What's the point of constitutional monarchies? Why even keep the monarchy in place if they aren't even doing anything?
What's the point of constitutional monarchies? Why even keep the monarchy in place if they aren't even doing anything?
I mean, just declare a republic ffs.
It's like your country is wearing a fancy hat. The hat is not practical, it doesn't help you do things, but boy does it look neat. It's not all that expensive, so why not? Lots of countries have big monuments, historic buildings for their legislatures to be in and so forth, this is just that in human form.
Most constitutional monarchies got that way due to incremental change generally caused by political crises. Switching from a monarchy to a republic usually done as a response to one of these crises; no crisis usually means the monarch keeps the crown.
You also have an issue of what to replace the monarch with. Most constitutional monarchies have parliamentary systems of government where the legislature has supremacy. However, you still need a supreme executive to run a government when the legislature fails. The process of picking that person is very politically important and had inherent risks to it. For some countries, keeping the monarch as the on/off switch is easier than dealing with the headache of choosing a President.
A lot of good points here about pros and cons when considering republic vs constitutional monarchy. I was myself against the idea of monarchy for quite a while, but I realize it's mostly because I was living in the UK at the time and was exposed to how normal people are treated compared to the upper class. In addition, though the British royal family doesn't have any power on paper, they have vast connections in all parts of the government and private sector with many ways to influence things. Also, the UK was until recently a two party state, which meant almost total power to whichever party won the election.
Scandinavia doesn't have as much of a disparity between social classes (even counting royals), and what I see here is that the monarchy provides a stability and continuity that we wouldn't get with a republic. Anyone can lie, cheat and bribe their way to getting elected president, but when you have a dozen different parties with different policies passing laws with a monarch as an anchor, it works out pretty well.
The King of Norway has a mostly symbolic role in day-to-day affairs. New laws that have been passed by the Storting (Parliament) will have their final approval signed by the King, but this is largely a token approval. The King does have veto power over any given amendment, but if he invokes it, Parliament has the right to vote the same amendment through a second time, at which point it cannot be vetoed. He is the head of the Church of Norway, and also supreme commander of our armed forces. Though command is delegated to other commanders, the King would have a more direct role in questions regarding central command or wartime. When representing our country abroad, he is very much considered a personification of the nation, rather than a representative of the ruling party. Norway's main reason for maintaining our own monarchy stems very much from declaring independence from Denmark and Sweden, which ruled us for about 500 years.
Because it's not a small thing to change. You're basically overhauling everything if you wish to transition from a monarchy to a republic, because it's rooted in everything.
The names of the governmental positions, and possibly their responsibilities would need to change, as would official documentation, the money, the flag, the national anthem...
You could hardly call yourself a republic if your passports are still carry the authority of the monarch, and your national anthem prominently features the King.
It only gets more complicated if you're a former colonial power, since they may also be affected, and have to change everything as well. If the UK decides to ditch the Monarchy and become a Republic, Australia and Canada would need to follow suit, since it would be silly for them to have references to a monarch that no longer exists, or a GG who's meant to be representative for a position that no longer exists.
Either that, or there will be a political/legal headache deciding whether they become the new inheritors of the monarchy, since the parent is gone, or would they be also need to make the same changes (see above).
Damn out of 90 comments I read only a couple that made any sense.
It's because it's a complex legal transition to g othrough, because laws are a dumb series of words that's usually tied to the whateverness the highest for of power is.
It's still objectively odious to grant birth based rights or role to certain people over others.
The only practical positive I can see is that it's such a dumb system that it can be fromally abused to enforce a certain degree of stability when the proper democratic process go and fuck itself, but 1) there's other ways 2) at that point the crown storically sides with the degenerates (becaue power by birthrights is a degenerate concept after all).
A constitutional monarch may have a wide range of powers, depending on the constitution. It doesn't automatically mean "powerless figurehead."
Given the way the US has been recently, I'm willing to admit that there may be some benefit to having a leader in some position of power that had been there a long time, and has, more or less, been training for the responsibly since birth.
Of course, there are plenty of arguments against such a leader, but the least of which is how much you have to stretch the word "training" to make it fit that sentence above.
These comments are proof that Robespierre didn't go far enough.
In my country they have enough support from both the left and right leaning voters. Also a vast majority of voters think there are more important issues to deal with.
Some parties (we have 8 with >4% votes) have an ideological position that we should abolish momarchy. No party is actively campaigning for it, because it's seen as unimportant.
Keeps the conservatives somewhat placated.
I think taking a broad view, there are quite a lot of constitutional monarchies that are really great places to live (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Canada, the Bahamas, Japan, to name a few). There are also quite a lot of republics that can claim the same. So, from a sort of human development POV, I don't think it really matters very much.
[EDIT: Should've added that there are also plenty of republics and monarchies that are disasters, too. My point is that there's no consistent pattern of one works and the other doesn't.]
Sure, monarchies are a bit daft but I think 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' is quite a good rule. Especially since spending time on fixing things that ain't broke is time you could be spending on fixing things that are broke. I live in the UK and we have a lot of major problems that need our attention. It's better to focus on those than have a big argument about the King when, as we can see from international comparisons, the King isn't really the issue.
I mean think of it this way: If your monarch isn't a dick and removing them would piss off the reactionaries and average people who don't care much about politics, why would you do that? They also help curb strongman autocrats by providing a target for the population to worship (therefore occupying that niche for a certain section of the population) but not give any real power to.
Not going into civil war. Basically that's it.
Democracy but don't destroy previous institution because some people would actually go to war over that.
I think eventually they all will fall. When people just stop seeing the point.
In the Netherlands, it's not like the King or his family aren't doing anything. They are somewhat like special ambassadors for the country. They also are highly connected, both to people in governments and other people in a position of power. And they do answer to the Parliament.
How would you get rid of them?
All the constitutional monarchies started as just monarchies. Every step between those days and what's around now have been gradual, and usually very stable.
If you want to completely sever royals from government, it isn't as simple as snapping fingers. Some of them, you'd have to unmake the constitution and rebuild it from the ground up. And that isn't something that everyone in those countries wants, so you'd have to get people on board and willing to deal with the transition instability.
Undoing all the baby steps from "King Bob, first of his name, absolute ruler" to "king Fred, he's kind of a figurehead, but kinda has a minor role too" is, in the cases I'm aware of, a damn hard one to unwind. Each movement comes along with other laws and decisions that would have to be untangled to sever the ties.
Not an impossible task, but a long, difficult, and expensive one. Yeah, you get enough people on board, throw a revolution, and you bypass all that, but then you've got to rebuild anyway, which means you'll be building the new government in baby steps with compromises and concessions and political expediency. With no guarantee of something better at all. It could end up better, but it could end up with a nation in collapse.
Again, if enough people want it, and accept that risk, it could happen.
But most people want stability. Very little gives the sensation of stability like hundreds of years of the same family being in place. Sure, you get assholes and idiots among them, but you have the constitution and the actual government to keep it in check. Another fifty years down the road, it changes faces and life goes on.
Republics give you Trump....
What I mean is this:
A Prime Minister is not a president. They are simply the leader of whichever party has he most seats in parliament and is therefore the "face" of the government in many ways.
Most importantly this means that there is no such thing as "executive orders" because there is no "executive" branch, per se. Meaning even if we (Canada) had fucked up and elected Trump-lite, Pollieve, his ability to do the same shit Trump is doing would be severely limited in that everything goes through parliamentary vote without exception (for the most part).
A ruling party has something called the Emergencies Act, that can, to a limited degree, allow them to enact a few things without parliamentary vote, but its use is generally highly controversial and is still very controlled by judicial review.
Long story short (too late, I know) is that the tsunami of bullshit that Orange Hitler is doing is because he's using executive orders to enact things and then fighting congress in court when they push back rather than getting congressional approval BEFORE enacting it.
Something that is far more limited in a governmental system where that much power HASN'T been given to one person.