As Britain’s King Charles III is officially coronated, the “empire on which the sun never set” is looking a little shabby.
In addition to the UK, 14 former British colonies still maintain Charles as their monarch and head of state, but many of his subjects around the world are reconsidering the arrangement.
Barbados became a republic in 2021, and Jamaica has initiated a similar process of constitutional reform.
Others might soon follow. Why should countries from Belize to Tuvalu maintain as their nominal head of state an old white man living in a middling power far away from them?
Americans find it difficult to understand why anyone would accept hereditary rulers, or why a purely ceremonial office has any value.
However, constitutional monarchy is alive and well in some of the world’s most developed countries. It should be jettisoned only after careful consideration of its significant benefits.
It is best to start with what a constitutional monarchy is not: absolute monarchy, in which kings and queens exercise real power. Eight countries, mostly oil-rich states in the Middle East, remain absolute monarchies.
Constitutional monarchies must also be distinguished from republics, in which the head of state is either elected by the public or by their representatives in parliament.
Heads of state in republics serve only for a limited term, whereas a monarch typically holds the job for life.
So defined, constitutional monarchy is not a rare phenomenon: There are 34, representing 18 percent of about 193 independent countries. These are an extraordinarily successful set of countries by any standard, including most of Scandinavia, Japan and the Benelux countries, as well as Charles’ domains of Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index 2022, 10 of the world’s top 20 democracies are constitutional monarchies, as are nine of the 20 richest countries. Eight of the 10 most-enduring national constitutions provide for a monarch.
The surviving monarchies have done so mostly because, over a long period, they yielded power to legislative assemblies elected by the public.
This process of political reform started with the Magna Carta in England, and played out in the 19th century in most other countries.
When monarchs resisted encroachments on their power, they usually lost their thrones — and sometimes their heads. When they yielded, they became figureheads, but also signaled to conservatives that their interests were secure.
Monarchs also provide a form of political insurance, being able to step in during periods of national crisis. An example is King Juan Carlos I of Spain, who helped thwart a coup launched in his name in 1981.
He went on television and ordered the armed forces to return to their barracks, even as he was communicating individually with key generals, which helped prevent them from coordinating among themselves.
The Netflix series The Crown includes a fictionalized account of Queen Elizabeth II’s intervention to head off her cousin Lord Mountbatten’s idea of a coup during Harold Wilson’s premiership.
However, some supposedly constitutional monarchs have been known to abet coups against their own governments. Instead of acting like King Juan Carlos to undermine military coupmakers, Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej assented to 10 coups during his 70-year reign. Then-Australian governor-general John Kerr, who represented Queen Elizabeth II, provoked a constitutional crisis when he ordered the removal of then-Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975.
In their role in investing governments in parliamentary systems, monarchs can sometimes make subtle decisions that help political parties overcome deadlocks. In other crises, the monarch can act as a focal point for national resistance to invaders. During World War II, Norwegian King Haakon VII refused to recognize the government of Nazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling, instead choosing to leave his country for the duration of the war.
Monarchs can also protect minorities during a crisis. Constitutional monarchs in Bulgaria, Denmark and Morocco made a point of protecting their Jewish subjects during WWII. Moroccan King Mohammed V refused to comply with Vichy French orders to round up Jews during the war and Danish King Christian X apocryphally donned a yellow Star of David.
In this era, the symbolic unity provided by monarchy can limit the most problematic forms of populism. Populist demagogues such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Polish Law and Justice Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski typically claim an exclusive, almost mystical connection with the “people,” whom they alone can protect from the elites, and demonize their opponents as “enemies of the people.”
However, such claims are ineffective under a constitutional monarchy. The job of embodying the people is already occupied, limiting how much symbolic power any other individual can accumulate.
Whereas Erdogan fashions himself as a new sultan, and late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez liked to invoke president-for-life Simon Bolivar, it is difficult to see how a British, Danish or Norwegian equivalent could credibly emerge.
The closest one can get is a disruptive leader such as former British prime minister Boris Johnson, who, frustrated with his chief adviser, petulantly insisted: “I am the fuhrer. I am the king who takes the decisions.”
With a monarch atop the system, that claim falls flat. This is confirmed by data from the Global Populism Database showing that constitutional monarchies experience less populist rhetoric in political speeches.
To be sure, being a constitutional monarch is a job from hell. A constitutional monarch is in some sense a prisoner of society, playing only a ceremonial role, spending their days cutting ribbons and giving bland speeches, while having every move dissected for entertainment.
No wonder some royals quit the family business. Along with Prince Harry, Japanese Princess Mako gave up her title in 2021 and Danish Prince Joachim is the latest to decamp to the US.
As Jamaicans and others consider whether to join Harry in leaving the monarchy behind, they would do well to consider why constitutional monarchy has remained so successful in the 21st century.
King Charles III might appear to be the vestige of an archaic system, and his realm is likely to shrink.
However, it is not likely to disappear — and for his remaining subjects, that could be a very good thing.
Tom Ginsburg, professor of international law and political science at the University of Chicago, is a research professor at the American Bar Foundation.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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