5. Although the dataset is useful for cross-country studies, it certainly has its limitations. The death of King Bhumibol in 2016 has brought the question of monarchic powers to the fore in Thailand. However, In Greece (18641914), Italy (19191921), Laos (19541958), Nepal (19912001), Thailand and Yugoslavia (19211928) the semi-constitutional monarchic system coincided with a transition to democracy, but in all these countries the democratic form of government subsequently broke down. However, as Corbett et al. Lesotho, again, meets the criteria of democracy since 2002. Among the other cases, only Greece between 1864 and 1914 qualify as a long-term semi-constitutional monarchy. 45 of the constitution) and the kings have come from the same family during the countrys independence, Lesotho is classified as a monarchy. 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. The second category consists of similar cases in which democracy did not consolidate, and the country returned to autocracy. The main reason for Kondylis support of the return of the monarchy was apparently strategic; his ambition was to follow the example of Benito Mussolini, and merely retain the monarchy as a means of legitimising his actions. In such systems, the president has genuine executive authority, but the role of a head of government may be exercised by the prime minister. 701702) conclude that, the significance of personalisation is magnified in small states due to the close proximity between the ruler and the ruled. Bhutan 201416, Greece 1874, 19551966, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 1944, Monaco 19622017, Sweden 191116, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113, Yugoslavia 192128. Belarus, Gabon and Kazakhstan, where the prime minister is effectively the head of government and the president the head of state, are exceptions. Iyer, Citation2019; Muni, Citation2014). The period of 'semi-constitutional' monarchy in Britain was a period of vast expansion of power and influence in the world, not to mention the opening of commerce and prosperity. However, the relationship between the king and the prime ministers has been conflict-ridden in the past. The categorisation is based on (Anckar & Fredriksson, Citation2019 and the V-dem dataset). The following countries have presidential systems where a post of prime minister (official title may vary) exists alongside that of the president. In Monaco, the powers of the Prince are even greater. 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. In a parliamentary republic, the head of government is selected or nominated by the legislature and is also accountable to it. ( 2017 ), we reach the conclusion that small size appears to be very important 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. If the head of state took actions to dismiss cabinet ministers, would he/she be likely to succeed? Yes = 2 or 3. d HOG appointment in practice (v2expathhg). i HOS proposes legislation in practice (C) (v2exdfpphs, *_osp, *_ord) (yes = responses 0, 1). Liechtenstein, a microstate landlocked between Austria and Switzerland, is a semi-constitutional monarchy, with a hereditary prince as its head of state. The monarch acts as both head of state and head of government. During the Second World War, the king was in exile. Collective presidency consisting of three members; one for each major ethnic group. When identifying semi-constitutional monarchic systems the task of separating democracies from autocracies is therefore crucial. These systems bear more resemblance to semipresidential systems than to parliamentary ones and therefore the label semi constitutional monarchy is used to denote them. Such freedom can be seen in how Kuwaiti writers and thinkers speak their minds about the most important issues in their country and in the region. It is particularly noteworthy that all three long-lasting semi-constitutional monarchies are characterised by their extreme smallness. In general, empirical findings strongly supported these propositions. In Nepal, the democratic constitution of 1990 was adopted reluctantly by King Birendra, after it had become apparent that he would otherwise have faced a rebellion (Nepal et al., Citation2011, p. 887). 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. Greece was then ruled as a semi-constitutional monarchy until the military coup in 1967. In addition, the dataset does not account for all possible power prerogatives. Note: this chart represent de jure systems of government, not the de facto degree of democracy. aDisregarding periods of occupation during WW1 and WW2. We can then give a final assessment of how our two plausible explanations of monarchic power fare. 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. The 1947 constitution stipulated that Laos was not to become fully independent but to remain within the French Union. However, within this category of countries the powers of the monarch can still vary, which makes it necessary to apply a further categorisation. Corbett et al. A state governed as a single power in which the central government is ultimately supreme and any administrative divisions (sub-national units) exercise only the powers that the central government chooses to delegate. One important difference between Liechtenstein and Monaco is that the principle of parliamentarism is not recognised in the Monegasque constitution (Grinda, Citation2007, p. 76, 88). Laos gained its independence in 1953 but the semi-constitutional monarchic constitution had been adopted several years earlier, namely in 1947, in close cooperation with French officials. Permission will be required if your reuse is not covered by the terms of the License. The question whether Greece should be a republic or a monarchy was settled in a referendum in 1946, where the monarchists won by more than two thirds of the vote. I then proceeded by testing the assumption that semi-constitutional monarchies would emerge primarily in countries which transit from autocratic monarchies to democracies and that small size was conducive for the survival of the regime type in question. As shown by Corbett et al. In the V-dem dataset, the Belgian monarch is considered to have had a strong position with regard to government formation during the year 1918, the same year Belgium was liberated from German occupation. The issue of executive power sharing in democratic countries with a monarch as head of state has received little scholarly attention. Ever since, the country has hovered between democracy and autocracy. In this kind of setup, the monarch has influence over the state almost to the degree of an absolute monarchy. The other plausible explanation for powerful monarchs in democracies is size. When monarchies form the object of research, focusing exclusively on constitutional provisions is likely to aggrandise the powers of the monarch. 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. The strong position of the hereditary monarch was attributed to the fact that the royal family of Laos had been extremely loyal to the French. In other words, it reflects a complete transformation of power, where the monarch is confined to the position as a ceremonial head of state. Therefore, their statuses resemble more a president in parliamentary systems than a monarch in a hereditary monarchy. In a widely cited article, McCargo (Citation2005) uses the term network monarchy in order to describe Thailands mode of governance. Accordingly, we can expect that the time period during which a monarch is in possession of powers is limited, and that pressures for reducing the powers of the monarch will grow as democracy consolidates. For these countries, classifications have been made by the author for the time periods for which data is lacking (Liechtenstein 18661990, Monaco 18621993). Particularly the death of the monarch provides a good opportunity to strip the monarch of his or her powers (see also Huntington, Citation1968, 180). Yet, the results of the present study show, that monarchs have possessed significant powers in a substantial part of the democratic countries with a monarch as head of state. As pressures for democratic reforms started in the absolute monarchy, King Tupou IV and his government responded by using all the strategies that Huntington outlines, including attempts to co-opt progressive elites, repression, prosecution, and intimidation (Corbett et al., Citation2017, p. 695). What local authorities do exist have few powers. In reality, however, the Swedish monarchs had been gradually stripped of their powers during the nineteenth century and lost all their influence on government formation already in 1918. 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. Here's Why. 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. Greece returned to democracy in 1926 under a republican constitution. The UK, for example, is a . 3099067 The parliament has always been dominated by one party (although not always the same), which has been loyal to the monarch. I then proceed by excluding republics and independent countries ruled by the monarch of another country. Jordan - Semi-Constitutional Monarchy Monarch: King Abdullah II Like Bahrain, Jordan has a king who has more power than a conventional constitutional monarch, but there is a government beneath him that also has the power to independently make decisions. All countries where the monarch has been in position of powers in any of the four dimensions listed in Table 3 are included. King Constantine II was highly controversial. There is no prime minister. Bhutan 201416, Greece, 1874, 195566, Liechtenstein 19212017, Monaco 19622017, Thailand 1975, 198390, 19922005, 1113. The democratic era of Laos ended in 1959, after the military forced Prime Minister Sananikone to resign. Table 1. ", "Semi-Presidentialism-Duverger's Concept A New Political System Model", "Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executive and Mixed Authority Patterns", "Semi-Presidential Systems: Dual Executive And Mixed Authority Patterns", "Semi-Presidentialism and Democratisation in Poland", " ", "Presidentialism, Parliamentarism and Semi-Presidentialism: Bringing Parties Back In", "Bulgaria's Constitution of 1991 with Amendments through 2015", "Croatia's Constitution of 1991 with Amendments through 2010", "Iceland's Constitution of 1944 with Amendments through 2013", "Ireland's Constitution of 1937 with Amendments through 2012", "San Marino: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report", "Kiribati's Constitution of 1979 with Amendments through 1995", "South Africa's Constitution of 1996 with Amendments through 2012", "Micronesia (Federated States of)'s Constitution of 1978 with Amendments through 1990", "Europe:: Norway The World Factbook - Central Intelligence Agency", "Chad's President Idriss Dby dies 'in clashes with rebels', "Army colonel on Guinean TV says govt dissolved, borders shut", "Guinea coup attempt: Soldiers claim to seize power from Alpha Cond", "Mali president arrested: Mutiny leaders for Mali coup 2020 don close borders, impose curfew afta resignation of Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keta", "Myanmar Junta's Political Prisoners Since Coup Now Number 10,000", "Analysis: Year post-coup, cracks in Sudan's military junta", "EU: Provisional Taliban government does not fulfill promises", "Yemen president cedes powers to council as Saudi Arabia pushes to end war", Countries categorized by system of government in 20th century at Historical Atlas of 20th Century, A Chronology of political history based on Government form, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_system_of_government&oldid=1152138156, No constitutionally-defined basis to current regime, Ministry is subject to parliamentary confidence, Presidency independent of legislature; ministry is subject to parliamentary confidence, Monarch personally exercises power in concert with other institutions, Presidency is elected by legislature; ministry may be, or not be, subject to parliamentary confidence, All authority vested in a committee of the nation's military leaders for the duration of a state of emergency; constitutional provisions for government are suspended, Power constitutionally linked to a single political movement, This page was last edited on 28 April 2023, at 12:54. After a short power struggle with holdovers from the Franco regime, democratic elections were held in 1977, and during this year, the monarch possessed considerable powers. For the sake of validity, I have complemented the dataset by Boix, Miller and Rosato by making use of V-dems Liberal democracy index (D) (v2x_libdem). There is generally no prime minister, although if one exists, in most cases they serve purely at the discretion of the president. f HOG control over (C) (v2exctlhg). 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 these systems, the head of government is usually called the prime minister, chancellor or premier. The period 1688 to 1914 is bookmarked by a period of stagnation in the semi-absolutist Stuart period, and decline in the Windsor period. (also Dahl & Tufte, Citation1973, pp. It is noteworthy that some scholars in the People's Republic of China claim that the country's system of government is a "semi-presidential system combining party and government in actual operation". Which of the following bodies would be likely to succeed in removing the head of government if it took actions (short of military force) to do so? (Yes = 5, head of state). Liechtenstein and Monaco are semi-constitutional, and Vatican City is a theocratic absolute elective monarchy. In full presidential systems, the president is both head of state and head of government. His current research focuses on regime classifications and regime transitions. For more information please visit our Permissions help page. In this tradition, the king is believed to be meritorious, meaning that he is in possession of vast reservoirs of merit accumulated in past lives, which can be translated into the improvement of this-worldly conditions of those who are linked with them (Keyes, Citation1977, p. 288). Countries that meet the criteria of democracy with a monarch as a head of state are consequently either constitutional monarchies or semi-constitutional monarchies. Bhutan 201417, Greece 18641914, 5566, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 190039, Monaco 19622017, Spain 1977, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. In 1922, Benito Mussolini became prime minister and the short democratic period ended. In Monaco, it is rather difficult to compare constitutional provisions with political practice, as there have been few conflicts between the Prince and the parliament. Bhutan 200917, Greece 18641914, 1935, 5066, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 190039, Monaco 19622017, Spain 1977, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. In the present contribution, I have made use of V-dems dataset. The prime minister is the nation's active executive, but the monarch still has considerable political powers that can be used at their own discretion. Thus, much in line with Corbett et al. 10271028). In Liechtenstein the Prince Regnant appoints the government, which must enjoy the confidence of both the legislature and the Prince Regnant. The result is that monarchs are not remote or distant figures, thus undermining the potential for the regime to become a symbol of oppression. 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. However, since none of the two countries has been a democracy for more than decade, it is difficult to predict future developments. Table 2. Nevertheless, it is evident that in comparison with other monarchs operating within a democratic framework, the Prince of Monaco is an extremely powerful actor in terms of both constitution and practice (see Chagnollaud de Sabouret, Citation2015; DOnario, Citation2014). He has published widely in the field of political science. Bhutan 201417, Greece 18641914, 19551966, Lesotho 20132016, Liechtenstein 19212017, Luxembourg 19001939, Monaco 19622017, Spain 1977, Thailand 1975, 8390, 922005, 201113. Under other classification systems, however, these systems may instead be classed as semi-presidential systems (despite their weak presidency). The following list includes democratic and non-democratic states: Nations with limited recognition are in italics. This finding alone, lays good ground for further research in the field.
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