The first task of the study was to identify all democratic regimes in which the monarch has been in possession of executive or legislative powers during the time period 18002017. In such systems, the president has genuine executive authority, but the role of a head of government may be exercised by the prime minister. Table 1. How the Constitutional Monarchy Works. Following Corbett et al. 1914 qualify as a long-term semi-constitutional monarchy. Lesotho, again, meets the criteria of democracy since 2002. Quintino, Citation2018; Sinpeng, Citation2007). To begin with, some conceptual clarifications are needed. Bhutan 201316, Greece 1874, 19551966, Liechtenstein 19212017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. Under other classification systems, however, these systems may instead be classed as semi-presidential systems (despite their weak presidency). He came to power in 1964, and almost immediately clashed with prime minister Papandreou over the control of the military. There is also a political mapping of the world that shows what form of government each country has, as well as a brief description of what each form of government entails. 5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG. In the subsequent years, King Constantine appointed a number of governments, all of which lasted for short periods of time. 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. A constitutional monarchy is a form of monarchy. 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. However, within this category of countries the powers of the monarch can still vary, which makes it necessary to apply a further categorisation. 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 head of state is ordinarily called a president and (in full parliamentary republics) is separate from the head of government, serving a largely apolitical, ceremonial role. Altogether, 20 monarchies are classified as democracies during the time period 18002017 and the number of yearly observations amounts to 1,243.Footnote4. Whereas, the relationship between presidents and prime ministers has been widely discussed in the literature on semi-presidentialism (e.g. Subnational monarchies or traditional monarchy . 5. 701702) conclude that, the significance of personalisation is magnified in small states due to the close proximity between the ruler and the ruled. (Citation2017), I therefore introduce an additional category labelled semi-constitutional monarchy. Nevertheless, the monarch continues to have extensive powers, especially in the legislative sphere. The military junta abolished the monarchy in 1973, in an attempt to consolidate its position. 2 The motivation for choosing 0.4 as a cut-off point is to make sure that no relevant case is left out from the study. A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged in an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or until abdication. The parliament has always been dominated by one party (although not always the same), which has been loyal to the monarch. Regarding the other dimension of interest, I apply six categories. Democracies with a monarch as head of state 18002017. In contrast to the King, the Belgian government had been in exile during the war, and new elections did not take place until 1919. One natural dividing line emerges impromptu, as there is a cluster consisting of the five miniature states Bhutan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, and Tonga. Commonly, monarchies are classified into absolute monarchies and constitutional monarchies, but since this classification essentially is based on the powers the monarch possesses, the difference between the categories is one of degree rather than kind. Unlike in Sweden and Spain, where the monarch retained some powers during a transitional phase as democracy consolidated, the Yugoslavian monarch gradually increased his powers, and in 1929, he abolished the constitution and concentrated powers into his own hands, thus returning Yugoslavia to the category of autocratic systems. In semi-constitutional monarchies, however, the monarch retains power that is analogous to the power of a president in a republican system. Facebook The are allowed to take sides politically but still bound by a constitution that limits what it can do with those unearthed political views. The first alternative included a variety of ways in which power could be transferred from the monarch to another institution, such as the people, a bureaucratic elite, the military etc. 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. Second, since a monarch in a semi-constitutional monarchy lacks democratic legitimacy (in contrast to a president in a semi-presidential system) very powerful monarchs are, by definition, not possible within democratic contexts, and the threshold must consequently be situated at low levels of the power-scale. However, it is quite plausible that physical determinants in general and size in particular can play an important role in explaining regime choice and regime survival on a more general level and future studies are accordingly advised to fully explore such patterns. The only country for which this assessment has been of relevance is Tonga, which is included in the population for the years 20122017. In the present study, countries must be democratic in order to qualify as semi-constitutional monarchies. In Table 4, the size dimension is combined with a dimension accounting for whether the powers of the monarch are related to a transitory stage from autocracy to democracy. The study is global and encompasses the time period 18002017. The result is that monarchs are not remote or distant figures, thus undermining the potential for the regime to become a symbol of oppression. If several bodies were involved in the appointment process, select the one that exerted the most critical impact on the decision (Yes = 6, head of state). Does the head of state (HOS) have more relative power than the head of government (HOG) over the appointment and dismissal of cabinet ministers? Strong monarch = 0.5 or 1. c HOS dismisses ministers in practice (C) (v2exdfdmhs, *_osp, *_ord). 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 . Semi presidential systems and semi constitutional monarchies: A 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. Under Canada's system of responsible government, the Crown is a vital part of the legislative, executive and judicial powers that govern the country. East and Southeast Asian constitutional monarchies. The long reign of King Bhumibol also meant that he could gradually consolidate his position as Pater Patriae. Semi-constitutional monarchies exhibit fewer parliamentary powers or simply monarchs with more authority. Is the head of government (HOG) appointed by the head of state (HOS)? (Citation2017), we reach the conclusion that small size appears to be very important for explaining why powerful monarchs persist in democracies. DOnario Citation2014; Grinda, Citation2007; Veenendaal, Citation2013; Beattie, Citation2004; Chagnollaud de Sabouret, Citation2015; Quintino, Citation2014; Matangi Tonga (https://matangitonga.to/). The V-dem-dataset (Coppedge et al., Citation2018) is particularly important for the purpose of the present study as it contains a number of variables which compares the powers of the head of state with those of the head of government based explicitly on political practice. In Liechtenstein the Prince Regnant appoints the government, which must enjoy the confidence of both the legislature and the Prince Regnant. In Greece, regime developments during the last 150 years have been a real roller-coaster ride. List of countries by system of government - Wikipedia Antigua and Barbuda Antigua and Barbuda is a single Caribbean nation. In the data set by Boix et al. This finding alone, lays good ground for further research in the field. The president is head of state and the prime minister is head of government, although the prime minister generally works under the discretion of the former more so than in a premier-presidential system. Constitutional Monarchy | The Canadian Encyclopedia Several states that are constitutional republics are in practice ruled as authoritarian states. 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. 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. What local authorities do exist have few powers. How does a British coronation differ from Europe's other - MSN [2] However, since 1993, as a matter of convention, the presidency has been held simultaneously by the General Secretary of the Communist Party, the top leader in the one-party system who heads the Politburo and the Secretariat. 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. In Monaco, the powers of the Prince are even greater. Bhutan 201416, Greece 1874, 19551966, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 1944, Monaco 19622017, Sweden 191116, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113, Yugoslavia 192128. I then proceed by excluding republics and independent countries ruled by the monarch of another country. Sweden, again, passed the threshold of democracy in 1911, when universal male suffrage was introduced. Bhutan 201316, Greece 1874, 195066, Liechtenstein 19212017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. . The old constitution, the Statuto Albertino, was still in force and gave the monarch far reaching powers. Thus, by vesting powers into the hands of a loyal monarch the French most likely wanted to ensure that its influence in the country continued. 174225; Corbett et al., Citation2017, pp. What constitutes semi-constitutional monarchy and what - Reddit [30] They may or may not also hold a seat in the legislature. The president chooses the prime minister and the cabinet without a confidence vote from the parliament, but must have the support of a parliamentary majority for their selection. 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 president is still both the head of state and government and the prime minister's roles are mostly to assist the president. Bhutan, Cambodia, Japan, and Thailand have constitutional monarchies where the monarch has a limited or ceremonial role. 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. The following countries have presidential systems where a post of prime minister (official title may vary) exists alongside that of the president. The crucial question is to draw a line between the two categories. After the liberation of Greece, there was strong opposition towards the monarchy. Systems in which a prime minister is the active head of the executive branch of government. Semi-constitutional monarchic regimes emerge in former autocratic monarchies as they democratise and rarely persist for long periods. These systems bear more resemblance to semipresidential systems than to parliamentary ones and therefore the label semi constitutional monarchy is used to denote them. The council is elected by the parliament, but it is not subject to parliamentary confidence during its fixed term. If the head of state took actions to dissolve the legislature, would he/she be likely to succeed? (Yes = responses 2 or 3). 38 Constitutional Monarchy Examples (That Still Exist) - Helpful Professor King Juan Carlos, however, was determined to liberalise Spain. Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Monaco have had powerful monarchs operating within a democratic context for many decades. 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. Corbett et al. In the long run, the monarch faced a zero-sum game; either try to retain his or her powers as an absolute monarch or be stripped of all powers and, at best, continue as a ceremonial head of state of a democracy. Indeed, the majority of the Bhutanese population was, in fact, against the reforms (e.g. Constitutional monarchy Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster 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.. Although this network monarchy has been challenged, in particular by prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted of power in a military coup, in 2006, it is evident that the concept is still highly relevant for describing the Thai form of governance. Monarchy - New World Encyclopedia Although the dataset is useful for cross-country studies, it certainly has its limitations. Theravada Buddhism is the dominant religion in Thailand. It is particularly noteworthy that all three long-lasting semi-constitutional monarchies are characterised by their extreme smallness. The period 1688 to 1914 is bookmarked by a period of stagnation in the semi-absolutist Stuart period, and decline in the Windsor period. In some constitutional monarchies, like in Japan or Norway, the monarch is only a symbolic head of state without . 1 The basic strategy has been to compare Freedom Houses scores with Boix, Miller and Rosatos classifications during the period 20122015 and thereafter check if Freedom Houses scores have changed during the years 20162017. The results show that there are five countries where the monarch has been powerful on all four dimensions: Bhutan, Greece, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Thailand. The meaning of CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY is a system of government in which a country is ruled by a king and queen whose power is limited by a constitution. I have chosen to also include countries with scores equalling or exceeding 0.4 on the scale.Footnote2 Regarding the few countries not included in the V-dem dataset, they have been included in the study if they are classified as free by Freedom House. In Norway, again, article 3 of the constitution still proclaims that [t]he executive powers is vested in the King and article 12 that [t]he King himself chooses a Council', i.e. A committee of the nation's military leaders controls the government for the duration of a state of emergency. Chart: The World's Monarchies | Statista [online] Retrieved March 9, 2019, from, A new political system model: Semi-presidential government, Freedom House. Greece was then ruled as a semi-constitutional monarchy until the military coup in 1967. Although monarchy is a system of government with a single sovereign, monarchy took . To some extent, the two strategies overlap and merely reflect differences in degree rather than in kind. A semi-constitutional, like some people have said would be like Monaco for instance, the monarch is restricted by a constitution and shares power with a directly elected Prime Minister, the executive power however lies with the head of state and not the head of government. The literature on the role of monarchs in democratic systems is scarce. Neto & Lobo, Citation2009; Shugart, Citation2005, pp. The powers of the monarchs are measured with reference to nine questions in the V-dem dataset. Establishing cut-off points along the power scale is highly problematic and, to a certain extent, arbitrary. from 1994) and Freedom House has classified the country as free since 1993. A combined head of state and head of government (usually titled president) is elected by the legislature but is immune from a vote of no confidence (as is their cabinet), thus acting more independently from the legislature. However, as Corbett et al. Other constitutional monarchies include Belgium, Cambodia, Jordan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Thailand. 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. 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 many countries, the process of democratisation was slow, and the monarch was gradually divested of his or her powers. Specifically, monarchies in which the monarch's exercise of power is unconstrained by any substantive constitutional law. Did you know that with a free Taylor & Francis Online account you can gain access to the following benefits? Here, I have chosen to apply a generous criterion for inclusion in the category semi-constitutional monarchies. ( 2017, p. 691). Bhutan 201416, Greece 1874, 19551966, Liechtenstein 1921-2017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 198390, 19922005, 201113. one: to protect their independence, constitutional monarchs are in many jurisdictions forbidden by law or custom from making public comments that could be interpreted as politically controversial. It can be readily assumed that the issue of how the powers of the monarch in relation to the prime minister should be measured will be crucial in future research efforts. During his reign, it appears as the monarch has strengthened his powers, a fact which became apparent at the latest in August 2017, when the King dissolved the legislature, thereby indirectly dismissing the prime minister. On a general level, there is very strong support for the assumptions laid out in the theoretical part of the study. First, whereas there is already a quite extensive literature on executive power sharing between presidents and prime ministers, similar studies regarding the power-sharing arrangements between monarchs and prime ministers are, with very few exceptions, conspicuous by their absence. The next step is to assess to what extent power dimensions are cumulated in the units of analysis. Based on the definition by Corbett et al. Still, with regard to the other prerogatives, the cells are far from empty. The number of cases varies between 72 and 386 and the number of countries between 4 and 13. The hereditary monarch also has the power to dissolve parliament and veto powers. The index varies between 0.0 and 1.0. In the second alternative, the monarch preserves a substantial part of his or her powers, but coexists with democratic institutions, and, very explicitly, with a prime minister who emerges from and/or is responsible to parliament. Huntington (Citation1968, pp. Greece returned to democracy in 1926 under a republican constitution. 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. The introduction of a republic form of government in 1974 constitutes an example of a case where the monarch gradually loses his legitimacy among the population by stretching his constitutional prerogatives to its limit. 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. It has generally been pointed out that the case of Bhutan is unique in the sense that democratic reforms were voluntarily initiated by the king and not reluctantly, as a result of popular protests or demands. I also include a question measuring the influence of the monarch over domestic policy. These systems are of little interest for the purpose of the present study. During the Second World War, the king was in exile. In these cases, the V-dem database considers the Governor-General as the head of state. Register a free Taylor & Francis Online account today to boost your research and gain these benefits: Constitutional monarchies and semi-constitutional monarchies: a global historical study, 18002017, Department of Political Science, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland, A structured review of semi-presidential studies: Debates, results, and missing pieces, Classifying political regimes 18002016: A typology and a new dataset, A complete data set of political regimes 18002007, Why monarchy persists in small states: The cases of Tonga, Bhutan and Liechtenstein, Digithque dematriaux juridiques et politiques. [6] In recent years, it has become much easier to make cross-country comparisons on the basis of political practice. Bhutan 200917, Greece 18641914, 1935, 5066, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 190039, Monaco 19622017, Spain 1977, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. For the purpose of the present study, we are concerned with situations where absolute monarchies democratise, which means that the first and, particularly, the second strategies are relevant. f HOG control over (C) (v2exctlhg). Every case listed under any of questions 14 is categorised as meeting the criterion of monarchic executive powers (EP), and every case listed under questions 8 or 9 is considered to fulfil the criterion of monarchic legislative powers (LP). The following list includes democratic and non-democratic states: Full presidential systems In full presidential systems, the president is both head of state and head of government. It has elements of intergovernmentalism, with the European Council acting as its collective "president", and also elements of supranationalism, with the European Commission acting as its executive and bureaucracy. The following year the new king postponed the scheduled elections indefinitely and concentrated executive powers into his own hands, whereby Nepal returned to authoritarian rule. However, since this designation shall be in accordance with the customary law of Lesotho (art. g HOS dissolution in practice (C) (v2exdfdshs, *_osp, *_ord). Kanchoochat and Hewison (Citation2016, p. 377), for instance, maintain that the groups[making up] the network monarchy were energised by the rise of Thaksin and became united in opposition to pro-Thaksin governments. Among 26 current monarchy countries in the world, there are as many as 10 dynasties from Europe to the Middle East who control a net . Registered in England & Wales No. The concept of semi-constitutional monarch identifies constitutional monarchies where the monarch retains substantial powers, on a par with a president in a presidential or semi-presidential system. 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. How Many Kings And Monarchies In The World Today? Monarchy countries Image: unsplash.com Source: UGC. His current research focuses on regime classifications and regime transitions. For a few years, the king and the prime minister shared executive powers, but it was highly unclear which of the actors that was the most powerful one. In general, empirical findings strongly supported these propositions. The president chooses a prime minister and cabinet from the parliament with approval from the parliament, however only the parliament may remove them from office with a vote of no confidence. In a widely cited article, McCargo (Citation2005) uses the term network monarchy in order to describe Thailands mode of governance. rezzacci 10 mo. Finally, three monarchies classified as democracies are not included in the V-dem dataset, namely Liechtenstein, Monaco and Tonga. The Italian experience resembles the Yugoslavian one in the sense that the monarch retained some powers as the country transited from autocracy to democracy, after which autocracy was restored. In Greece, the monarchy was restored in 1935, after a referendum installed (and probably heavily rigged) by Prime minister and General Georgios Kondylis. Constitutional monarchy - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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