I was reading The Dark Valley by Piers Brendon (a British historian). It’s a history of the period between the world wars. And it contains this line: “King George V’s Silver Jubilee celebrations and his son’s coronation were a democratic riposte to Hitler’s barbaric pageants at Nuremberg.”
And it brought me up short. Yes, Britain was a more democratic nation than Germany in the thirties. But Brendon had picked a really strange example to make this point. The fact that Britain has Kings is the least democratic thing about the country.
Or is that just my American perspective? How do Britons feel? Do you guys feel that having a King is a part of a democratic system? Or is it a non-democratic exception to a system that’s democratic overall?
Not Brit, but AFAICT the UK is not a monarchy-instead-of-a-democracy, but rather a monarchy-instead-of-a-republic.
AIUI, what “democracy” meant to early 20th-c. Europeans, including the British, was more about expanding the suffrage to include more groups of people in the voting citizenry than about getting rid of monarchy or aristocracy. The presence of monarchs or aristocrats doesn’t necessarily prevent a governmental system from being effectively democratic: it all depends on how much of the governing the monarchs and aristocrats are allowed or required to do.
I think the point is not that George V and George VI were kings; it’s that they were heads of state whose powers were delimited and controlled by law and by strong democratic norms and principles. Whereas Germany was a country that had openly abandoned the rule of law, and whose head of state had power that was entirely untramelled either by law or by any notion of democracy.
The method by which the UK selects its head of state is not really the point here. But, even if it were the point, you could say that while the method is not inherently democratic, it is democratically endorsed and legitimated.
Yes, I understand that the UK is a democracy. But my question is whether they regard their monarch as a part of their democratic system. Or do they see their government as being democratic despite having some elements that aren’t democratic, like having a king.
Obviously the method by which the king is chosen is not democratic (though it is democratically-endorsed).
But the role, function, etc of the king? Highly democratic — arguably more so than the role of the President of the US, these days. The king’s executive and other powers are exercised on the advice of (i.e. controlled by) Ministers, who are themselves elected public representatives, and who are accountable to Parliament at all times.
So I interpret this (without reading the book, or knowing the context) as a comment on the constitutional part of the British constitutional monarchy. Contrasting the fact the powers of George V and his son were entirely constrained by the British democratic system to the point where they have almost no power at all, with Hitlers power being completely unconstrained by any democratic system.
The Jubilee was purely pageantry with no power behind it, Nuremberg was a visual demonstration of Hitler’s absolute power.
If Brandon had written “The General Election of 1935 and the peaceful transfer of power from Ramsay MacDonald to Stanley Baldwin were a democratic riposte to Hitler’s barbaric pageants at Nuremberg.” I’d have no argument with what he had said. But he singled out the monarchy, which was the one aspect of the British government that somebody like Hitler could point to and say “I’m more democratic than that.”
I’m not in the UK, but the British monarch is also the Head of State of Canada, though as a practical matter represented by the Governor General in most cases. The GG is a neutral party acting as Head of State appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister.
The answer is yes, the monarch (or their representative in other countries) is absolutely part of the democratic system, because their roles include opening sessions of Parliament and giving the Speech from the Throne, inviting a party leader to officially form a government after an election, giving royal assent to all legislation so that it comes into effect, and exercising what are sometimes discretionary reserve powers as a neutral arbiter in potential governmental disputes. Having a Head of State who is a respected neutral statesman and not a partisan hack is itself valuable to democracy.
I didn’t say Charles was more democratic; I said his role and functions were.
His role involves performing various official executive functions on the advice of Minsters. Ministers are democratically elected representatives themselves; they are chosen as Ministers in a democratic process; and they are constantly democratically accountable since they can be removed by Parliament at any time for any reason. Hence, the exercise of the king’s executive power is effectively democratically directed, democratically controlled and democratically accountable.
I don’t want to make a cheap political point, but current conditions do suggest that, possibly, democratic constraints on the exercise of the authority of the state are more effective in the UK than they are in the US.
Tl;dr: whether a particular office is “democratic” or not isn’t only, or even largely, a question of how the office-holder is chosen; it has more do do with that what the powers and functions of they office are and whether, and how effectively, they are constrained by democratic norms and are subject to democratic control and accountability.
I am not a monarchist or a particular fan of monarchy. And, sure, yeah, monarchy as a concept certainly has the potential to be undemocratic, or even antidemocratic. But the UK’s monarchy offers an almost textbook example of how a state can be both a monarchy and a democracy; there is no inherent contradiction.
I think he singled out the monarchy because his point was specifically about the position of head of state in both countries. Hitler became head of state by (somewhat, formally) democratic means but was a profoundly undemocratic head of state exercising profoundly undemocratic powers; George V and George VII both became head of state through the profoundly undemocratic hereditary princple, and yet possessed and exercised their powers in an eminently democratic way.
I think this is key in answering the OP’s question. The monarch “acting on the advice of ministers” is better translated as, “the people’s representatives, democratically elected by the people, want the monarch to do XYZ and the monarch had better do it, or we have a constitutional crisis, as well as talks about dumping the monarch.” To avoid a lot of time and trouble, and possibly risking his or her job, the monarch does as the democratically-elected people’s representatives ask.
In other words, the monarch works for we the people. Not the other way around.
Yeah, the focus here is on what actually happens, rather than on what, in theory, could happen if we pretended the the monarch can ignore ministerial advice if he doesn’t like it.
The monarch has no option but to act as advised by Ministers. Refusal to do so would result in a constitutional confrontation which the monarch cannot possibly win, and the monarch is acutely aware of that. It’s not in the monarch’s interest to reject ministerial advice, ever. Plus, the political and constitutional legitimacy of the monarchy absolutely depends on the monarch acting on advice; the monarchs themselves are raised in a culture which strongly inculcates in them the belief that it is their moral and constitutional duty to do this, and that if they try to act against advice the likely result will be the end of the monarchy.
Good points, @UDS1. I’ll add that it is a common saying among constitutional law scholars in Commonwealth countries for whom Charles III is head of state, that “the monarch reigns, but does not rule.”
I live in a constitutional monarchy, where all the functions of government and state administration are controlled by democratically-elected (or indirectly appointed) officials, and also we have a monarch off to the side in a ceremonial role. I would agree with the above interpretation.
As I mentioned in my recent thread about the coronation of Luxembourg’s new Grand Duke, there was a minor crisis a few years ago where the monarch refused to put his signature on a law to which he had religious objections. Parliament swiftly assembled and made the necessary Constitutional adjustment to clarify that the Grand Duke’s signature was simply a rubber stamp and he had no authority to block legislation. The crisis was meaningful, but it was also extremely brief. There was never really any question about whether the Grand Duke might retain this power.
It’s a little bit baroque, but it seems to me that the People conclusively demonstrating that they have a leash on their monarch, and not the other way around, is a pretty decisive affirmation of democratic rule.
Of course, you can then argue that the monarch is extraneous, and not “part of” the democratic system. Luxembourg’s royalty could evaporate tomorrow, and it would make no difference to how the country is governed (minus one ceremonial flourish). The rebuttal to this is that the existence of the powerless monarch is itself a concrete demonstration of where the authority actually lies. I don’t know that I subscribe fully to it, but it’s an argument that can be made.
And, yes, I’m also sympathetic to the comment upthread that the American drift toward “a king in all but name” suggests that there might in fact be some genuine symbolic utility in having a toothless thronewarmer on permanent display.
Thank you, and exactly. The monarch can no longer just make stuff up to justify his or her actions (definition of “rule of law”). There is no more “off with his head” at the monarch’s whim. All those fairy tales about the King ruling are just that: fairy tales. Today’s Kings and Queens act within a constitutional framework, and they know what their constraints are. The main one being that they have to answer to a government elected by the people, in a democratic fashion. They are more rubber stamps than they are rulers. As I said, they reign but do not rule.
The monarch is apolitical. He or she will do whatever the democratically-elected people’s representatives will tell him or her to do. That’s pretty much it.
Take a related, arguably more extreme case, Australia.
Charles III is the Australian monarch. His singular involvement in Australian political life is to appoint the Governor General, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Governor General(GG) is the Australian Head of State. So neither the Monarch or the GG are elected.
The Prime Minister is elected to Parliament in their seat by electorate’s constituents, so the PM hasn’t won the national popular vote. The PM leads a parliamentary party by a caucus vote of that party’s similarly elected members, again no involvement of the country’s voters.
The PM’s party (perhaps with support from another party) commands a majority of the seats in parliament, though they may not have won a majority of the national vote, or even a plurality.
The whole box & dice forms the Australian democratic system.
Which you would seemingly argue is not one.
I’ve said this here before: A lot of Americans just can’t grasp that the whole “divine right of kings” thing ended in Europe long before the USA was a thing. Long before most of Europe were even aware that the Americas existed.
The Magna Carta (1215) pretty much killed off that concept in England before the UK, in the modern sense, existed. England, and eventually the UK, has been a democracy since then.
Yes, it was less democratic then than it is now, and democratisation is more of a process than an event, but the King or Queen hasn’t had unlimited power since 1215 and the last few times an English king got a bit too obstreperous it didn’t end well for the monarch in question.
Royalty is only “undemocratic” if it has the power to disrupt democratic processes.
I have to add, that this is something our American friends just do not understand: the monarch is apolitical. He or she is not allowed, constitutionally, to take a political stance. He or she must necessarily be neutral, and do whatever the democratically-elected government of the day tells him or her to do.
We have the same limitation in Luxembourg. It’s explicitly laid out in the Constitution that the Grand Duke must refrain from involvement in political questions or controversies. There’s a lengthy summary of the Grand Duke’s functions and authority on this page for anyone who’s interested.
In actual real-world practice, though, the application of this is a little more nuanced. The Grand Duke must not take public positions on any matter, but elected political leaders may choose to quietly consult with him in private. Per the Constitution, the Grand Duke exists as a “symbol of national unity,” and he’s seen as sort of a steward or caretaker of the Luxembourgish spirit, so politicians will sometimes meet with him, in absolute confidence, to ask his opinion on how the country might react to or feel about some proposal or other, or to get his input on some external political question based on his interactions with international figures.
The physical placement of the Chamber of Deputies (our Parliament), in relationship to the Grand Duke’s administrative palace, speaks to this relationship. (By “administrative” palace, I mean the building the Grand Duke uses as his workplace, with offices and reception areas and such. There is a separate family palace up in the north-central part of the country which is the Grand Duke’s primary day-to-day residence.) The Grand Duke’s palace in the city center is literally right next to the Chamber of Deputies. And I mean literally: the two buildings abut, with no gap. In the Grand Duke’s office, there’s a short passage which connects directly to the Prime Minister’s office in the other building.
But whatever might be said behind closed doors, it’s never, and I mean never, made public. The various institutions have maintained remarkable discipline on that point.
I think we tend to get a little over excited about Magna Carta being some fount of democracy. It really wasn’t. Did it very slightly place minor restrictions on the King’s power? Yes. Was the King still able to chop people’s heads off at basically personal whim, shut down Parliament or declare war whenever he felt like it? Ask Henry VIII.
The British monarchy is now, and has long been, the holder of very little actual, actionable power. But to suggest it dates back to Magna Carta is massively over stating it.