Monarchy

The monarchy (from the Latin: monarchĭa ; and this from the ancient Greek: μοναρχία [ monarkhía ]) is a form of State (although it is often defined as a form of government) in which a group integrated into the State, generally a family that represents a dynasty, embodies the national identity of the country and its head, the monarch, plays the role of head of state. The political power of the monarch can vary from the purely symbolic (parliamentary monarchy), to being integrated into the form of government: with considerable but restricted executive powers (constitutional monarchy), to the completely autocratic (absolute monarchy).

In a monarchy, the head of state or supreme office is:

• Personal, and strictly unipersonal (in some historical cases there have been diarchies, triumvirates, tetrarchies, and on many occasions formal regencies are established in case of minority or incapacity or informal appointments of their own free will).
• For life (in some historical cases there were temporary magistracies with similar functions, such as the Roman dictatorship, and in many cases there is voluntary abdication or forced overthrow or dethronement, which may or may not be accompanied by regicide).
• Appointed according to a hereditary order (hereditary monarchy), although in some cases it is chosen, either by co-option of the monarch himself, or by a select group (elective monarchy).

The term "monarchy" comes from the Greek μονος mónos 'one', and αρχειν arkhein : 'command, guide, govern', interpretable as "government of one". This sole ruler is called monarch or king (from the Latin rex ) although the names used for this position and its protocol treatment vary according to local tradition, religion or the legal or territorial structure of the government ( see corresponding section ). The State governed by a monarch is also called a monarchy or a kingdom.

The first European precedent for this institution, under the specific term "kingdom" ( regnum ), occurred after the arrival of the Suevi in ​​the Roman province of Gallaecia (northwest of Hispania) in the year 409, when they agreed on a foedus with Rome in 410, establishing themselves in the province and granting their leader Hermericus (409-438) the title of king ( rex ), accepting the authority of the emperor of Rome as superior. Thus, in Gallaecia, as the first kingdom ( regnum ) in Europe with such a name, the first step towards the structuring of political power in the medieval European space in kingdoms under the moral authority, increasingly merely theoretical, of an emperor was consolidated..

Current situation

It is often insisted on the idea that the maintenance of the monarchy today is due to its role as a symbol of national unity against territorial division and its arbitration power against the different political parties. When it is the case that the political regime is democratic, recognizing popular sovereignty, the monarch becomes the figure in which the position of Head of State is embodied for life and hereditary, with which his role is fundamentally symbolic and representative..

This definition is the one that is usually identified with European monarchies, among which are the parliamentary monarchies of the United Kingdom, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. There are also three micro-states with monarchies (Liechtenstein, Monaco and Andorra) and one theocratic elective monarchy (Vatican City). Among the Arab countries, the monarchies have different degrees of openness to popular representation, greater in Morocco or Jordan and very restricted in Saudi Arabia or the emirates of the Persian Gulf (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman), Malaysia (with rotating monarchy between the different sultans) and Brunei; except the first two, all of them countries that can be described as petrostates,and often branded as plutocracies. Bhutan is the only monarchy in the Indian Subcontinent, following the recent abolition of the monarchy in Nepal (2008); Japan (comparable to European monarchies), Thailand and Cambodia are the remaining monarchies of the Far East. In some small African states (Lesotho and Swaziland, located in the Republic of South Africa) traditional monarchies continue to be maintained.

A special role in international relations is played by the British monarchy, which maintains a personal link with the Commonwealth of Nations, of several of whose member states he continues to be the titular head of state despite the fact that they are independent states. The role of the King of Spain in the Ibero-American Community of Nations and the periodic meetings called the Ibero-American Summit is not comparable, since in protocol rank he is equivalent to the other heads of state.

A feature of the European monarchies (sometimes considered as an update or search for popular legitimation) has been the incorporation of commoners into the royal families, and the continued presence in the mass media, including the scandals of the press of the heart, from the glamorous wedding of Grace Kelly with Rainier III of Monaco (1956) and the spectacular marriage, divorce and death of Lady Di (1981-1997). Another has been the reconsideration of the role of women in the monarchy, to equate it with men in succession, a reform that the Nordic monarchies have initiated. In Spain, the Council of State has been consulted on the advisability of altering the line of succession to the throne regulated by the 1978 Constitution.

• The kings of Sweden Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia. Swedish inheritance law has imposed full equality of men and women, so that the crown princess is the eldest daughter, Victoria of Sweden, preceding her younger brother Carlos Felipe of Sweden, against the traditional priority of the male in dynastic successions.
• Salmán bin Abdulaziz, king of Saudi Arabia, an Islamic monarchy resistant to all kinds of modernization, apart from financial ones.
• Ibero- American Summit 2007, in which Juan Carlos I, then King of Spain, participated as Head of State with the same protocol rank as the other leaders.

Monarchy and religion

In some monarchies, especially in the old ones, they endowed the monarch (and also his dynasty) with a divine character, for example, the pharaohs of Egypt or the Roman emperors. The apologist Eusebius of Caesarea justified the Roman monarchy of the fourth century AD. C. —in the person of Emperor Constantine— by Christian monotheism (just as there is only one god, there is only one sovereign), as opposed to tyranny (not legitimized by God), oligarchy and democracy (shared sovereignty equated to polytheism, also unacceptable).

Far from this conception of the king as god, although the States are non-denominational, some parliamentary monarchies continue to be linked to a certain religion. For example, Spain and Belgium to Catholicism, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to Protestantism. There are many other examples, current and historical, such as that of the tsars, who until before the Russian Revolution that ended the Romanov dynasty, were linked to the Orthodox Church. The Ottoman caliphate constituted a socio-politically sustained monarchy in Islam, like the current monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Unlike other cases of monarchies, even today there are sectors that defend the idea of ​​a return to the caliphate, which opens the possibility and discussion about the reestablishment of monarchies in the Middle East.

In ancient times, the change from a monarchy to a republic had little to do with the religious aspect, or the change of official religion with the change in the form of government. Not even in the modern age with all the movements in the religious field: the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, Lutheranism, Calvinism, etc.

Types of monarchies

According to political theory, several types of monarchical regimes can be understood:

Absolute monarchy

The absolute monarchy is a form of government in which it is the monarch who exercises power without restrictions in political terms, and in most cases, also in religious aspects, or at least with a great spiritual component. The place and the historical period in which the model designated by that name arose (Western Europe during the Ancien Régime, particularly the French monarchy of Louis XIV around 1700) does not prevent it from being considered very similar features at other times and places., and with other titles of royalty (emperor in different political entities, basileus in the Byzantine Empire, tsar in the Russian Empire, etc.).

Distinctive feature of the absolute monarchy is the non-existence of division of powers: the Sovereign is at the same time the head of the government, the main legislative body (his will is law) and the head of the judicial power before which the review of the judges can be requested. lower. As an ideological justification, it is understood that the source of all power (God, according to the theory of the divine right of kings) transmits it in its entirety. However, in practical terms, it did not really mean that an absolute king could exercise absolute power.understood as the total exercise of power in all circumstances and without intermediation. Strictly speaking, there were no absolute monarchies after Charlemagne, since in almost all the kingdoms of Europe, the kings themselves were subject to the Laws of the Kingdom. In Spain they were called charters. With the advent of medieval estate parliaments, which began precisely in Spain with the Cortes de Castilla, the first European continental parliament long before the English Magna Carta, the monarchies saw their powers reduced in favor of the municipal estates.

Constitutional monarchy and parliamentary monarchy

Historically, the limitations to the power of the monarchs arise in Europe from the crisis of the Old Regime, which in some cases led to the suppression of the monarchy and the constitution of republics (case of France during the French Revolution between 1791 and 1804 or of England during the English Revolution between 1649 and 1660) while in others (eg Polish-Lithuanian monarchy 1569-1795) the king agrees to cede part of his power and share it with elected representatives. If the cession is by the mere will of the king, it is not considered a true constitution, but a letter granted (case of France in the Restoration between 1814 and 1830). The true constitutional monarchies are those in which the principle of national sovereignty is defined, even if it is made to reside not by the people (popular sovereignty) but, for examplein the Cortes with the King (Spanish constitution of 1845 and 1876). The king thus retains a large part of the power, determining a distribution of functions in which he, mainly, controls the executive power. The first modern constitutional monarchy in the world was the Republic of the Two Nations with the first Constitution in Europe of May 3, 1791.

In the parliamentary monarchy, the government is accountable to Parliament, which is unequivocally the repository of national sovereignty. Although the king retains some (rather formal) powers, such as the ability to nominate a candidate for the presidency of the government, he will not, however, attain the nomination until he gains the confidence of parliament. The king continues to be the head of state, inviolable and irresponsible in the exercise of his office, and holds the highest representation of the nation in international relations, although his powers are practically symbolic. It is usually summed up in the expression the king reigns, but does not govern (expression due to Adolphe Thiers).Any of his official acts must be supported by the government, without whose consent he cannot carry them out. The classic example of a parliamentary monarchy is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (since the Glorious Revolution of 1688), which also does not have a codified constitution but rather a body of laws and political practices that make up its constitution. There have been some cases that compromise the functions of a king in a parliamentary monarchy, such as the conscientious objection of Baldwin I of Belgium (who temporarily suspended his functions so as not to sign the abortion law in 1990), or the intervention of John Carlos I to prevent the majority of the army from joining the Coup d'etat in Spain in 1981 (at a time when both the Government and the Congress of Deputies were kidnapped).parliamentary monarchy ) reserves the king the supreme command of the Armed Forces of Spain. In some texts there is talk of the existence of an arbitration power that would be the one exercised by the king.

Hybrid monarchies

Throughout history there have been government systems halfway between absolute and constitutional monarchy, where the monarch is forced to cede part of his power to a government that is sometimes democratic, but continues to maintain significant political influence. The evolution has been very different according to the countries, and depends on comparative law. However, the monarchs of Arab countries such as Morocco continue to hold almost all power in their hands. In two small European countries such as Monaco and Liechtenstein, both principalities, this hybrid system exists. Both princes retain a lot of political power, especially the sovereign of Liechtenstein, who held a referendum in 2003 to preserve and increase his powers, in which he was successful.

In addition to that, there are monarchies from other historical moments such as feudal regimes, in which the monarch is one more feudal lord. His power is limited to his fief and existing vassal relationships with lesser nobles.

Protocol treatment

The office of monarch is called a king (or queen if the office is held by a woman). Queen is also called the king's wife ( the queen consort ), while the husband of a queen who is a queen in her own right is usually addressed not as a king, but as a queen's consort. The word king is the typical of the Spanish language, but it is usually applied in a general way to any monarchy, although it is very common that it is used, instead of king, the original name of that title, Spanishized or not, especially for those from distant cultures. On the other hand, the name of the title is not usually used in other Romance languages ​​or in Germanic ones. The denomination of the title held by a king (whose protocol value is usually considered very important for political and social purposes) has a great variation in time and space; very different denominations are used according to local tradition, religion or the legal or territorial structure of the government. These are the most historically used royal titles in different parts of the world:

In Europe:

• rex (in Latin, from which derive rei in Portuguese, Galician, Asturian or Catalan, king in Spanish, roi in French, re in Italian, rege in Romanian)
• kuningaz (in Proto-Germanic, from which derives cyning in Anglo-Saxon, king in English, könig in German, konink in Dutch, kung or konge in the Scandinavian languages)
• király (in Hungarian, a European but not an Indo-European language)
• basileus (Greek for a magistracy with predominantly religious functions in the classical polis)
• emperor (or empress), from the Latin imperator (the highest military power in the Roman Republic, which became the proper and essential function of the Roman emperor). The title was used in conjunction with, and in equivalent practice, those of Princeps, Augustus, and Caesar. From the latter (the cognomen of Gaius Iulius Caesar -Julio César-, which means hair, ironically, for being bald) phonetically derive those of:

• Kaiser (in German)
• zar (in Russian and also in some other Slavic languages)

As a general rule, an emperor or king of kings is considered to be a monarch of an empire, that is, of a large political structure; that either it is supra-state (above several states, each of which can have its own king, who in some cases, as was common in feudalism, are vassals of the emperor ), or it is supranational, that is, which extends its sovereignty over several nations. However, in modern international relations (since the Treaties of Westphalia, 1648) it is very common for the imperial title, devoid of most of its ancient or medieval content, to be used simply as a pretentious title, that diplomatic courtesyconsents to use, but without implying greater power ( see Universal Powers).

• judike (in Sardinian, from Latin iudices -judge-). The identification of the judge with the king, in addition to being one of his essential functions, is part of the judges of Israel (Book of Judges, prior to the Book of Kings in the Bible) and was also applied in other cases, such as judges of Castile who preceded the Counts of Castile.

In the Islamic world:

• malik (in Arabic, equivalent to king )
• caliph (in Arabic, with the meaning of successor -of the prophet Mohammed-, maximum political and religious leader)
• emir (in Arabic, which began as a provincial governor to go on to designate an independent ruler in practice see Emirate of Córdoba, first dependent and then independent, until it became the Caliphate of Córdoba)
• sultan (in Arabic, applied mainly in the Ottoman Empire, where effective government was exercised by a vizier)
• rajah (official name of the ruler of Perlis, one of the Malay States)
• yang di-pertuan agong (official name of the King of Malaysia; a variant is yang di-Pertuan besar, official name of the sovereign of Negeri Sembilan, one of the Malay States)

In Africa:

• negus (in Ethiopia)
• askia (in the Songhay Empire)

In Asia:

• wang (in Chinese, equivalent to king )
• tianzi (en chino)
• huangdi (in Chinese, equivalent to emperor )
• tennō (in Japanese, equivalent to emperor - formerly, mikado ; although the effective government was exercised by a shōgun, who in his relations with the Chinese Empire applied to himself the Chinese title of wang - king - which at the same time it provided the shogun with a royal rank and preserved the protocol superiority and independence of the tenno and the Japanese empire against China -' see Sinocentrism -)
• great khan (in the Mongol Empire)
• great Mughal (in India)
• majarash the rash (in Sanskrit and Hindi)
• sah (in Persian, the emperors of Persia were called shāhān shāh - king of kings -)

In Oceania:

• o le ao o le malo (official name of the sovereign of Samoa)

In the Canary Islands and pre-Hispanic America:

• mencey (among the Guanches of the Canary Islands)
• cacique (in the Caribbean, applied by the chroniclers of the Indies to any other indigenous political entity in America)
• tlatoani (in Nahuatl -Mesoamerica-)
• ajaw (in Mayan -Mesoamerica-)
• cazonci (in purépecha or tarasco - Mesoamerica-)
• Inca (in Quechua, in the Andean zone of South America)
• Zipa and Zaque (in Muysccubun, in the northern part of the Andes Mountains in South America)

Other noble titles can sometimes, depending on the historical circumstance, carry with them the consideration of sovereignty and be equated to royalty:

• grand duke
• archduke
• baron
• duque
• conde
• viscount
• margrave
• marquis
• voivode
• Prince
• co-prince
• señor

The protocol treatments of the monarchy usually include different variants of the term majesty, and sometimes that of highness, although the latter is usually applied to members of the royal family.