Noun

Singular monarchy

Plural monarchies

monarchy (plural monarchies)

1. A government with a hereditary head of state (whether as a figurehead or as a powerful ruler).
   • An absolute monarchy is a monarchy where the monarch is legally the ultimate authority in all temporal matters.
   • A constitutional monarchy is a monarchy in which the monarch's power is legally constrained, ranging from where minor concessions have been made to appease certain factions to where the monarch is a figurehead with all real power in the hands of a legislative body.

Coordinate terms

• (a form of government): democracy

A monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged with an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or until abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state." The person who heads a monarchy is called a monarch. It was a common form of government in the world during the ancient and medieval times.

There is no clear definition of monarchy. Holding unlimited political power in the state is not the defining characteristic, as many constitutional monarchies such as the United Kingdom and Thailand are considered monarchies. Hereditary rule is often a common characteristic, but elective monarchies are also considered monarchies (the pope, sovereign of the Vatican City State, is elected by the College of Cardinals) and some states have hereditary rulers, but are considered republics (such as the stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, or the Great Council of Chiefs in Fiji). A 1914 edition of Bouvier's Law Dictionary states that "Monarchy is contradistinguished from republic," and gives this definition:

'We cannot find any better definition of monarchy than what this is: a monarchy is the government which is ruled by one person, who is wholly set apart from all other members of the state's (called his subjects); while we call republic that government in which not only there exists an organism by which the opinion of the people, or of a portion of the people (as in aristocracies), passes over into public will, that is, law, but in which also the supreme power, or the executive power, returns, either periodically or at stated times (where the chief magistracy is for life), to the people, or a portion of the people, to be given anew to another person; or else, that government in which the hereditary portion (if there be any) is not the chief and leading portion of the government, as was the case in the Netherlands.'

Currently, 44 nations in the world have monarchs as heads of state, 16 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state.

Monarchy is a form of government in which supreme power is absolutely or nominally lodged in an individual, who is the head of state, often for life or until abdication, and "is wholly set apart from all other members of the state."

Sourced

Alphabetized by author

• Royalty is a Government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a Government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting things.
  • Walter Bagehot, in The English Constitution (1867)

• Constitutional monarchies, through their structure, avoid those four republican perils : excessive rigidity, as in the American system, which is reduced to near paralysis whenever the President is seriously threatened with impeachment; political conflict and competition between the Head of State, Prime Minister and Ministers , a hallmark of the French Fifth Republic (an inherently unstable model curiously followed in a number of countries); extreme instability, which often haunted the Latin versions of Westminster; and regular resort to the rule of the street to solve conflict, which permeates those systems which live under the shadow of the French revolution.
  • Professor David Flint, in The Role of the Sovereign

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Wed Aug 12 17:46:34 2009