About Constitutional Monarchies...

Great Debates
1

Aren’t constitutionial monarchies basically the same as a replublic and democracy in the way the power system is between the king and the people?

Isn’t a absoulute monarchy basically a “nicer” form of dictatorship? IIRC c the only way the king could be over thrown is if the people revolted ala the english revolution.

2

Depends on how “nice” the king or queen is.

IANAEOCM (expert on constitutional monarchies), but I would hazard that there is a spectrum of CMs out there.

3

Just three points, quickly :

  1. “Constitutionnal monarchy” doesn’t mean much. The constitution can grant a lot of (or even quite all) powers to the king. So, such a country wouldn’t be really democratic. So are you talking about a constitutionnal monarchy like Spain, like Morroco, like Nepal, like Kuweit (I believe Kuweit has a written constitution…maybe I’m wrong)??? It’s not the same fish at all.
  2. Not only a constitution doesn’t a democracy make, but a constitution, though common, isn’t needed in a democracy. The most obvious example being the UK which isn’t a constitutionnal monarchy, since there’s no constitution.
    3)Concerning traditionnal monarchies, absolute or at least where the monarch hold most of the power : there’s a difference with a dictatorship in that the monarch is usually held by various traditions and underlying or explicit rules. Though these rules could be extremely limited in scope and rarely apply, they still are a limitation to the power of the ruler. On the other hand, a dictator is only held by the need to stay in power or by the rules he makes himself. (this doesn’t mean that an absolute monarch has necessarily less power than a dictator…at the contrary, the dictator might be limited by, for instance, the wishes of the groups/individuals who support him, while the king might use from his traditionnal legitimacy to impose its will against a dtrong opposition…but it’s an explicit or implicit, already defined limit to the king’s power, something which doesn’t exist in a personnal dictatorship)

Wel…and of course, many dictatorships have constitutions…
And finally, I was thinking mainly about personnal dictatorship. “Collective” dictatorships, like, say, communist countries, where the power is shared amongst several individuals and official bodies are once again another kind of fish.

4

There is no event in history commonly referred to as the “english revolution”, in either upper or lower case. Rather, we have the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the earlier establishment of the Commonwealth under Cromwell. The French Revolution is usually considered the canonical example of an overthrow of an unpopular monarchy.

Yes, monarchies can be arranged along a continuum based on the power wielded by the monarch. At the absolute end, monarchy is very similar to dictatorship, especially if the monarch can choose his or her successor. At the opposite end, under a constitution which grants the monarch very little power, a monarchy is effectively equivalent to a republic. Both a republic and a constitutional monarchy in which most power is wielded by an elected government are considered democracies.

5

Yes the Glorious Revolution wasn’t much of revolution (ask any dutchman and he will say it was an invasion), by continentnal standards at least (really all that happened was the monarchy became slightly more constitutional and alot less Catholic), the English Civil War I suppose could be called a revolution, but then again perhaps a coup would be a more appropiate as it was the replacement an absolute monarch with a dictator.

6

Invasion? Noo, rather a pre-emptive regime change. 'cause, see, at some point in the future the Catholic English Monarchy might possibly obtain nuclear weapons, then where would a democratic protestant Holland be. Besides, James was EEEEeeeviiill. He tortured his own people.

7

Um, Britain has a constitution even if it isn’t conveniently ( or inconveniently depending on your political view or needs of the moment ) written down in one place. There are a collection of traditions that limit the power of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the British government just as a collection of traditions limit the power of the American president and government. By themselves the traditions do nothing, of course. They are only effective when and because people honor them.

8

Um, Britain has a constitution even if it isn’t conveniently ( or inconveniently depending on your political view or needs of the moment ) written down in one place. There are a collection of traditions that limit the power of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the British government just as a collection of traditions limit the power of the American president and government. By themselves the traditions do nothing, of course. They are only effective when and because people honor them.

9

Heck, Canada’s a pretty nice place, though I’m a republican at heart and look forward to ditching all the monarchist trappings by and by.