Whither Europe's Monarchies?

▪ 1999

by Vernon Bogdanor

      Before World War I every nation in Europe except France, Portugal, and Switzerland was a monarchy. In 1998, by contrast, only eight monarchies remained, if very small states such as Liechtenstein and Monaco were excluded. The eight were Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The British monarchy differed from the others in that the queen was an international monarch, the sovereign not only of Britain but also of 15 Commonwealth countries outside Europe.

      There are two reasons for the demise of monarchy in much of Europe. The first is defeat in war. The collapse of Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia during World War I resulted in the end of the Habsburg, Hohenzollern, and Romanov dynasties, respectively. In World War II collaboration with fascism ended the Italian monarchy, and after the war the new communist regimes rapidly removed the sovereigns of Bulgaria and Romania.

      The second reason is the process of democratic change. Monarchies have survived in Europe only where they have accommodated themselves to democracy rather than resisting it. In Europe monarchy exists in limited, constitutional form.

      A democracy whose head of state is a sovereign links two conflicting, some would say contradictory, notions. A democracy is a form of government in which political authority derives from popular election. A sovereign, by contrast, does not rule because of election but instead by inheritance and for life. This conflict has been resolved by means of the concept of a constitutional monarchy, one that operates in accord with constitutional rules. These rules, which may be either legal or nonlegal, limit the power of the sovereign and ensure that he or she acts in accordance with democratic norms.

      Monarchs in modern Europe have three major kinds of functions. Constitutional functions include appointing a prime minister and dissolving the parliament. In Britain these duties are generally of a formal nature. Because Britain's electoral system generally yields a clear winner, there is rarely any dispute as to who ought to be appointed prime minister after a general election. Since 1918 there have been only three occasions when that has not been the case—the general elections of 1923, 1929, and February 1974.

      In the other European monarchies, however, elections are held under various systems of proportional representation. These rarely yield clear majorities for a single party. Coalition or minority government thus becomes the norm. This gives the sovereign some leeway because it may be unclear as to who ought to be appointed prime minister after a general election. It may also be unclear as to whether a prime minister is entitled to a dissolution of the parliament, for there might well be an alternative majority within the legislature capable of sustaining an alternative government.

      In the Scandinavian monarchies the sovereign generally plays a comparatively passive constitutional role. In Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg, however, the sovereign tends to be more active. Sometimes, indeed, the views of the sovereign in those countries influence the outcome of the government-formation process. This influence is generally used to secure national unity. In both Belgium and The Netherlands, the sovereign has played a unifying role in societies divided by language and religion, respectively.

      The second set of functions undertaken by the sovereign is ceremonial in kind. Sovereigns carry out a wide range of public engagements and duties. These engagements—once dismissed by French Pres. Charles de Gaulle as opening exhibitions of chrysanthemums—are means by which the sovereign can be seen as fulfilling the third and most important function, that of representation. In the modern world the central role of a constitutional monarch is a symbolic or representational one, in which he or she represents and symbolizes not just the government but the nation. The ceremonial functions are an important means of fulfilling this function, since, to be an effective symbol, a sovereign must be seen. The great advantage of monarchy is that it is a system in which the head of state is free from party ties. It is generally easier for a hereditary monarch to represent the nation than it is for a president, who will often be a politician, chosen through an election that might have been divisive.

      In 1998 the European constitutional monarchies seemed securely based, and, although there were republican movements in a number of European countries, they appeared to pose no real threat to the sovereigns. Nevertheless, monarchs faced new challenges in the modern world, a world in which deference and respect for authority were in decline and in which institutions were required to justify themselves in utilitarian terms. In Britain the archbishop of Canterbury declared after the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 that the nation had been close to God on that occasion; in 1956 an opinion survey showed that 34% of the population believed that the queen had actually been chosen by God. Sentiments of that kind are now rare, and the European monarchies have been compelled to modernize themselves, becoming more open and more involved in welfare and charitable activities. The mystical monarchy has thus become transmuted into the welfare monarchy.

      Constitutional monarchy survives in a small number of nations in Western Europe, where it depends on popular support. In 1969 the duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, declared that "it is a complete misconception to imagine that monarchy exists in the interests of the monarch. It doesn't. It exists in the interests of the people." In the contemporary world monarchy has become dependent upon the people, and yet at its best it serves not to limit the democratic principle of rule by the people but to underpin and sustain it.

Vernon Bogdanor is a professor of government at the University of Oxford.

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