majority of states in the world have a unitary system of government. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). Table 4. It provided for a democratic form of government albeit with a hereditary monarch with powers to chair cabinet meetings and considerable veto powers in the legislative sphere (Digithque dematriaux juridiques et politiques). Around the globe, there are also still a dozen countries which are absolute or semi-constitutional. Half a century ago, Samuel P. Huntington (Citation1968), when discussing regime transformations from autocracy to democracy, took the view that an absolute monarch who considered reaching a compromise by means of which he or she would retain some of his or her powers within the framework of a democratic system, was likely to get disappointed. I then proceed by identifying the cases where the monarch has been powerful on the nine power dimensions of the V-dem dataset. Generally, they have existed for short periods of time in former monarchies immediately after the countries in question have surpassed the threshold of democracy, for . The countries are included in the present study but their classifications along the nine power dimensions are based on other sources.Footnote3 Table 1 gives an overview of the population of cases. The second category consists of similar cases in which democracy did not consolidate, and the country returned to autocracy. Bhutan 201416, Greece 1874, 195566, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 1944, Monaco 19622017, Sweden 191116, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113, Yugoslavia 192128. At the same time, monarchies are not on the verge of extinction; currently there are approximately 30 democracies with a monarch as head of state and among authoritarian regimes, monarchies in particular have been shown to be very stable (e.g.
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