Why Do Some European Nations Still Need Kings/Queens?

Great Debates
1

I was just recently perusing information on wikipedia about some European nations. And I was surprised to learn many European nations still have reigning monarchs–kings or queens, that still wield a fair amount of power (cf. this for example). Yet I was also surprised to learn many of these nations, like Sweden, for example, also have very left-wing governments, like socialist parties, for example.

So what do these countries still need monarchs for, if they are supposedly democratic, and even very liberal now? And why don’t they just skip the middleman and declare themselves republics now?

Thank you in advance to all who reply:)

2

I’m not a monarchist, but there are some advantages (apart from just tradition) in having a head of state who symbolises national unity but is outside partisan politics. You can achieve this with a non-partisan elected head of state – the Irish seem to have managed this – but it’s easier to do with a hereditary monarchy.

3

AFAICT, none of these countries actually “needs” a monarch; that is, their governmental system could very easily take over whatever minimal duties of governance the monarch still retains, if they decided to abolish the monarchy.

Most of 'em just seem to like their royal families. Their monarchies are like their languages: part of their history and culture, something that they’re used to thinking of as part of their identity. And as Giles says, it’s useful to have a quasi-political set of celebrities who can formally represent the nation, and whose marriages and babies the public can ooh and aah over, without their being linked to a particular political party or ideology.

Sure, European countries could get rid of their royal families; likewise, they could get rid of their (generally small and obscure) national languages and all adopt English or Esperanto or Chinese instead. But why should they? Where’s the payoff? It’s not like maintaining the royal family is a huge drain on their resources compared to their other budget items.

4

Also, if they were republics, they’d still have “middlemen” (or women), they’d just be elected heads of state instead of dynastic ones. The parliamentary form of government works rather differently from the presidential form you may be familiar with, part of which is a reduced role for the head of state. That being the case, by my lights your head of state might as well double as a cultural artifact.

5

Though you can have models like those of France and Germany where the elected head of state (President or Chancellor) has real political power alongside the Prime Minister.

6

As for Sweden, our royal family has no power whatsoever, and are in fact prohibited from making political statements. Their basic function is to cost money and get in the tabloids.

So why have them? Search me, but a lot of people like them. Even people who are in principle opposed to monarchy will say things like “but this lot is nice” and “but the queen is so pretty”, and oppose the end to monarchy as well. From the more reasoned end the arguments are that they’re excellent PR for Sweden, and without them we’d need another figurehead to, you know, greet foreign bigwigs, cut ribbons, present awards and perform other tasks essential to the running of a modern nation. I’m not so sure, the US seems to be doing OK without one.

So it’s tradition and inertia, basically.

7

One argument I’ve heard for why they are useful is that they divert the common human tendancy to idolize leaders away from the people who have official power, and are therefore more dangerous, to someone who is largely powerless, and therefore not as dangerous. I’m not sure I agree, but watching the way some pople mindlessly follow certain Presidents here in America I wonder if they have a point.

8

I’ve also heard it said that royal families absorb a lot of the celebrity-gossip attention, and thus free up actual politicians to focus on issues somewhat more substantive than how much they paid for their haircuts or whether their necklines are too revealing. Certainly, the celebrity-gossip part seems accurate; there are websites about The Most Beautiful Princesses in the World and that sort of thing. (If you click, and you know you want to, check out Lady Gabriella Windsor, who even to my republican (small “r”) middle-aged heterosexual female eyes is indisputably a hottie. So’s Priceguy’s Princess Madeleine.) So if it’s part of their culture, why should they abandon it just out of a quibbling democratic (small “d”) scruple?

9

That she is. How that family managed to bring forth someone like her is one of the great mysteries of our time.

For the same reason that we abandoned a whole lot of other things what were part of our culture but weren’t compatible with our ideas of democracy. Every bad thing consigned to the dustbins of history was part of the local culture at some point.

10

In the case of Spain, the argument is that it’s cheaper than either of our two Republics were.

Both Republics managed to shatter our educational systems (in a country where 99% of schools are owned by religious orders, as was the case in Spain during the 1st Republic, forbidding religious orders from teaching is Not A Good Idea), both had military upraisings… a King is cheaper.

11

In the u.k. the Queen fulfills a very real function,unlike many countrys the Head of State and the executive are seperate.

The H.of S."legitamises the government,if a U.K. government tries to ignore a democratic ballot that has voted it out of office,tries to declare a state of emergency without just cause,tries to institute a major change in the policy of the country that was not in their election manifesto or other such dirty tricks then the head of the opposition goes to the Queen,the Queen consults with her constitutional lawyers and then orders the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament and hold a general election.

Until that government has been elected the Queen will no longer sign Acts of Parliament to make them law,so there will be no new laws and no new taxes no matter how long the rogue government tries to hang on to power.

The Government will not be viewed as legitimite by other countries so that they wont even bother negotiating international business with the UK until the Gov has been reelected or a new government voted in.
The Windsors are independantly wealthy(In fact they actually surrender their income from the Crown estates which is their personal property,not the governments or the taxpayers,in return for an allowance worth a fraction of the money surrendered) so that they are in effect financially unbribable,they are loaded down with noble titles(Duke of this,Lord of that)military titles (Admiral this,Colonel that etc.)which they dont take overly seriously,so that they cant even be swayed by any Gov. offering such in return for their cooperation.

Because they dont have to rely on voters or political parties for their position or their heirs gaining their position our H. of S. are not susceptible to political bribery or political threats.

As all shades of the British political spectrum are aware of this no one even tries to circumvent the ethics of our political system,it would be pointless.

Our H. of S. is as near incorruptible as it is humanly possible.

Apart from that our Queen having been continually in office for a good many years she knows most of the past and present major(and not so major)world leaders so can "unofficially "conduct negotiations with them or act as an honest broker(Also off of the record)for third parties who aren’t officially talking to each other but need to sort out problems between themselves.

It doesn’t do the British tourist industry any harm either having a Royal Family to gawk at.
I’ve seen diehard Irish republicans standing out side of Buck. House hoping to catch a glimpse of a Royal at a palace window (and not to take a shot at them either)
On top of that I think a little pageantry and colour make the world a more interesting place generally.

12

You think she’s hot?

Check out Beatrice, Princess of York :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Jesus Christ! I feel so OLD! I still have a vivid mental image of the official newborn portrait of her being held by Fergie with Andrew leaning over them…one year before I graduated high school.

14

Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it. – Douglas Adams

15

There’s also the problem of what to replace it with. For example, in the United Kingdom, and in monarchies modelled on the U.K., such as Canada and Australia, the monarch has, on paper, a lot of legal authority - the power to dissolve Parliament and call elections, to appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister, to refuse assent to a bill, and so on. Of course, the Queen doesn’t use those powers on her own bat, but only as advised by her Prime Minister. But it’s not because of legal restrictions on her ability to do so, but because she has no politicial legitimacy to use those powers against the advice of the democratically elected leader of the Government.

But if you just substititute a democratically elected President for the Queen, suddenly you have someone who has political legitimacy and therefore might be willing to use those powers, drastically changing the balance of power between Parliament, the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Head of State. (See the French system for an example.) That’s fine if you want to make that substantial a change, but the parliamentary system seems to be working well, so why would we want to suddenly have a powerful head of state, breaking with centuries of parliamentary tradition and Cabinet government, responsible to Parliament?

So if you want an elected President, but also want to preserve the current system of Cabinet government responsible to the Commons for all major government decisions, you have to make substantial constitutional changes to the powers of the Head of State.

Alternatively, you might want to consider a form of indirect election of the Head of State in the new republican government. If the Head of State isn’t popularly elected, he or she will have the same lack of political legitimacy as the Queen, and therefore won’t be able to use the powers without the advice of the Prime Minister. But is indirect election, in and of itself, enough to keep the Head of State in a figurehead role? Or do you still need to make major constitutional changes to the powers of the Head of State, maybe even defining the office of the Prime Minister and his powers? But that would be a major change as well - currently, the Prime Minister has no powers defined by the Constitituion, and only has the authority granted by statutes passed by Parliament, and by the well-defined constitutional conventions of responsible government. Defining the Prime Minister’s powers in the Constitution would be a major change.

And then, what form of indirect election is sufficient to satisfy republican instincts, but sufficiently indirect that it doesn’t confer polticial legitimacy on the Head of State, other than in a caretaker function? That can be politically difficult, especially in a federation such as Canada or Australia, where there also has to be regional balance. Even if you do come up with an indirect election, it still may require significant consequential amendments to the Constitution, relating to the powers of the new Head of State.

In short, it’s not a simple change to make, in terms of constitutional and political balances. If you have constitutions that are premised on a monarchy, that permeates the system in a lot of ways - and anyone trying to change that has to think about all of those implications.

All of this has the potential to use up a lot of political time and energy. If the system is humming along pretty well, where’s the need?

One way to think about these issues of constitutional design is to flip it around - suppose there was a desire to go to a parliamentary model in the U.S. - would it be a simple thing to leave the President with all the powers of the office, and yet implement constitutional restrictions on the use of those powers so that the real power lay with the leader of the majority in the House of Representatives? Or would major constitutional amendments be necessary?

Some of our Australian Dopers can no doubt comment on this issue in more detail, since they went through a referendum a few years ago on keeping the queen. My understanding is that even though there was considerable sentiment in favour of going republican, the proposal failed because of the difficulties in designing a new Head of State position.

16

The Chancellor of Germany is the Prime Minister. Germany also has a President, which is an indirectly elected figurehead. So, notwithstanding Northern Piper’s comments about the difficulties of designing a new head of state, it would be possible for a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government to become a republic with only minimal change to their constitution, by following Germany’s example. This might actually be most easily done in countries such as Canada or Australia, who already have a Governor(-)General, i.e. an unelected official that acts as a figurehead of state. But the main question is, why should they do it? I think that’s why the referendum on republicanism in Australia failed: the system proposed was one of minimal change republicanism, and voters simply didn’t see the purpose of doing this.

France has a very different political system, a semi-presidential system where the President and Prime Minister both have political power and legitimacy. (The President derives its legitimacy from his or hers being elected by the people, while the Prime Minister, unless I’m mistaken, must have the confidence of the National Assembly.) I think it’s also an interesting system, but I don’t know enough about it to discuss it.

17

So I guess the answer so far is that some people like them, they don’t do any harm, and it would be a real pain in the ass to get rid of them.

I suppose if I thought about it I’d say I was a republican (I’m British), but it’s about 1,594th on my list of “political things to worry about”. I suspect this is true for a lot of people, and that in itself may be one reason why they’re still there.

18

They think they need royalty because they don’t have any other world famous celebs. It’s their only claim to reflected fame.

19

True enough. Who ever heard of the Beatles?

20

Well, I reckon it’s not such a bad thing to have a person or family represent the country and it’s political system while at the same time being by necessity unpartisan.

We don’t need them per se, but as more and more of traditional culture etc is evoked in politics to reinforce xenophobia, cast aspersions on other’s patriotism, etc etc, it’s nice to have something inherently danish (or spanish, or swedish, or belgian, whatever) that everyone can affiliate themselves with without worrying about Politics.

Plus, our (I’m danish) Queen is just plain cool :smiley: